Publicity design is an important job, and one highly visible to the outside world. A poster must display a recognizable image that fits the style and content of a show and also be clear on the  details (time, date, place) so people can actually find the show if they want to - unless it’s a teaser, but that’s something else entirely.

Working with Nikki Moss on Dandelion Heart (opening 12th October at the ADC) was a new experience for me. Nikki had clear ideas about how the poster should look from the beginning: a boy dressed like a ringmaster in the foreground with an inviting circus tent behind, and a dandelion clock being blown out in front of him. That was the brief, and when you’ve no full script and a deadline fast approaching, you’ve got to take what you can!

Two or three small pencil sketches laid the foundation for the artwork which, once approved, I drew in greater detail in A3. This larger and more careful image was scanned into Photoshop and coloured using a pen and tablet. Brush dynamics, many layers and different blending modes are your best friends here. Painting was the longest and hardest part, taking days of careful shading.

My favourite part of the poster is the type as  I’m keen on typography and meticulous with getting my fonts to ‘fit’ the style. The title was hand-drawn then converted to vector in Illustrator, put into Photoshop, blurred slightly and overlaid once or twice to make it integrated with the artwork and the paper texture. I want the text to look as if it isn’t simply placed on top of the image but a seamless part it.

Publicity design is a brilliant outlet for anyone with an artistic inclination looking for an exciting - and demanding - project. In the end, there’s nothing quite like seeing your work on the wristbands and booklets of some 2000 guests and performers at your college’s June Event, or on an A0 poster once up at the Union launch party, now up in your own bedroom.