When you turn over a new leaf you are starting fresh... you're green and new.
When I was asked to design the logo for a new theatre company in Hollywood, California I wasn't too enthused. But when I learned it was called NEW LEAF ENDEAVORS and what they were all about, I was intrigued. I wondered what kind of organization could NLE be? The name alone was something new and different for a theatre company. I learned that their aim was to create through theatre and new media works, productions that are based in the pure honesty of human struggle and emotion... and have a laugh or two along the way. So, that was enough- I wanted to be involved and design the logo.
When I started to design the NLE logo I wasn't sure if I wanted to use a leaf, but then I thought, "if I used just half of a leaf, that would symbolize the idea that only a whole leaf can be achieved (in a theatrical sense) when the audience is present... So, NLE is the organization and the public viewing the play is the other half of the leaf." With that figured out, I went outside and found a real leaf for reference from a tree near my studio because I didn't want a perfect leaf... I wanted it honest. I also felt like using texture with the clean look of the logo was very important. As a result all the poster designs for NLE have texture that relates to that particular play in one way or another. It gives the graphics a kind of visual honesty.
The first two productions of NLE have been new plays. They opened with a drama, Tweaked, about dealing with the raw emotions of human addiction. When I set out to design the poster for Tweaked, the director, Sean Riley, wanted a single image involving a light bulb because it was a prop used as a pipe to smoke crystal meth in the play. Tweaked is a play about addiction and how six characters struggle to cope with the consequences. However, in the poster the light bulb gives off no light and the image of a woman is trapped in the bulb which your eye sees first as an electric filament... but you must look closer to see it's secrets. Her arms are reaching up in a hopeful glow and the texture at the bottom of the poster looks like cut lines of the drug. Not all the character's lives in the play result in tragedy... some move on to a better future.
The play currently running is The Laughing Cow, and it, on the other hand is a comedy about finding your own voice. This play is character driven with a much larger cast and multiple locations in and around a Hollywood studio. Using the script and writer of a television series as the central image, I used hands to show at least some of the characters that make up the corporate side of television production. The graphic design shows all the fingers that are involved on all levels "behind the scenes" and suggests the crazy things that happen to them (think: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.) The director, Lindsay Frame wanted the reference to the "cow" to be subtle, so printing it on the t-shirt of the writer with no face was the perfect solution. The texture on this poster is from a copy machine... a central set piece of the play... and never leaves the stage.
My next post will explore the surreal experience of designing Woman In Mind at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, in Sierra Madre, California.
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