Behind the Design Process for Van Hunt Lyric Posters
When designing lyric posters for musician Van Hunt, we found ourselves with much more creative freedom than we typically experience on other projects. During this project the band only required that the lyric posters contain three things: typographic treatment of song lyrics, song title and the band name – Van Hunt. Where we go from there was up to us. We quickly realized that projects like this that give us this much freedom, as well as the ability to work with typography so prominently, are like gold and should not be taken for granted.
Beginning the Lyric Poster Design Process
As the band’s lyric poster design process began we receive snippets of song lyrics in a text document, from reading these ideas formed, sketching began and concepts started to take shape. However, we soon realized there was an additional element to these designs that is not required in most of our day to day work: listening to music. It was necessary to read the lyrics to each song and actually listening to them, as well as the often varying ideas they conveyed. The literal meaning of the lyrics sometimes evoked a feeling that was contradicted by the tone of the music. This specific design challenge was what made this project so unique and exciting for us to work on.
Infusing Unique Style Into the Final Lyric Poster Designs
Having multiple designers work on these posters created a variety, reflecting each designer’s specific style and personal interpretation of Van Hunt’s music and lyrics. In addition to the ability to explore our creative license, this project also gave us a fun environment to critique each other’s work. With so little limitations, every design element that has made it onto a lyric poster was carefully sculpted and placed by the designer, rather than being a specific directions from a client. This confidence and reasoning in our unadulterated work, and the critiques that follow, reassured us as designers that we still loved the process. This unique process gave us the opportunity to talk through and provide justification about our design with our coworkers and mentors.
Not only did this project result in very creative work, it also benefited us as a group of designers who are constantly working together to improve, inspire and challenge each other. Merging music and design was a welcome challenge that allowed us to flex our design muscles in the most enjoyable way.