Back in 2008 I was asked by John Shipman of the University of Maryland to create some installation art for a huge show getting together some of the best gig poster artist around. The direction was totally open I was only asked to included the name of the show, and told that I would working on a huge 10 foot square cube in the middle of the gallery. Below is a short process post walking you through the massive project.
Starting in the sketchbook, I really struggled with how to design installation art and signage on a four sided cube. I had few loose ideas about the creative process of interpreting music into visual poster, but realized that people still need to read the name of the exhibit and it would not read well stretched across four sides of this cube.
I refined my concept in illustrator, scaling the image from feet to inches allowed me to work in a document at a very manageable size. I decided to use CMYK as my color palette as a reference to the printing process and added an eye to the layout that help solidify the idea of artist using music to inspire the visuals created for poster art.
When I showed up at the University of Maryland I used a digital projector and a laptop and traced the image on all four sides, all that was left to do was color in all the lines. After 2 days of non-stop painting, the help of many students and a final late night push from Kris Chau and Kevin Mercer we wrapped this hours before the gallery opening. Below is a short time laps video of the painting process and some final pictures from the gallery:
