A few months back, Boston alternative radio station WFNX announced that they were organizing a poster contest for an upcoming Muse concert. As soon as I heard about it, I broke out the sketchbook.
WFNX did not explain anything other than they were looking for a Muse concert poster. I didn’t know the size, whether it would be screen or digitally printed. No details. Since I am such a fan of screen prints, I decided to design with that in mind.
After a couple of sketches, I fired up the computer and started working. My initial design didn’t capture the feeling that I was looking for, so I put the project to the side for a little bit. While doing image research for a different project, I was stuck with the inspiration for this poster. After that, the poster came together really quickly.
The music of Muse is powerful and uplifting. I wanted to convey something inspirational. Not because of their band name, but because of brightness of their music.
Most concert posters that I see don’t use the band’s logo. I spent a lot of time coming up with the logo for this poster. My biggest influence for this text was Brad Klausen’s poster work (check it out when you get a chance).
After I sent in my submission to WFNX, they posted it, along with a few others, on their site. Unfortunately this gave other artists the chance to see early submissions. Many of the posters that were submitted looked like the album cover. Lots of photoshop effects. Very glossy. I can understand why these might make a good Muse poster, but not necessarily a good concert poster. My hope was that the powers that be at WFNX would recognize this. And in this world of anonymous internet comments, it was very evident that many WFNX visitors did not see my intent.
But WFNX did because I was selected as one of five finalist. I was told to show up at the TD Garden an hour before the concert with two copies of my poster. The five finalists (plus our guests) were brought into a waiting room. Christopher and Dominic came in and picked the winner. It wasn’t me, but I was fine with this. Just the fact that I got to show people my art was enough for me. All along, I had felt that the eventual winner was my toughest competition.
Afterwards was an amazing concert. To anyone that enjoys concerts, I highly recommend seeing Muse as soon as possible. It’s an experience.
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