Moho Forum

Well... not the whole poster but the figures in it were drawn using AS, exported to SWF opened in Flash, and converted to EPS... opened in AI where all the text and final color was added.



The play starts tonight. My brother is in charge of all the sound effects and is getting a bit nervous. This play has a ton of sound effects... and his laptop is acting flakey.

-vern

That's a great poster. I'm curious though, do you always prefer to draw in AS over AI? I've been using inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) because drawing in AS sometimes feels like giving birth to a ford minivan.

Painful.

No, I much prefer using AS now for drawing.

Obviously I still use AI when there is no other option or the conversion process is too messy, but I like drawing in AS and find it WAY faster to get what I need. I will often use AS as my "sketch pad" and will convert to AI through SWF just so I don't have to deal with the tools in AI. I use to love AI too.

In AI when dragging points around, the curves don't "adjust" on the fly the way they do in AS. I spend more time in AI adjusting the curve bias handles then I do trying to adjust the points in AS to get smooth curves.

If my final image doesn't need to be in EPS format AS has those fantastic variable width strokes which are difficult to achieve in AI or in Photoshop.

I will sometimes convert the strokes from AS to EPS but you end up with all those extra "stroke shapes" which need clean up. In that case I export from AS directly to print resolution Photoshop:



AS needs an EPS export.

-vern

Love the poster ... Reminds me of the guy who did hitchcocks vertigo poster (among others) ... His name escapes me

Nice colours !

Nice work Vern. I have grown naturally to use AS for drawing too but the only thing that holds me back to using it 100 percent is with the way it tends to warp fonts. The text in your poster looks perfect. Have you found a way around this?

D.K

I don't do the text in AS. I use either Photoshop or AI to do all the font work.

I agree that using fonts are pretty useless in AS.

-vern

Everyone has forgotten to ask a very important point!

What is the play about? I don't get out much, stuck as I am in my dungeon, and probably will be able to go see it. But I would still like to know what I'm missing.

F.C.Snow

This play was first produced in 1999. Swoosie Kurtz is famous for the main "dual" role.

The play is about two twins who are total opposites. In very basic terms one is conservative and one is liberal. The play follows their lives from when they are in highschool (I think approximately) in the 50's through the 80's and shows how their choices and personalities effected their lives.

They are absolutely identical... er... except.. uh... for one small physical attribute... The more outgoing "liberal" twin has... larger breasts which seem to give her an advantage over her sister.

They fight over everything apparently. I haven't seen or read the play myself. I did find a few descriptions on the internet. It is a fairly new play so not a lot of info out there. Plus it does have adult themes and profanity so probably not a first choice for many theater companies.

I usually like to look up the play to see what other posters have been done so I can try to do something different... or get ideas on what the play is about... I found ZERO posters for this play in all my web searching... none.

The director wanted a simple style for the poster. He wanted a 50's or 60's style to it so I tried to get that look. I admit being influenced by Saul Bass who did I think all of the Hitchcock movie posters. This simple style worked out well for me because I had a really short deadline. My brother neglected to tell me WHEN the play was being done when he asked for the poster. I assumed incorrectly I had at least a month or more when in reality it had to be done in about 2 weeks... I think the posters were put up about a week or two before the first show.

I also did small b/w flyers and the program cover based on the poster design.

I don't get paid for these dang things. I make sure the director is aware of this and that he or she has very little input on the design. If they try to tell me to make stupid changes just to feel in control I tell them who to make the check out to and ask where I should send my invoice. Because they get it for free I get to do WHATEVER I want. I really like that! I get to be the elite arrogant snobbish designer.

Normally I wouldn't do something like this for free but it is my brother asking and it is community theater (no one gets paid, and they barely break even).

-vern

HeyVern,

Do you mind if I ask what's the font you used and where I can download it? Thanks!

The font is called "Keener".

I purchased it for $12 from www.myfonts.com. I was really trying to find the free "Saul Bass" font that someone created a while back but couldn't find it anywhere. I chose this one because it had a slightly similar rough, retro look to it.... and... er... it didn't cost $150 like some other fonts I had found that I liked more.

It is always the one font you love that costs an arm and a leg. If this were a paid project I would have bought the font I really wanted. This one works pretty good though I think.

p.s. I probably could have found a free font with a similar look but I just didn't have time to look for it.

-vern