Graphic Musical Design for Doylestown Symphonic Winds

The Doylestown Symphonic Winds is a wonderful conglomeration of terrific musicians who perform annually to benefit a music scholarship for talented young musicians. I go to their concert every year and love the music – so much brass!

I’ve done a number of posters for them, and this year their conductor Gina Lenox asked for something graphic. There isn’t anything much more graphic and easily recognizable than silhouettes of various horns, drums and pipes, so I had fun playing with instruments, blocks of color and hearts in this one. I felt a nice contrast would be to hand-letter the title in brush and ink.

I highly recommend this concert, they do a mix of traditional and contemporary composers but it’s always punchy music with a lot of personality – just like the brass section!

My New Poster for a ‘Fiesta’ Concert

I just completed the new poster advertising the Doylestown Symphonic Winds’ summer concert Fiesta, which will showcase Latin instrumental music performed by this outstanding brass and woodwind ensemble.

I gave DSW two rough ideas for the top part of the poster, which I usually illustrate in some way, the bottom half of the poster being mostly text giving the when and where of the concert. I sketched a flamenco dancer in the first, with line drawings of the instruments tumbling in front of her; and for the second, I borrowed the figures from my art for last year’s poster and added some festive costumes and Spanish design elements.

DSW liked the second design best, so I redrew the figures tighter and placed the rest of the poster text.

This was close to being finished, but the DSW board asked for more color to be inserted on the people, and also they found that in my switching a few figures left and right, I had flipped a few so that the instruments were technically being played backwards. Not good on my part! They were helpful in providing me with direction and some photos showing how hands should be positioned, and I revised the drawings.

The finished – and physically and musically correct! – poster is below. I’m looking forward to going to this year’s concert, since last year’s resounded with all the exuberance and majesty of brass and wind instruments. I highly recommend this concert for music-lovers of all kinds!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pinafore in Albion

I was charmed to receive the poster for Bicester Choral & Operatic Society’s performance of HMS Pinafore, for which they leased my artwork:

I wrote a bit about painting this piece in a past blog post here.

The BCOS did a splendid job with the design. It’s gratifying to know my work was seen in merry England for such a merry show!

Poster Design for Doylestown Symphonic Winds

I am happy to once again promote a wonderful music organization, the Doylestown Symphonic Winds, who will perform their annual concert this Friday, July 22 at 7:30 pm. The group is celebrating 10 years of bringing the community outstanding music featuring the wind and brass instruments of the orchestra.  My husband and I attended last year’s concert and loved it – we are looking forward to this one too. The event is held in Delaware Valley University’s lovely new auditorium in the Life Sciences building, and, amazingly, the admission is no set ticket price, only a goodwill offering.

It was great working with Robert Glatzer on the poster – a musician himself, he was able to give me important tips on some of those instruments in the silhouettes I drew – for instance, the bocal is important! (That’s the slightly bent mouthpiece on the english horn, fifth person from the right.) DSW also had me create some black/white ads and a program cover based on the poster, shown below.

I create advertising packages like this for other clients as well, so if your organization has design needs like this, feel free to email me.

Remember, the concert is this Friday, hope you can come!

 

 

Poster Design for Doylestown Symphonic Winds

I created this black/white illustration and poster design for a concert by a local wind ensemble.  They want a limited-color version as well, which I’m working on.  I am really looking forward to going to the concert, their program includes:

Star Spangled Banner (John Williams)

Play! (Carl Holmquist)

Candide Suite (Leonard Bernstein)

Chronicles (Joseph Turrin) trumpet soloist Matt Gallagher from University of the Arts and Philadelphia Pops

Second Prelude (George Gershwin)

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Bernstein)

Don’t you See? (Donald Grantham)

Flyer design for Doylestown Symphonic Winds

The Doylestown Symphonic Winds will perform in concert on August 8th, and they asked me to put together a summery flyer for the event.  They are led by Gina Lenox and Jack Schmidt, and the musicians play everything from clarinet, oboe, flute and saxophone to french horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba. They also include a pianist and some drums and xylophone.

Their concert will take place in the beautiful new theater at Delaware Valley College, in the Life Sciences Building, and it will be free admission! The college is on Rte. 202 just a little south of Doylestown, and it’s easy to park in the lot right next to the building if you enter from onto New Britain Road.

I designed a simple and graphic image of a sunrise for the flyer, because several of the pieces they will play – Early Light, Give Us This Day and Lauds – reference the morning. They’ve asked me to update their logo too, which I will work on before their next performance event.

Orchestral music is a fave of mine – the Doylestown Symphonic Winds are also doing a lovely Vaughan Williams piece, Rhosymedre – I’m very much looking forward to attending.