Overview

The inspiration for this project was to turn a personal impactful song lyric into an expressive poster reflecting the emotions from lyrics to a visual medium. This was a short 4-week project, so I learned about expressive types, emotions moving from internal to visual, and experimented with new tools in the Adobe suite and design techniques.

We were to choose a graphic designer who inspires us and recreate their style to bring to the visual direction of the poster. David Carson, the Godfather of Grunge, was my selected designer.

problem to solve

The primary objective was to take a song that I share a personal connection with and create a poster that visually represents the emotions the song aims to convey, as well as my own emotions.

research & insights

The bulk of the research consists of diving into the lyrics and the background meaning of the song. I explored who the Gorillaz and Damion Albarn are and what the rest of their work consists of. They painted a large idea of the direction and what the song was trying to invoke and achieve. 

The chosen lyric - A Melancholy Town Where We Never Smile ultimately means we have become a dystopian, consumer-driven society where genuine emotion is stripped away. I wanted to portray this in the expressive poster.

I had to build a strong understanding of who David Carson is and what his body of work entails and looks like in order to extract inspiration for the design process of this poster.

Design Process

Thought out the design process, I experimented with new tools, blur filters, which I had never used before. The aim was a achieve a slight grungy look as this falls with the visual direction of the Gorillaz themselves. My personal inspiration for this project was the ‘grandfather of grunge’, David Carson. 

I tried to emulate and recreate his style for this poster, as it is dark and has the potential to really suit the style he created in the 90s, first through the magazine Raygun.

Conclusion

This expressive type project taught me that there are many layers to the media we consume, and when those layers are explored and researched, there is a lot to unpack. I learned a great deal about the influential designer David Carson, known as the “Godfather of Grunge,” and about what he has created over the last 30 years, alongside what his style embodies.

I enjoyed this project immensely, and it sparked a passion for working within the music scene and incorporating poster design that evokes emotion in viewers.

Would this be something worth exploring with posters displayed at concerts? Is it possible to make passionate fans feel a certain way as they walk into a concert and view expressive typography posters of lyrics that may have affected them deeply?