Brand Design & Designers Review

I chose to review the designer Gail Anderson for this review project. She is a graphic designer, educator, and writer based in New York (http://www.gailycurl.com).

 Gail Anderson’s work interested me because she has designed a wide variety of things for many different art platforms, including theatre shows, book covers, and magazine images. Gail Anderson is partners with Joe Newton, and together they own Anderson Newton Design (http://andersonnewtondesign.com). Gail Anderson designed for The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine; Vintage Books (part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group); Rolling Stone Magazine; and SpotCo, which is a theatre advertising company that even advertises Broadway shows. She has also won many awards.

Most of Gail Anderson’s work is very colorful, and the text in the image adds to the theme of the design with the font, placement, color, etc. Her portfolio has many pieces of work ranging from book covers to theatre posters to magazine publications. She has collaborated with other artists on many designs, and is partners with Joe Newton at Anderson Newton Design. Most of Gail Anderson’s designs seem to be digital art designs like vector art, photo designs that one could create in photoshop, or designs that combine digital art and photo design. Here is some of her Broadway theatre work:

Man of La Mancha Broadway poster, an example of digital art design.

Ragtime Broadway Musical poster, an example of a digital art and photo design.

Barefoot in the Park Broadway poster, an example of digital art design.

Losing Louie Manhattan Theatre Club poster, an example of photo design.

Ragtime Broadway Musical poster

I chose to analyze Gail Anderson’s poster design of the Tony-award winning Broadway musical Ragtime. One of the reasons that the poster stood out to me was the color contrast. The poster contrasts between black & white and red & blue, but it also contrasts those two combinations against each other. Another thing that caught my eye was the arrangement of the pictures above the Statue of Liberty. The diamond shapes surrounding the Statue of Liberty and the way that the images are arranged makes them appear as if they are exploding from of the Statue of Liberty. This poster was created for Broadway’s production of the musical Ragtime. The designs communicates that the musical Ragtime is about music and is set in the early decades of the 1900’s.

Some of the elements of design that are used in this design include color, shape, balance, emphasis, and symbolism. Color is mainly represented by the contrast in the poster. The colors blue & red contrast against each other, and the shades white & black contrast against each other. The color also contrasts against the absence of color, or the shades. Shape is used in this design by representing sound coming out of the Statue of Liberty. It appears as if the sound is coming from the piano that the man was playing and going through a speaker, which is represented by the Statue of Liberty. Balance is used in the poster by enlarging the title of the musical to balance out the complex collage above the Statue of Liberty. Emphasis is also used similarly to balance by using the Value element of art. That element of art expresses the importance of the pictures representing sound in the design. Symbolism is used in this poster by including pictures of things important to the musical. For example, the Statue of Liberty is included in the poster, which symbolizes that New York is part of the storyline.

I think that Gail Anderson’s poster design for the Broadway musical Ragtime was very effective at advertising the production. It included key themes of the show, such as the Statue of Liberty symbolizing New York or the incredible representation of sound & music with pictures. The poster also captures your attention with contrasting colors, various sizes & shapes of certain objects, and multiple shades of each color. This poster is one of the many incredible designs that Gail Anderson has taken part in, and represents the Ragtime story very nicely.

Image Credits:
Gail Anderson - http://www.aiga.org/globalassets/migrated-images/uploadedimages/aiga/content/inspiration/aiga_medalist/md_andersong_portrait_640.jpg
Man of La Mancha poster - http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/2/81943/1022014/broadway1.jpg
Ragtime poster - http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/2/81943/1022014/broadway3.jpg
Barefoot in the Park poster - http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/2/81943/1022014/broadway13.jpg
Losing Louie poster - http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/2/81943/1366482/mtc2_1000.jpg

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