EARSHOT JAZZ FESTIVAL

Solo

Poster Design

3 weeks

15 hours

Photoshop, InDesign

Problem

Despite Earshot’s jazz music festival being the largest jazz festival in the nation, their current advertising does not capture the emotions, the intimacy, or the lived experience of live jazz music. How can we capture this experience through visuals and typography while still staying somewhat true to their current design system?

Solution

The Earshot Jazz Festival poster highlights the appeal of the jazz lounge experience through refined, black and white photography with the two tone spotlight colors set on a dark background, with simple white typography laid out on a grounding grid system. This design focuses the eye on what matters - Jazz.

see my process all Done

Research

The annual Earshot Jazz Festival is the largest jazz event in the nation and attracts a very diverse crowd. It spans about a week with most performances happening after 7pm and a few conferences happening mid-day. They adapted to the pandemic by having virtual events in 2020 and 2021.

A grid of previous Earshot jazz festival advertisements

Process

Over the past few years Earshot had been dedicated to using sans fonts, gradients, photography, and focusing on the people performing at the event rather than capturing the feeling of jazz. There was a design opportunity to enhance the pattern of visuals they currently used while also capturing the feeling of jazz music visually.
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After mind mapping , research into the subject, and experiencing live jazz at a local venue it was confirmed that the final design would need to tap into jazz’s elegance, moodiness, and soul-speaking nature.

The first series of sketches didn’t incorporate photography and spotlight colors like Earshot did with their posters. After experiencing live jazz, the imagery for the poster began to solidify into its final form.

a grid of inspiration images related to the jazz scene

AHA!

Turning the word “Jazz” on an angle made it immediately click. Combining the cross bar on the J and Z with the base of the A, and combining said base to the top of the second Z gave the word movement, life, and the right energy for jazz.