posters

You know, I'm really not sure how many people go to shows because they've seen a poster. But I like making them. . . so, what the hell, I suppose. The first of these is a teaser, just to get people to visit this blog and find out what it's about. If you are here because you saw it: HURRAH! It worked! What's the mental jack russell go to do with The Local Stigmatic? Not a real lot. It's a crazy looking dog. I know. . . tenuous. But it's really just to pique your interest.

The second is the actual poster. CTC are doing they're own publicity, so this serves to create a distinct identity for TLS separate from the companion plays. Again, is it an effective marketing tool? Who knows.

 

Below is Castlemaine Theatre Company's poster to promote all six productions. I don't want to be unneccessarily critical of this, but I am going to be a bit critical, so I'll just preface it by saying that it isn't all that easy to find some sort of unifying concept that is attention-grabbing and yet true to the spirit of each and every show. And, on the whole, this is a good-looking poster. Nevertheless, there are three things about it that kinda irk me.

The first is the boxer image. It's a metaphor, right, but 99% of people are going to take it literally and expect that the shows have something to do with boxing. As far as I know, none of them do. I think they could have come up with an image that didn't lure people into jumping to the wrong conclusion. Secondly, the triple-layer of titles - too confusing. I would have dispensed with 'Agency' and 'Absolution'. They've already called it Night 1 & 2 anyway. The third is probably just a bit of copywriter's nit-picking but. . . there is a lot of superfluous info on here that doesn't sell the show. The names of the directors are immaterial, as are the plays' countries of origin. The asterisked stuff baffles me as to why it's there and I also wouldn't bother with 'Inc.' or 'at' either. What would work better to sell a bunch of unknown plays by unknown directors, in my opinion, would be a short tag-line for each play that gives a clue to what they're about.