Shakespeare

In this brief I was asked to to create an inventive and innovative publicity campaign to excite the public's imagination about my local theatre's new and controversial RSC Shakespeare production. The theatre wants to attract a wider, more diverse audience to come to the theatre.

I was asked to promote this new and extraordinary production through developing a comprehensive promotional campaign produced to the highest standard. 

The brief and my tutors were adamant that I research my local theatre. Luckily for me I knew of a great small theatre just around the corner from where I live.

I am not a big reader and Shakespeare is the last thing I'd choose to study for any length of time. I began my research none the less, with the hope I'd find something I could concentrate on.
I began my research by creating a small research page for every Shakespeare play that I thought I could work on. After asking around the class I found that a large number had chosen the obvious 'Romeo & Juliet' and 'Hamlet'. Two of my classmates had even thought of the same ideas I had thought of. This was a definite sign that I had to re-think my ideas and my choice of play.

After further research in to Shakespeare' plays I chose 'Merry wives of Windsor'.
After reading the summary I immediately thought of creating a modern updated version of the play, in the style of 'Desperate Housewives'. I found the plays plot to be very similar to what you'd expect to find on the TV show.
Ideas were running through my head about collage, reinvention, modernising, perhaps even a historic episode of 'Desperate Housewives'?

I created some collage pieces depicting scenes, quotes, thoughts that stood out from the play. I found money and scandal to be a large feature in the play. This most definitely compared well to Desperate Housewives.
There was something not quite right. I couldn't think of where I could take the play. How would I make the play controversial. The plot was already rather modern. I decided to branch off from this and explore other ways of creating the actual play. How could I make it controversial and at the same time draw people in.
After looking at the role of the women in both the play and the TV series I thought sex played a large part in both. Especially the TV series. My first thought from this was to look at a cabaret show. I decided to take this a step further by exploring setting the play in a burlesque club. I would imagine this to be a controversial setting for any Shakespeare play, even Merry wives of Windsor.

My drawing skills are not great and I do try and keep them to a minimum. I am getting better and I am practicing, just not in my sketchbooks. I hope to get even better and I would like to increase my confidence and feature them more in my sketchbooks.
But for this project I decided to look back at my previous collage work and looked at creating a collage of burlesque shows.

Looking back at my drawings I found that I did like a number of them. My confidence in my drawings was growing. I wanted to use one as my final piece.
I explored with styles, shapes, figures, positions and finalised on the image below. I came to this conclusion by looking at how I could create a campaign that was the complete opposite of what you'd expect from a Shakespeare production advertising campaign. I thought a retro 60's theme would make the play fun, colourful, and it would appeal to both young people and the 60's generation.
I began with my chosen drawing. From this I outlined it in black marker and scanned it in to the computer. I did attempt to add all the information in photoshop, I didn't like the way it looked. it was too computerised for the drawn outline of a figure. Because of this I decided to add the information by hand too. I only experimented with layout by hand before scanning in to the computer. Colour and slight changes in layout was done in Photoshop.

Final touches done. I was happy with the outcome for my first promotional item. My poster was done.

The brief asked to create an advertising campaign of 4 promotional items.

I wanted my 4 product to link in some way. They should all be able to be used together or in the same place/environment.

The play would be set in a burlesque club, so drinks would be available. From this though I decided to create a beer bottle label.

Beer would be served at the venue and I believe having themed beer would add to the experience. It would link all aspects of being in a club/bar environment. The play/show would take over the venue.

I created two other promotional items. I linked my 3rd item once again to beer and drinks. I created a beer mat. They were practical and were also like small posters for the show. For example if the play would only be shown one night a week then advertising would continue though the posters, the labels and the coasters. It would be very difficult to miss any form of advertising. I believe I have chosen 2 areas of a club that everyone would see.

I wanted to link my 4th item to the play itself. I spent some time thinking of what/how I could create something or change something into and advertising method.

Props and clothing/costumes came to mind. I looked at what were used and worn in a burlesque show. I narrowed my research to find a way of adding advertising to a bra or even a nipple tassel.

To be able to actually make the promotional item I decided to create a nipple tassel. It would answer the brief well by being innovative and different to current advertising media. I was able to make it out of card, I could draw, collage and print on to it easily. To link to the previous items I chose to keep the theme going and just added the same design idea. I only wanted text on the tassel. I thought an image would look silly.

                                  The tassel, the label and the coaster