Thursday, October 8, 2015

More fonts...

Parkway Playhouse announced its 70th season... so that meant another round of font searching for me and a few gems.

Some I actually paid to use... because I just had to have them. But more than anything, I love the font for West Side Story for its name: Dirty Ego. Fabulous name.  I'm also very keen on the font used for The Ballad of Frankie Silver -- Maiden Orange. In some of the graphics, the font gets scratched to match the effect of the poster. A haunting story needs a creepy looking poster and what better way to convey that than with scratches. Scratches = Creepy in today's graphic sensibilities, right? The font is weighted/thick enough to be seen from a distance, yet can handle a little "destroying" and still read well.

The most difficult title to find a font for this year was You Can't Take It with You. The first difficulty was its length. To make it readable, yet fit on one line to match the other plays, proved impossible. Also, it's a comedy, so most poster designs by other theatres used a cartoony font to convey that... a sophisticated font doesn't present the right impression. However, too childish a font doesn't present the theatre in the right light either. Also, look at the capitalization in the title: poor "with" is the only word left out... and it just looks goofy, especially if "It with You" is on a line by itself. So, an all caps Quota saved the day. I had played with using two different fonts to show the difference between the two families, but it just didn't read well.

For a sneak peak at the preliminary posters, you can check out Parkway Playhouse's Blog.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Too Weird!

A whirlwind of connections.

#1 - Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett came to Burnsville to the literary festival a few weeks ago. Yes, here-- to my tiny town of 3,000.  I was lucky enough to be on stage with them briefly to give traffic-flow instructions to the attendees as the "Flight Behavior Attendant." (Exits are located to the rear and sides of the cabin...) Lucy told me later, as the two waited in the back hall, listening to me... they laughed. I made Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett laugh.

#2 - This morning, just now, I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's interview on Here and Now from September 2015 in which she talks about accidentally transferring the inspired spirit of a book idea into a kiss to Ann Patchett when they first met... a book about a woman in the Amazon...  (The interview can be heard here.)

#3 - My good friend and writer-friend (who brought Ann and Barbara to town) gave me Signature of All Things for Christmas and I read State of Wonder immediately after it.  See this blog post here for further evidence of ideas weaving their own tail-eating snakes through literature.

All this before coffee, shower, or morning pages!

The kids are all in school, the wild turkey and deer snack on the neighbor's windfall apples, and I have the day before me...