Over the past year I’ve been going through the process of scaling some of my posters for large format (e.g. the Knitting print: Old | New). Most of these were originally designed for 12×18″ format so they had to be re-created from scratch. It’s been a painstaking process at times, but it has also allowed me a chance to approach some of the designs from a fresh perspective. Something about stripping a design down to nothing and building it back up again gives you a clearer view of the essential nature of the piece allowing for more objectivity when making design decisions.
The latest print to be scaled up is the poster for the Terrabyte music festival (pictured above — view original). As you can see, I’ve made some changes and cleaned a few things up. I’ll be posting a process piece detailing the various earlier versions of the print and the transition from small to large format next week. The print is currently available as a giclee from the ISO50 Shop.
On a side note, if you’re partial to any of the older designs in the small formats now would be the time to grab some, they will not be reprinted. They can be viewed in the prints section at the shop.
I just got home from Terrabyte after a nice drive today; LA > Sacto > SF, needless to say I am exhausted so I’ll keep it short. Terrabyte was amazing as usual; thanks to everyone who came out and made it a success and thanks to the Arboretum and Kyle and Ryan from Subtractive for making it all happen. I also want to apologize for the delay getting started, as some of you noted, we had some technical difficulties starting out, but things smoothed out once things got rolling. I was pretty busy most of the time so didn’t get many good photos this time around, some of the few I got are below. Bijan has also posted some photos from the show here.
Somewhere in the middle of the central California valley.
I found some early videos from the show on YouTube, below is a shot of some of the visuals. I didn’t realize this girl (video below) had been dancing in the visuals until after the show was over, pretty cool to see this now. There is also a video of the new single being played; the audio is really bad and you can’t see much, but it’s a small taste at least: link. There are a couple more from the same person up here as well.
Above is the back side of the Terrabyte 3 poster from last week. Since this is only going to be on the small format hand flyer it was sort of a tight squeeze given all the info they wanted to include. I wanted to carry over the 60’s programming punch-card concept from the front, and considering the amount of text, I decided to use it as the central design element. Most of the type is set in Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk (at various weights) and is all grid aligned with a piece of graph paper I scanned in and set on Color Burn overlay mode.
Incidentally, a couple people had mentioned an alignment issue with the left arrow on the front side. Thanks for the heads up, it’s been fixed and the finalized version is now up on the original post. There’s also more info on Terrabyte 3 now available at the Arboretum site.
Update: Tickets & info are here Update: Poster Image updated (see above) and back posted here
I just finished up the poster / flyer design for the third annual Terrabyte event (click the above image for a large version). This is the first work I’ve done since the Obama poster and it was a nice chance to get the wheels turning again. The spec was pretty open, just had to include the themes of Nature / Technology / Art. I went for a sort of 60’s modernist infographic approach, like a page from an old physics textbook maybe. This was also the first chance I got to use one of my favorite new fonts: Hellenic Wide. The face was really a pleasure to work with, it cuts a nice line and sort of acts as it’s own divider so there wasn’t much need for all sorts of lines and spacing. Time permitting, I’ll post a small "making of" on this in the coming months. The poster will be available for purchase online in the next couple months and I am hoping to have some early copies available at the show itself.
For those of you into nuclear physics, the imagery is supposed to represent a critical mass, as in everyone coming together and then and explosion (of the aural/visual kind, not atomic). Poster design aside, try to make it out to this event if you’re in the Southern California area, it’s sure to be a great evening of music and visuals, I’ll be playing a set as Tycho and doing some live video / visuals as well.
Terrabyte is officially described as a "unique celebration of nature, technology, and art". Translation: A great evening in the Los Angeles Arboretum out on the green listening to live electronic music and viewing visuals on huge screens. All ages are welcome; it’s a $10 donation to get in and all proceeds go to the Arboretum preservation fund. There’s a bar for those 21 and up and a lot of exhibits to check out. An architecture school builds this massive array of projection surfaces that stand about 30 ft. tall to fire the visuals on to; it’s a pretty amazing sight. Needless to say, it’s a great time and well worth the ticket price. If you missed the past 2 years, now’s the time to make it out, this will be the best one yet.
I’ve been admiring Paul Gardner’s band posters this morning, great use of color and execution of ideas that aren’t too literal or same-y, you know like owls and hand drawn guitars, urgh I hope to see more posters like this around Brooklyn. I noticed one in there though that is a bit ISO50 Terrabyte-ish but i’ll pretend I didn’t see it.
Got the Prius washed up, gassed and loaded to make the drive down to L.A. tomorrow for Terrabyte 3. Some stretches of I5 are rather scenic so I’ll try to get some shots on the way down, although at this time of the year it might be a bit bland with all the greenery long since turned brown.
I did a test mixdown tonight of the a new single which I’ll be debuting along with some new video work during the set. Hope to see everyone out at the show, there will be an ISO50 booth with shirts, vinyl, CDs, and prints so stop by and say hello.
Photos from last year’s Terrabyte show by Studio JFISH
The Terrabyte 3 show is fast approaching so I’ve spent this week preparing before I hit the road. In case you missed it, the details on this show are here and you can get tickets here. You can also buy tickets at the gate.
Pictured above is the proof of the poster which I just received via FedEx today (hence the crease). The rest are being printed up as we speak and will be available for purchase at the show. They won’t be up on the shop for a while so this will be an early shot at them.
The poster won’t be the only new work dropping at the Terrabyte show, I’ll be debuting a new Tycho single (due for release in January) during the live set along with some new visuals. Should be a great evening, hope to see you all out there.
