Designing THE IRISH CURSE

 

When you read a good script it raises the bar for a good poster design. Martin Casella's play, The Irish Curse has been for me, an extremely good design experience for many reasons. Like everything in life, we face the reality of how we "measure up" and compare to everyone else... penis size in no exception. In this play five males all challenged with small endowments, gain support from each other through hilarious heated discussion and moving cathartic change. This poster had to accomplish many things, among them was to be true to the writer, producer and director's vision of the play, but chief among them was getting people to fill the chairs in the audience. This design had to say "this is a comedy," but not give away too much. I just call this "my penis poster without the penis."

I started with the title treatment by making the word IRISH turned on its side making it a vertical column... phallic like. I wanted to use a hand in the design, but I was originally going to use one with the pinky extended, but that cliche didn't grab me. Then I decided to use the hand to show measurement... which we all do when comparing the size of anything. It worked when the title treatment was inserted between the thumb and forefinger. Next, I wanted to show place by using the New York City skyline in the distance. What's fun is even the Empire State building looks small! In the foreground the giant hand dominates... everything is all about SIZE in this design. The NYC skyline also gives weight to the bottom of the design, suggesting that we have to live in the world in spite of what life dishes out. We all have things we were born with, but learning to cope and go on each day regardless of that, is not a short order.

As important as the imagery is, the copy line at the top makes the entire design work... it needed to stand out. Making the text orange (like the hand) accomplished that. And speaking of color, using the colors of the Irish flag made sense.... but using a dark chocolate brown as the third color instead of black warmed up the design and visually worked better with the set, which you notice once you are in the theatre and are watching the play... the color palette here is shades of warm browns and golds.

If you are reading this and have not seen THE IRISH CURSE, make reservations now... do yourself a favor and enjoy great theatre live in L.A., OK? I highly, highly recommend it. Visit odysseytheatre.com for tickets.   http://www.odysseytheatre.com