Beau: The Musical
Branding / Illustration
Client
J.D. Nite
Goal
Create a cover for Beau, an original musical
Strategy
After familiarizing myself with the piece, I balanced listening to the client and utilizing my own eye as a designer to create a piece that reflected the musical
Step 1: Analyzing the Musical
“Beau” is a musical that follows a 17 year-old, Beau, who recently stopped talking. His parents, unsure of how else to help him, send him to Jenning’s Home for Adolescents, a mental health facility for teens. Here, he meets a hypochondriac, a cross-dresser, a short-tempered psychiatrist, and a whole cast of unique characters. This show takes a critical look at the way teenagers are treated in the mental health industry, with a focus on radical acceptance.
After reading the script and talking with the writer, I put together a word web to identify pre-existing imagery, main ideas, and important information on the characters.
Step 2: First Round of Sketches
To start, I did a quick round of 44 sketches, with ideas ranging from very literal depictions of Beau with a whiteboard (a prop he has the majority of the musical) to more abstract depictions of eyes and scribbling. I presented these to the writer and director and found that they mostly preferred more dynamic and artistic representations of the more literal elements (such as pill bottles and human figures).
Step 3: Second Round of Sketches
From the previous feedback, I narrowed the design down to 7 main ideas and focused on the different ways of depicting them, including how the title might be incorporated. Considering the tone of the musical and the composition of these sketches, I narrowed the selection down to 5 options that I would continue to rework in the next iteration.
Step 4: Digital Sketches
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This composition and style felt very clean and modern which decidedly did not match the messiness and lightheartedness of the musical.
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While there was room for improvement with this idea, the client and I agreed that it was too directly referencing something that only happens in the finale of the musical.
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This mockup was primarily included to communicate to the client that this idea did not would not work well for a poster.
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This sketch is referencing a recurring setting for scenes between two of the main characters so the client was a big fan of it; I felt that the shape of the window left something to be desired in regards to composition.
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Medication is a recurring topic throughout the musical, so this was well received. The client was worried that it would send a skewed message of the focus of the musical, but we agreed that the composition and tone was working well.
Step 5: Experimenting
With the composition narrowed down to 2 ideas, I took more time to draw out the details, clean up the forms, and experiment more with fonts. The pill bottle composition was set, so I focused more on the window scene concept. The client had previously shown a clear bias towards the window scene idea, so when I was frustrated with how stiff it still felt I took this opportunity to get more creative with it.
In the end, I presented the iterations and suggested moving forward with the pill bottle concept; the client agreed.
