Kinky with Money Mark Poster Sacramento 2008

KINKY WITH MONEY MARK POSTER SACRAMENTO 2008

Approaching this Kinky and Money Mark poster, something in my head said “lions” so I started messing around with the idea while listening to their 2006 record Reina. I tend to force myself to design from concept first and foremost, so the idea of just straight-up making something cool looking with lions sounded fun and  easy because (obviously) lions just look really cool. But as I often remind myself, the difference between a designer and a mere stylist is Ideas. Ideas have to come first and if ideas are to come first then visuals need more of a reason to exist than “that would look rad.” Would it be too self-indulgent to go this route?

Just then Track 4: “Leon” started up, with it’s bed of growling lion sounds. I had my way in now and I could take it without feeling like I copped out to Pointless Cool.

Using lions as a jumping off point, I aimed to make something fluid and techno but still organic. In a perfect world I would have just let the rounded logotype in the middle do the talking, but you still gotta sell tickets, so I added the info strip along the top (a technique I would use again as a kind of visual callback in my poster for The Naked and Famous in 2011. At the end of the day I think it actually ended up enhancing the finished piece.