grab bag blog

In my last post, I unveiled BoHo Theatre’s 11/12 season poster design along with a subscription postcard I whipped up at the last minute. Well here is the piece that normally would have been used instead of the postcard: the full season brochure. Whereas the postcard was just a teaser, displaying only the show names and posters and then providing a subscription form, the brochure is much more of a storytelling piece that gives you in-depth information. The postcard is something that can be handed out at shows to people who are already getting the BoHo experience; the brochure is for people to pickup on the other side of town and learn about the company.

I had wanted to do a double gate fold for the company last year, and this year I finally got the chance. I love the gate fold because of the way it allows new things to be revealed. For the storyteller in me, it allows for the reveal to happen in controlled stages: “this happens, and then this happens…” Open the brochure and you get info on the company, subscriptions, and the annual holiday show, open it again and you get a big 8.5″ x 14″ spread showcasing the productions.

For this season’s design, I’m skewing more grunge than I have in the past. My reasoning behind it is that the company has always been a small, scrappy powerhouse that gets great reviews and awards, but has stayed bohemian and a little underground. The grunge aesthetic just fits. Kind of like the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies. For this piece, I picked up a paisley grunge background and manipulated it into three different colors for the three stages of reveal (it’s called getting your money’s worth out of stock imagery!).

On a side note, apparently a giant showcase of my work is now available at Theater Wit in Lakeview. Wit is where BoHo performs, so this brochure and the postcard are there. It’s also where Emerald City holds some of their summer camps, so their season brochure and If You Give A Cat A Cupcake direct mail piece that I designed are there as well. Finally, Remy Bumppo’s season brochure found it’s way to the advert rack. Considering all of these companies are aiming for a different demographic, I can happily say none of my work is competing with each other.