Blog Posts and Posters

I am on a quest. My quest is to eventually arrive at a more workable theme for this blog. I want it to be evidenced in the look and feel as well as in the content. I want it to be centered on design and Shakespeare (that may have been obvious). And I want my thoughts to be provocative, entertaining, and worth posting.



These are some of the things that have been on my mind lately. I want to have a more consistent and a more exciting theme running through my blog as a whole. I want it to have a point, even a thesis, as academia would say. (Not only that, but I believe that this would benefit my learning experience and grade for my college Shakespeare class, the very culprit to which I owe the formation of this fine piece of the interwebs.) Perhaps my attempts to accomplish this will be noticeable to you in the coming days and weeks.

For today, I would like to do something new. I thought it would be interesting to compare some promotional materials for the play The Winter's Tale. This will likely be something I will continue to do in the future, as I am contemplating the idea of creating some sort of visual piece relating to Shakespeare myself later this year. I may even do some original pieces for upcoming posts of this sort. Here we go.

The Winter's Tale via annemariepetka.portfoliopen.com.

I really like this first image. It is well done and has a contemporary feel. Not only that, but the piece is very intriguing. It focuses on the point in the play in which Leontes has his baby daughter thrown away to the wilderness in denial of his fatherhood. In the image, the child in her cradle rides on waves of time. Time is another big theme of The Winter's Tale–the play has an entire scene devoted to it. It is the passage of time that yields full repentance and reconciliation for Leontes. This piece is a nice representation of those ideas.

The Winter's Tale pamphlet, via 520red.com.

This next piece is another one that I enjoy, especially its excellent focus on typography. For some reason, typography relates to Shakespeare very well to me. Perhaps it is due to the interesting ways it was employed in the playwright's day. But in any case, I really enjoy this typographical representation of The Winter's Tale. The block of type on the left is an interesting examination of some of the themes of the play, and I love the large INNOCENCE in the center. This nicely complements the use of negative space in the illustration depicting a female all in white. This may be Hermione, it may be Perdita, but in any case, it seems to me to be a reminder of the purity and innocence of the women in the play. Another well done piece. (The typographical block of themes may be something that I try myself in an upcoming post.)

Finally, here are a couple other examples for your consideration. One, on the left, is the poster of a play that Sir Ian McKellan acted in. It is certainly interesting, though I am not sure I follow the story it's trying to tell. The other is simply the result of a Google search and is, to me, an example of classic but boring promotional material for Shakespeare's plays.

Image via mckellan.com.

Image via georgehartpence.com.

I look forward to more posts like these (forgive the wordiness this time–it likely won't be so next time). Perhaps I will continue to try to find relevance to Shakespeare in examples of design and art and photography. We will see how this goes. I am excited.