CASE STUDY - THE BLACK KEYS

 Case Study - The Black Keys.

Context and Content

The audience for this work would be people that enjoy listening to The Black Keys, people that went to the gig or people who enjoy looking at or admiring Graphics posters. The fact they're pulling instruments is a key indication that they're a band and use those instruments. If you look closely you can see that some of the text on the instruments has some clues about the band. On the guitar there is ‘June 27th 2011’ which is showing when the poster was made. Also on the amplifier it says ‘Cage the Elephant’ which is one of the Black Keys songs. The design for this poster is quite a simplistic design only using 3 basic colours (Red, Black and white) but the colours have been overlayed so that new colours are created without having to use more than 3 basic colours.

Personal Response 

This Gig poster was designed and illustrated by DKNG design and illustration. What drew me to this design was the look it has, it is simple but really detailed at the same time. You can only see the detail when you look at a close up of the image. I also like the minimalist colours as it makes it look very effective. Years ago children used to play with these types of trucks and therefore it gives the impression of happiness and fun.When I look at this poster from a graphical point of view as opposed to an admirers point of view I really like how the graphics designers managed to use so few colours, yet still get a varying range of colours or shades of the same colour. 

Process

The piece would have been experimented with screen printing at start and then progressed onto a photo editing software such as photoshop. The detailed items would have been tried out by hand and then probably scanned into a computer and then edited. There is an overlay on the red truck and instruments as it look grainy, this makes it look more vintage. This is a basic 3 coloured screen printing poster that was edited on programs like photoshop. There is a chance that the graphic designers of this poster have made most of the layers into overlay layers which can be placed on top of each other to create other colours. There is also a possibility that the graphic designers may have used a texture to give the poster its grainy look and they may have also used a wood texture to give the fences a bit of detail.

Form

This piece is laid out in an orderly fashion, its not too busy and you don't lose where you are in the poster. The path your eye takes seems to start at the glasses at the top of the boxes and you follow the boxes down with your eye until you get to the type on the cart. I think they used the font they did because it stands out because it is different it has a slight tilt to it and and as you read through the writing you notice that the writing changes size as you get in to the middle and it gets bigger as you leave the middle. I feel like the colours in this piece are warm colours that compliment each other. This Gig poster is very different as opposed to other Gig posters because most normal Gig posters have a very bright and big picutre at the top to draw the attention of the public/fans, with a list of all the headlines and supporting bands underneath.