Crescent Theatre Blog

With the first part of the new season underway, it’s time to start thinking about the designs for the flyers and posters for the shows still to come. And ideally, I want to get these ready in time for when we also begin producing the next issue of our brochure crescentscene so that we can integrate aspects of the design more closely. All this helps with the ‘branding’ of a show, where consistency is important in helping people recognise the various things we put out there – whether this be posters, flyers or, new for this season, business cards…

The process of creating a new design starts with learning a bit about the play and then trying to think of and find a suitable image. We ask a lot of this image – it must both inform about the play’s subject and also its tone. Ideally, it should also raise a reaction in the viewer – whether this be a chuckle or a question – in order to engage them and point them towards the box office.

Images are then integrated into the new brand template that was introduced so successfully a couple of years ago, and all the details are added.

Getting the front of the Harvey design was not straightforward – how do you represent an imaginary friend? There were quite a few rejected designs before we arrived at the final, subtle image of a hat with bunny ears…

But eventually, that’s the front taken care of…

For the flyers, we have experimented a little by waiting for publicity photos to be taken. Normally, these have just been used with Press Releases, but I wanted to try and get more value out of them by using images on the back of flyers as well – alongside the synopsis, map (we wouldn’t want anyone getting lost!) and extended booking details. I always like to use images of people, as when you come to the theatre that’s what you’re coming to see (and especially as the Crescent membership is such a handsome lot!)

Some shows, such as those aimed at schools, need their collateral early so the necessary mail-outs can take place, but for some shows we can wait a while, and I think it’s worked particularly well on the design for Harvey which you can see here…

Flyers and posters are essential, but also often controversial! Rather than worrying about finding the right image – the reaction of fellow members to how you’ve chosen to show off their show is the really scary part!