YOB

This was the first poster I designed for a gig and was received very well by the community. The band is one that has meant very much to me and through that passion I was motivated to create a beautiful piece that was reflective of the band itself. The band, YOB, is from Portland, Oregon and had just released a new album that was reflective of very intense health problems for the lead singer/guitarist, Mike Scheidt. ‘Our Raw Heart’ went into detail about the struggles of his illness and was full of imagery relating to feeling flesh like and bleeding. Prior to creating the poster, I had seen a video of Mike performing an acoustic version of my favorite song, Marrow in his father’s redwood tree orchard in Oregon. This was an incredibly inspirational and moving video which gave me the core idea for the poster. The tree: symbolizes where the band is from and also Sacramento, grounds the image and viewer when seeing the intensity of the blood. The heart: flesh and blood, a sense that we are all bleeding inside. Under my art direction, my illustrator friend who loves the band as much as I do drew the sketch of the tree, heart, and roots. The logos were given and I wanted to contrast the realistic tree and create a psychedelic mix of colors that would draw attention to each part. At the actual show, I met Mike and was able to show him what I had created for him. He told me it was beautiful, signed a copy for me, and took a whole stack of the posters to give to all the band mates and crew. That was one of the most amazing moments of my life because it was moment of artist seeing artist and the appreciation of what each other creates. It was a reminder of why I design. A lot of people who attended took posters home and I saw social media posts that people had framed it and hung it in their home. This project gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about Photoshop and although it is one from the earlier part of my design experience, I am still intensely passionate about what I created. In addition to the poster, I had my first experience in Adobe After Effects creating a motion ad for instagram. I used the title track from the album and the beating of a heart to bring my design to life. It was amazing to see my vision come to life to the song that meant so much to me.