M16 & The Fullmoon Wolves were one such client.

I originally met them through Trickle Media's Word of Mouth series, and secured a consultant-client relationship with them after they got a chance to see our efforts as a business, and the overall quality of the work we were producing.

Like many clients we worked with, M16's manager was interested in us delivering them a full-service experience, with work done on album artwork, photographs, social media design and finally, promotional collateral.

In the space of music and shows, promotional collateral most prominently typifies itself in the form of show posters. Since most musicians do not run ads or conventional campaigns, show posters are typically one of the only ways for musicians to conduct agile brick and mortar promotional campaigns that do not require magnanimous budgets to execute. Since music is a space that requires a large degree of tactical loss leading on all fronts, physical promotions are most conventionally manifest in cost effective promotional formats, as they are one of the few spaces where artists and managers can safely make cuts on cost.

Throughout the entirety of the contract, working with M16 and his manager was always understood as a particular experience. Coming into Trickle, they generally knew exactly what they were looking for, and also had an idea of what direction they were going in. While M16's manager, Antwoinne Smallwood, was at times difficult to work with due to his very particular tastes and sensibilities, to his credit, I can also readily say that he was a great manager that was actively protective of his client, and visionary in his insights and objectives.

So when Antwoinne approached us with the intentions of having a poster made, he already had a strong idea of what direction he wanted to go in: Antwoinne was looking for a poster with an old-western aesthetic. Specifically, the thing Antwoinne wanted, was a wanted poster.

Antwoinne's reasoning for why a wanted poster was befitting of M-16's promotional campaign concerned the fact that a large part of his brand identity was anchored by being an outlaw: an outlaw in style, lyrical content and even genre. While M-16's music could readily be classified as hip-hop, it could also be definitively deemed rock as well, and generally because of this, M-16 was an artist that did not fundamentally belong to any musical category.

Thus, the concept of M-16 being an outlaw, in many respects, was an honest and real assertion about M-16's music. Addressing this reality in a promotional context, hence, was most easily reconciled by following in suit with a wanted poster theme, as conceptual as it may seem on its face.

Having a full understanding of this fact, it was safe to assert at the time that going for visual authenticity would not earn me, or my client, any dividends in the promotional space. Therefore, in cases like this, the only worthwhile thing to do is to go ahead and break some rules.

But before we get to the rules I decided to break, lets discuss the rules that were worthwhile to observe.

First of all, to sell the look, I decided that I would agree with the general considerations that are consistent with the color palette of an old-western wanted poster. In the case of this medium, almost all posters that fall under the purview of this category are defined by a tan, black and red aesthetic. Generally speaking, tan is the color of the backdrop while black is reserved for images and text, and red is reserved exclusively for text. While most of the poster is black and tan, I picked red for the headline "live or televised" to provide visual emphasis.

Secondly, to build into the look further were my font considerations. Almost every single one of them is western inspired, and themed in such a way to facilitate a western look. While many of the fonts in use are touted as old western font faces, what makes them as such has much to do with the aesthetic of small peaks in the center of every letter in use. As far as the word "Wanted," my goal was simplicity, clarity, and gravitas. Thus, picking a bold, prominent serif that was capable of stretching across 1/3 of the total visual real-estate was of high importance when it came to communicating gravity.

With these elements alone, however, the poster looked bland. I know because I tried it with just these elements. To push the image further, however, we would have to break certain stylistic conventions that may be understood as being consistent with aesthetic authenticity. One of these conventions was the usage of a masked image over the wanted text. While positioning the image of M-16 to not overtake any text is consistent with what is authentic, it made the poster look comparatively suffocated, and relatively stingy in its usage of visual real estate. Additionally, wanted posters do not have large red bars on the bottoms of them. However, with this space being reserved for hand written show details, this is a feature of the image that necessitates itself to existence through utility. The addition of M-16's logo (not designed by me or Trickle), is simply a way of me anchoring the very unique look of this poster to a greater brand experience that may have a different prevailing aesthetic.

When we consider the fact that vector art wasn't an invention until around 2001-2002,  the usage of flourishes in the periphery of the image as well as its background are simply inconsistent with the era that the poster is trying to emulate. With this being said, however, the incorporation of vector art is a factor that helps further "sell" the look, as its historical inconsistency helps contribute to its stylistic consistency. 

Finally, there is texture. While texture is generally one of the first things I consider when building out the base of an image, in the case of this poster it was one of the last things that came to mind. Generally, however, my intention of using texture in this space wasn't to build depth, the way I have traditionally used it in the past. Instead, my usage of texture was to try and create authenticity by selling a certain type of production process. Looking closely at the image, it is observable that the entire page is characterized by streak textures masked over the text and images to insinuate an older, and less sophisticated printing process. The same thing can be said for the centerpiece image, which is flanked by a sloppy border, and is characterized by softened, black and white image levels and blown out grain.

Ultimately, the story of design work is that you never know where it will take you. When I think back on my thoughts and emotions surrounding this project, I remember feeling a sense of unease: being a designer that prefers contemporary aesthetics, many parts of myself wondered if I was capable of delivering. But sometimes, growing means taking risks. To deliver this piece, I took a couple: I embraced work that I had no professional history of making, I disobeyed the rules of authenticity for an entire informational medium, and I used certain visual elements that fundamentally did not exist in their current capacity to add to the look. But to break the rules of convention appropriately, they still had to be observed and respected to sell an aesthetic. I suppose the moral of the story is this: while rules provide guidance, sometimes there is benefit to drawing outside of the lines.