HAVE A COW, MAN
I really don't quite know how it happened, but I found myself designing graphics, set, props and projections for a new play that opened on Melrose Avenue last week in Hollywood. Produced by New Leaf Endeavors, the world premiere play is about characters struggling to have their voices heard in a fictitious Hollywood studio called "Gurnsey"... look familiar? The writer is Jessica Abrams and her source of inspiration was a career experience at Disney Studios. I connected with her script when I read it because of my own brief design career at Disney in the mid 80s. I literally worked there for about a week, but quit when I was expected to work all night because of a series of ridiculous events. When I didn't show up for work the next morning I was told (as cliche as this sounds) "You'll never work in this town again!" I'm serious. Years later, I couldn't help but laugh when Disney hired me as a freelance designer for countless movie posters. Not only that, but as an illustrator I created advertising drawings for Disneyland and The Disney Store... enough to make you shake your head and roll your eyes. So, I guess everyone has a "Hollywood Story" who's ever worked here. Maybe that's why I wanted to design for this play... it's part of MY story and the Disney connection (I admit it), made me laugh.
Like any corporate design job, I had to "brand" Gurnsey Studios... design the logo and create a laughing cow. I wanted it to look familiar but mostly RIPPED OFF... borrowed from everywhere... no new ideas here! (Yep, just like Hollywood.) The "dull backlot golden tan" was the color palette and that slightly deco studio style that says "we've been here since the 1920s!" The cow needed to look like it was originally hand drawn a hundred years ago, but has been re-drawn, revised and updated by their Gurnsey Studio in-house "cow expert" for 2012 (this is serious business... this cow is sacred.) On the set of the play, for a slide projected visual, I actually constructed a simple graphic of a vintage roof neon sign which included all the steel support beams. The point was to give the Gurnsey Studios a sense of history.
Stay tuned... in my next entry I'll explain the creative process for designing the poster and logo for "The Laughing Cow," man.
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