update 2/18/13 --

Combining the sketches, stamp motifs and one of my desert photos all into photoshop i played around with different concepts. As I was refining the imagery and adding color gradients I accidentally created a night theme that I think works for the music style. After watching lecture two I also decided to try resizing the image to 18" x 24" format and pare down some of the illustration to make the overall poster a bit simpler.

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 1 - student project

The typography still needs work as well as the overall texture so I'm planning to refine that in the comming week. Stay tuned for updates.

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Music Selection:

I've chosen to do my poster for Calexico's hometown show on March 24. Based in Tucson, Arizona only about an hour's drive from Mexico their music is a combination of Latin and American music. I lived in Phoenix for 5 years and at the time was unaware of the band. Years later when I discovered their music it reminded me of the incredible beauty of the desert and it's surprising diversity.

Inspiration:

Being so close to the boarder their is a stong influence from Mexico and this theme is played out visually in a lot of their artwork. Recently while browsing an antique store in Illinois I came across this book of design motifs from Ancient pre-columbian Mexico which I'm planning to use a part of my visual theme. All of the designs in the book are copywrite free and encourged for reuse. Here are a few excerpts that I hope to incorporate.

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 2 - student project

These patterns we mostly created using ink stamps. I'd like to use this stamp theme in the poster design.

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 3 - student project

First Sketches:

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 4 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 5 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 6 - student project

Some old landscape photographs I had taken from when I lived in arizona that I may use for the background.

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 7 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 8 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 9 - student project

Update 2/4/13:

Taking one of the Arizona landscape photos, color separating and adding some texure in photoshop I came up with this background. I used some of the mexican motifs and a western style font for the header.

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 10 - student project

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Some existing Calexico artwork...

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 11 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 12 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 13 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 14 - student project

Calexico: Fiesta En El Barrio - image 15 - student project

Any feedback, comments, or criticisms are welcome.

Christian Laursen

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