"I Am My Own Wife," Take Two

As I mentioned before, Stephen wasn't super thrilled with my ideas for this project, but I took some time during class a couple of weeks ago to start sketching out more ideas. I really liked the idea of a mirror and how that can convey perception and how we see ourselves and Stephen liked the idea of it as a reflection, since the play is about a person reflecting on his/her life. However, I wanted the mirror to be more feminine and thought about doing some kind of antique/vintage inspired mirror, but really felt drawn to the idea of using a compact. Few things are more feminine than a compact mirror. To help give it the extra touch, I decided to bring in some antique elements and found an "antique compact" on the internet. Then, using tracing paper, I traced it, copied it, and scanned it into the computer (the compact is in the bottom right-hand corner; the picture on top was what got my idea rolling).

My original thought was to have a man's face reflecting in the mirror, but it never really felt right to me, so I decided to leave his face out of it and just do the mirror, with a font that had totalitarian government understones and gave a solemn tone to the piece (the play is anything but a comedy, so I've been told). When I decided to do this, Stephen's words to me were that if I'm going to do this, I have to do it well so that it actually looks like a compact, and I have been dedicating myself to the task since. Below, it what I've got so far:

It was really hard to do the finer curves as an illustration, so I've modified the image a little to make the curves cleaner and prettier. The different colors are to help me see the depth so that my eyes don't play tricks on me when I go to clean this up later. It's starting to look like a compact, right?

Since I decided not to have a reflection, I needed something that would help this look like a compact mirror, so I decided to include a powder puff, so I did a google search for antique powder puffs or powder puffs from the 1940s and found one that was perfect, but, of course, hard to trace in Illustrator. However, not be deterred, I took on the task to make it and kept a prayer in my heart that it turned out to be somewhat realistic looking, while also recognizing that this was an illustration, not a Photoshop project. So, I put it in the computer and went to work, and this is what I've got (you'll also noticed that I cleaned up the mirror and included a reflection of the compact):Again, the different colors are to help me keep all my lines straight. It's getting there, what do you think? If I didn't tell you it was a compact, would you be able to tell?

Meanwhile, we can't ignore the typography. Typography can either make or break a design and I needed it to be perfect for this piece. So I researched, then I researched some more, and kept looking until I found something good. If anyone saw my internet searches without knowing I was doing this project, they might be concerned on why I have searched for "Nazi or Russian propognada posters" or "Nazi or Russian fonts from the 1930s." I love everyone, promise! After at least of week of searching, I found my font, "Deluxe Gothic" and started to play around with how to use it. For the "i"s, I deicded to dot them with the Nazi symbol and the hammer and sickle as the play was during that time frame. Below, are some ideas I had, my favorite is the one on the right, with the type blocked off to the side. You'll also see the original compact I traced and re-drew.

And that's where I'm at so far. It's taking a while to create the compact in Illustrator. Thankfully, I like the pen tool and am good at it, so it doesn't take me as long as it maybe could. I don't despair at the thought of using it, so I think that helps me get a lot of work done, and since all my posters are being created through Illustrator, I'm getting a lot of practice with it.

I still need to figure out my color scheme, but that will wait until I polish up the compact a little more. Honestly, I wasn't really excited about this poster in the beginning, but since I got the idea and have seen it come together, I'm really liking it and it's cool to see what you can create with the computer. More to come on this one, too.