After the last dance concert poster, I decided that shooting new images specifically for the poster is the way to go. My wife is the dance teacher at Canyon View High School in Cedar City, UT. She has two dance concerts each school year. One in the fall and one in the spring. I’ve designed her posters from as long as she has been doing these concerts. I used to just pull a dance photo from my archives and use that. Now I’ve evolved into doing a new shoot for the poster each time. Much more fun this way.
I don’t claim to be a graphic designer. I know enough about graphic design to be dangerous I guess. I took a graphic design class in college. My professor was Henry Brimmer. I ended up being hired by him to be his assistant for the semester. It was fun. We both shared a love for photography. This was when digital cameras were just starting to gain a big hold. I would bring my DSLR to class. Everyone was envious of it. They were not so common then as they are now. It seems just about everyone has a DSLR now.
Henry designed many of the dance concert posters for the College of Performing and Visual Arts at SUU. Sadly, he is not there any more. He moved on to another university somewhere. I learned a lot from him in the one class I took. He left a big impression on me. I’m not bragging, he probably wouldn’t be too impressed with my graphic design skills. Like I say, I’m not a graphic designer. I’m a little afraid of what Henry would say if he saw my posters.
This is the poster my wife, Jennie, ended up printing. I did three different designs. We held an informal poll on Facebook, Twitter, and in Jennie’s classes. This design and one of the others were almost even as far as votes go.
The initial idea for the poster was actually quite different. Jennie had several of her students show up for the photoshoot. I took a variety of photos. I was planning on doing something that involved multiple photos, but things don’t always turn out the way you initially envision. Heather was the last dancer to photograph. I wasn’t excited about the light when we started. We took an hour break and then resumed the shoot as the sun set. With the whole shoot combined, we got many great shots. Any one of them could have made a great poster. As Dewitt Jones says, there were many right answers. I kept looking for the next right answer. The shot above was it.
Another “right answer” was this shot.
This was taken during our hour break while we waited for the sun to go down a bit. I had Heather stand in our front room. I stuck a Vivitar 285HV flash outside pointed through the window with the blinds slightly open. What you see is right out of the camera, with the text dropped in there of course. This one was probably a more solid “graphic design.” I think it probably communicates “dance concert” more clearly than the other poster.
From what I hear, the first poster (the one that was printed) has drawn a lot of attention at the school. That to me says that it was successful.
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