Parallel Lives show poster (printmaking+photoshop=oh my!)

This is the poster design I just completed for a production of Parallel Lives (formerly Parallel Lives: The Kathy & Mo Show) being produced by Terrific New Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama (& starring my dear, dear friend Carolyn!).
This project was a marriage of old school and new. The image is a hand-cut linoleum block print while the text and colored background are all photoshop. I'm fairly pleased with the results. I think the design is true to my style and represents the show well visually and thematically. I've designed posters over the years, but I've just done the art. This is the first time I've done the whole thing (art, layout, text, etc.). This was mainly because of a really tight deadline, but I also wanted to challenge myself to learn more about this here computer program. It was very satisfying to talk to the printer on the other side of the country about file format and then just send them an email - blap! Done. Let me just say I can only imagine how much the graphic design industry has changed over the last twenty years.


This is the linoleum print in black ink that was scanned in and cleaned up. Normally when printing a lino block, you have to do a couple of proofs and then go back and re-carve areas to clean up the image. It was very nice to be able to do all of that digitally in photoshop - click, click, click. The print itself becomes a manipulable tool instead of being the final product that has to be perfect. This part I like.

This is the final sketch. This was scanned to be laid out on the lino block. Any printing plate has to be cut, etched, etc. in reverse so that the final image is correctly oriented. Photoshop is great for this - flip the image horizontally, size it to fit your block and print. Then I transferred the image to the block and spent many, many hours cutting it out by hand (old school).