Hey Everyone.
I’m working on a poster for a small tour I’m doing with a project of mine.
To give you a note on the vibe of the music, it’s somewhere between electronica and jazz, dirty and funky, etc… But for some reason I’m pretty keen on keeping the poster simple and elegant.
This where I’m at so far:
Is it too simple? What do you guys think?
If this poster was hanging on the walls of your city, would you consider going?
Thanks for looking!
Stig
To be honest, no.
Through various trends of minimalism, busyness, saturated colour, muted colour, black and white in design - one area of design that has largely remained the same is music posters.
They just need to be bold and busy and have impact.
I don’t really like the gradients on the background. Also, try doing something else with the photo other than just a simple threshold, and also it doesn’t look right that it has hard edges, top and bottom, if you need to use this particular photo, try and work around that.
Hey rumblesushi.
Thank you for your reply. So basically: Scrap this and start over? 
To be honest, yes 
Something a bit more music poster, something that’ll catch people’s eye and make them want to go, and something that represents electronica/jazz a bit more.
Your idea could have been OK with a couple of differences. For a start, a simple, but nicer looking, NON gradient background.
Secondly the thing that stood out immediately was how ill fitting the face was. Just too small, with the hard edges. If you want to use just a face for the graphics, that’s fine, but it has to be BIG, make it fill the space and really be noticable. Something like a flower would be OK on it’s own at that size, but not a face, it just doesn’t work.
So make the face bigger, and draw the face, I can spot a threshold a mile off, and I hate it because I know it takes 2 or 3 seconds to do
If you draw it, not only should it look far better, but you can then make something up on the top and bottom of the image to lose that hard edge
I hope you make a better one soon, post it when you do 
i agree with ^
one of the things that’s off is the typography.
First of all, it is way too small for a poster. The point of the poster is not just attention, but readability from a distance. If someone stops to look at it then it should be because it’s kick *** and not because they can’t see it (most people won’t even notice it and keep walking).
Second, the kerning is way too tight, it starts to compromise the legibility of the letterforms and they bleed together (cool if done right but seems more unintentional here).
Gradients are always a problem, especially in print so avoid if possible (this one is so subtle it may not even show when printed).
Also not enough information to get a feel for the poster, there should be dates, sponsors, ticket info, venues etc. (maybe you just didn’t stick em in there).
the positive+++++:
you have a clean strong grid going and obviously understand hierarchy relationships. maybe just a little more research into the minimalist style and make sure it suits that music genre. i know you want it clean so make sure that the look is so contrasting that it is obviously intentional and not someone’s lack of understanding of the subject matter.
keep at it.
IMO, posters should be bright and colourful in their design especially for the style of music that will be playing. The vector heavy posters will content springing from a corner really catches the eye.
I love the minimalistic design you did, but for poster for most types of music it has to be brighter and “flavorful”.
Try to mix in a few of the interments silhouette. Also when doing silhouettes like you did try and clean up the edges to give it a bit shaper clean look (it may be because it just doesn’t fit with the font/style).
Also yes the typography needs work (it feels crunched).
How the hell are they supposed to know what is happening, and when? Epic fail. You need details on a poster. It’s a decent start, but you really, really need details - just from a practical marketing standpoint.
No one will come if you don’t let them know what is happening, and when and where it is!
Hey all. Thanks for the crits.
First of all - most venues here in DK add their own streamers, showing date and time. So it was omitted on purpose. (Not because I forgot ) In case of the local venue here, it would be a big bright orange/yellow streamer, which I sort of kept in mind, while working on this idea. (I probably should’ve mentioned that… )
The kerning on the letters is actually intentional - it was just to try to do some sort of typography work, but I can see that it doesn’t work.
Big, bright and vectors - I’ll give that direction a shot. It was also my initial thought, but my skills are poor. 
Btw the posters will be printed in 47x70 cm (Don’t know what it is in inches, but it’s pretty large!)
Thanks everyone for the critiques - I’ll post a new WIP as soon as I have something.
Yea I mean an ad should at least give you an idea of what’s going on, I’m not sure what I am looking at or who those people are. Check out some of paddy duke’s posters, his are great examples.
Okay Digitalosophy - thanks, I will!
Hey All.
Here’s another try. It’s in another direction, different artwork etc - but still trying to keep it simple.
As mentioned before the dates and times will be added by the venues, so that’s why I’m not doing them directly on the poster.
Thanks for looking!
That looks more like a CD cover. Like others have said, you’re going to need something fairly busy to catch eyes.
Actually. Everybody else is doing busy and punk… My humble thought is that simple will draw the eye. Speaking of live music posters… I’m not trying to out-scream people, I’m trying to engage them in something complex and elegant… anda bit rock’n’roll----
Sry, i dont know much about poster design to help you but i like the second one a lot more
checked out ur site and thought ur music is really cool, and SC Pharmaceuticals is awesome haha
I would change the comment at the bottom “somewhere between jazz and electronica”. It’s got the wrong connotation. Sure, jazz is great, and so is electronica, but 'somewhere paired with the ellipses makes it seems as if it’s a rough mix, as if the artists aren’t even sure themselves. Make it sound like it is a perfect bridge between the too, something revolutionary that you have to see. Appeal to the jazz side, chill and stylish, appeal to the electronica side, intense synths. Just my two cents, as jazz and electronica are two of my favorite genres, but that sentence doesn’t appeal to me.
Hey thejoeknows - thank you very much! I really appreciate it and I’m glad you liked the music.
Now that you’ve heard the music - do you have any ideas for what kinda artwork would fit it? Any poster ideas or such?
Not sure if you saw my last comment, but one thing that appeals to me visually (in terms of audio) is how both Digidesign and Ableton Live advertise their products. Makes it look like you can see the music. Ableton’s banners are down and I can’t find the Digidesign ones, so I guess this is useless for now.
I like the second one alot, but looking at it from far away wouldn’t make me think music. It might make me think like desert indy native music, but not electronica and jazz.
If I was doing a post like this, I would do up like a vector saxophone and use like bright neon colors on like a purple/bluish back ground. The saxophone would bring in the jazz crowd while the bright neon colors bring in the electronica crowd.
This is one is much better, no doubt.
If I saw either of those while I was walking down the street I wouldn’t know what in the hell it’s for or when it is or anything.
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