The Artwork of Artwork
Every Marketing Manager ever …..
Dear Performer,
To assist in the marketing and promotion of your show, it’d be super sweet of you to send us at least three hi-resolution images. Please make at least one of those in landscape orientation.
In defense of some of the performers, a few of them have their stuff together quite well and provide at least one image but rarely do I get a selection from which to choose. More often, what I get are old images, low-res ones, or an image one of their friends (He’s a photographer, really) made.
Fine! Their job is to perform. Mine is to put it all together for promotional work. And there’s a LOT of that to do. Posters, postcards, blog posts, podcasts, graphics for the website or promo videos, they all have different dimensions and what works on one site doesn’t always work on another.
I’ve found that 16x9 is the most versatile size. Depending on where it’s posted, you can get multiple uses out of it. Plus, it gives me plenty of room to play with the images and text while still being minimalist.
The above images were made from a grand mix of sources; cell phone pics, swiped Facebook pics, old posters, and whatever random images we may have laying about in our hard drives. Some clean text, white space, or a complimenting color and BOOM! You’ve got artwork!
Sometimes, the design lends itself to simplicity and cleanliness. A simple 4x5 with a splash of color and clean text makes a fine bed for almost any image. On our theater’s website, we use these blocks for navigation on our front page. Clean and informative.
The artwork for podcasts are always a square. This give us even less space on which to leave our message. They’re most often just thumbnails so the text needs to be big and bold.
For my own stuff, the same rules and needs apply. I have a grand variety of places that I post different things to and my “look” has evolved over time. Always a fan of clean fonts, though.
In short, ALL artists or anyone that has a product or message to share needs to keep artwork in mind. It’s a very important part of creating great content. Get new headshots done, hire a graphic designer for your artwork, find a website builder that can make and use imagery as design tools.