About Me
I'm just your average Silicon Valley start-upper, passionate about technology, design, and media. I'm not a trained designer, but through work I've been able to do some web design work for eCommerce sites and large clients. I'm looking to expand my experience and pursue my passion for design further.

Project Update: 02.22.13

Almost there! Added the last balloon (all copy will live here), Dublin city landmarks (the Dublin Spire, Temple Bar, etc.), changed the background color, and added some more landscape details. I also want to try adding some texture to these details (I'm way novice at this) so we'll see how that goes adding sky texture (stars, etc.) and mountian texture. Any feedback would be awesome!

Local Natives - image 1 - student project

Project Update: 02.19.13

Just added some landscape details, finished most of my balloons (still have the last one to do) and I need to to incorporate a Dublin landmark. After that just a few more finishing touches, but I think I have the general direction that I want:

Local Natives - image 2 - student project

Project Update: 02.17.13

As my project is more graphic heavy than illustration heavy, I decided to jump right into photoshop and start my initial design. I have a lot more details to add in, but here's what I've designed from my initial sketch so far:

Local Natives - image 3 - student project

Original Sketch (2.13 post):

Local Natives - image 4 - student project

I'm hoping to add four balloons total, possible one with "Local Natives" spelled out of maybe I'll just design their name in the shape of a cloud. Not sure yet, but I want a cool way to show their typography that is somewhat out of the box and with their style aesthetic.

I'm also hoping to stick to the rule of thirds and add some interesting background features like stars or maybe a landscape in the distance at the top of the design and I might add a sun or even a moon to make it a bit more somber. Anyways, will have more updates soon!

Background
Local Natives is an indie rock band based out of LA, and I'm excited to choose them as my subject for my poster design. Local Natives is extremely artistic, both in music and design, often making their album art and posters themselves. As you can see below, their style is very graphic, rich in dark, blurry colors, and often inspired by outdoor landscapes.

Local Natives - image 5 - student project

Beautiful photo at the Grand Canyon

Local Natives - image 6 - student project

Awesome In-Flight Photo

Local Natives - image 7 - student project

Summer Tour Poster

Local Natives - image 8 - student project

European Tour Poster

Local Natives - image 9 - student project

First Album Cover

Local Natives also feature a lot of distorted faces and monster-like imagery (as seen above), which I find really fun and deliciously off-putting. It piques your interest and differentiates them as an indie, somewhat funky group. While this certainly has been done, I think it works really well for their aesthetic.

Finally, a huge emphasis of the band is the theme of travel and its effect on their identity as artists (as we can see in their different landscapes above and Instagram photos). Even their name, "Local Natives", is a tautology that emphasizes their identity as natives wherever they go, even when they are on tour all over the world. I wanted to use their intense and dark color palette, outdoors landscape, and distorted to influence my poster design.

Local Natives just launched a new album on 1.29 and is on a world tour, performing next in Dublin, Ireland. I've used this concert as an opportunity to design a poster, letting one of their new songs from the album called "Black Balloons" inspire my design.

Sketches
Here are my 2 rough poster sketches I've come up with so far.

Influence:

Local Natives - image 10 - student project

Sketch:

Local Natives - image 11 - student project

Sketch 2:

Local Natives - image 12 - student project

Playing on the idea of monsters (they are the balloons =), a beautiful landscape, and traveling to their next destination, Dublin. I might play with dark colors, add some mountains and forests that look like Ireland (maybe even a monument), and create blur effects to match their style.

That's it so far!

Evan Woods

Sales Operations at Twitter

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