In the city's official website's own words:

Safed Klezmer Festival 2019

The 32nd Safed Klezmer Festival in Safed will be held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 12th - 14th 2019. You can come for 1 night, 2 nights or all 3 nights! ...Klezmer Festival in Safed is held throughout the alleyways and lanes of the Old Jewish Quarter and Artist Quarter. On each of the 3 nights of the festival, performances begin approximately 9:00 p.m. and go through until after midnight. The performances are free and are all located within a 5 - 15 minute walk of each other in the town's center.

I spent 10 months studying in Safed (or Tzfat as it's actually pronounced) and came to love this unique city but I left before its famous annual Klezmer festival that draws musicians and audiences from around the world. The location of the festival is as much a character as any of the musicians or the style of music and I'd love to incorporate that into the design of the poster.

Here are three mood boards I've put together for the location, references from the actual festival, general design inspiration, and klezmer background imagery.

The Safed International Klezmer Festival - image 1 - student project

This was my original sketch:

The Safed International Klezmer Festival - image 4 - student project

And that turned into take 1:

The Safed International Klezmer Festival - image 5 - student project

and then take 2 (almost there):

The Safed International Klezmer Festival - image 6 - student project

I redrew all the lettering to give it a more unique feel (thanks for the tip, DKNG)

And then I got to my final draft here:

The Safed International Klezmer Festival - image 7 - student project

I didn't want to get too specific with musicians since this festival draws Klezmer musicians from all parts of the world and all backgrounds - they definitely don't all look the same. But every good Klezmer band has got to have a fiddle otherwise how can you dance to the music? Tzfat (Safed) is also a city renowned for it's artists' colony and I thought the paint splatters would be a nice nod to that. The city's logo is used as a sort of texture, as is its ancient stonework. And, I managed to get that blue paint of the doorways in there.

So, what do you think?

Raizel S

2D Animator & Illustrator

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