Just venting my horror...

[Robyn Hepburn]

I've just been asked by a community theatre company I volunteer with to design a poster for their next performance...
The deadline is in one week.
Also, no payment offered.
Equal parts hilarious and horrific.

[Coreyartus]

Is the community theatre a non-profit organization? Your design services might be considered a donation, and you could take the fee as a tax write-off, perhaps?

There are rules and specifics about doing that, and I think there may be some State differences, but you should check into it if it's an option for you.

As a theatre person, I feel your pain. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. Reaching out at this late stage in the game is a sign that perhaps those theatre-makers don't quite know what they're doing? Walk away walk away walk away...

[mcoxart]

@Robyn-Hepburn
I would only do it if I absolutely love the show and can get a kickass portfolio piece out of it.

[Robyn Hepburn]

@mcoxart Thanks! I've had a few ideas for it, so might go for it... But I don't know how great is going to be with only a week. Might end up being something I want to hide away rather than put in my portfolio. On the other plus side, the producers are going to get it autographed by Dame Judy Dench.

[lpetiti]

@Robyn-Hepburn I once tried to reach out to my local community theater about their work. They basically told me the same thing, that they had volunteers do it. I honestly still don't see why it wasn't even paid or had a tax deduction component but they seemed happy with their person and not interested in anyone else. Oh well.

Given the short deadline though and with my own limited experiences with theater, chances are they are either brand new, it never occurred to them to get it done sooner, or there are MAJOR production problems. Have they advertised prior to this at all?

Anyway, I guess it depends on what you want to do. The autograph is intriguing and brings up dozens of questions, I'll admit. But if you are at all considering it, just be up front with them about the deadline and what it might result. They are artists, they should have some concept that you can't just throw something together and get the same quality you'd get with months of work.

[Blitz55]

@lpetiti Not theater oriented but there was a new association that started up related to my companies field and the other associations of it's like. Since we knew we were going to join the association I thought I'd reach out with an updated logo for them as they had created some monstrosity out of clip art and a bad font. I sent them something much nicer and they never went for it, I think the guy running the show there liked what he made. That was about 9 years ago, they still have the same logo he clearly made in Word. To each their own I suppose.

[lpetiti]

@Blitz55 yep. It may make our eyes bleed and such but if they think it works then I guess to each their own

[ArtMelC]

@Robyn-Hepburn Ahhh. Such a short notice could also mean that the previous volunteer person bailed for whatever reason, as is often the case when nonprefessional engagements have to be deprioritized when their paid workload, family obligation compete for their time.

I'm sorry you are going through this. I was the go to poster and concert booklet design volunteer for a choir I was part of ages ago, and it was fun for the first few but after that I moved on...

[jvartandillustration]

@Robyn-Hepburn I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this same phenomenon, but I have had pieces that took me weeks to complete that I was incredibly proud of, but when I showed them off to an audience, they would get a collective shrug. Conversely, there have been times that I’ve put some piece of crap together really fast, and they’ve gotten a lot of “Oohs and Aahs.”

[Robyn Hepburn]

@jvartandillustration Haha! Yes, I know that feeling. Thanks for the encouragement - hopefully my cobbled-together attempt will have that effect this time.

@ArtMelC @lpetiti I did wonder about that. It's possible that someone's bailed last minute. It's a very professional team and they're usually on the ball.
I did their poster last year and it took months, but they were easy to work with, however there's always that last bit of back and forth - finishing touches - that takes ages... But I'm hoping Canva can help with that: I can give them the poster on that and they can move the extra elements around, make things bigger or smaller etc - all the practical design stuff.

That's a great point about them being artists themselves - especially running a theatre festival, they should definitely have a better understanding of the work that goes into it, so I should be able to be upfront with them.

@Blitz55 The amount of disappointing images and design work all over the place is upsetting. I'm often tempted to offer better logos and illustrations to everyone, or least my well-meaning critique and suggestions for improvement but I don't think they see the value of well-made images.

[danielerossi]

@Robyn-Hepburn Here’s your chance to give generative AI a try. Just kidding.

[Robyn Hepburn]

@danielerossi Scary thought.

[Robyn Hepburn]

@Coreyartus I think they either lost their artist or they're taking me for granted because I did it for them last year. Yes, they are non-profit.
I told them I'll try make them something simple, with the backup plan that they just use a photograph.
I've used today to see if I can do something quick and easy - a shortcut - and it failed. Arg.
I'll show them what I've got and say if they don't like it, they can just go with a photo.
Either way I'm asking for a big advert in their program and lots of chocolate. (I'm in the UK, so I don't have to pay taxes until I actually start earning a proper living, which I'm never going to do if I keep taking these unpaid jobs.)

[Robyn Hepburn]

@Robyn-Hepburn I gave them 3 very rough sketches to chose from (and have discovered that rough is bad, because it leaves too much open to interpretation). They chose this one:

(The info is from last year's poster that I used as a template. Thankfully they've agreed to do all the text parts themselves!)

Here's what I worked on today:

Part of me hopes they choose to go with the backup plan: just using a photo, but they better tell me now or never! 🥴
If you have any feedback at this still-pretty-rough stage, I'd love you hear your thoughts!

[KathrynAdebayo]

@Robyn-Hepburn Wow, nice work for putting something together quickly.

A few considerations in case they help!

1. If you squint while looking at the poster it is difficult to read the title because the orange is so similar in value to the green. This will make it hard to read from far away, so consider changing the value of the title so it really pops.

2. I like the red dresses and larger figures personally, but I'd move the foot from behind the text.

3. As a Shakespeare illiterate person, I don't know the theme of the play, so the dancers don't convey much meaning to me. Could you add a brief line of text describing the play?

4. Cool background. I think you've done a great job with the timeline you're working with.

[Robyn Hepburn]

@KathrynAdebayo Thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated.
I totally agree with your first 2 points, I'm just leaving everything to do with the text until last. If the images end up larger I'll move and charge the text to fit nicely etc.
As for the story, I think I'm going to include some love notes hanging from the trees somehow... Or a guy carving his love's name on a tree.
I was thinking of including the line "all the world's a stage" or "all the men and women merely players," but I'm not great at incorporating text with image, so I'll play to my strengths with this short deadline!
Thanks! I like the background, just worried it will make the overall image too messy or busy... Well, we'll see how things progress today...

[Robyn Hepburn]

What is looks like thus far... At least an improvement I think.
I thought I'd go for lots of colours against the green background, for the fun of it, but I can always change that later. (I'm not naturally a limited-colour-pallette kind of person.) I'm also planning on giving them various skin tones, so I might make their clothes all the same colour... I'm just thinking out loud now.
It's quite busy and I'm not sure people will know what to look at, so I'm still working on where to place the people.
I'm also going to add some love notes in the branches.

[Robyn Hepburn]

I think... I'm finished...
Just got to do the text-stuff now.
What you think? Is there anything I'm missing? Any mistakes?

[NessIllustration]

@Robyn-Hepburn This looks really amazing, and I can't believe how quickly you made this!

The only thing is that the text is quite hard to read, especially the Theater line and William Shakespeare. There are multiple ways to fix this. You could make the green lines in the background paler just behind the text to improve readability, or erase the lines behind the text.

You could also add a shape behind some of the text like this:

[NessIllustration]

@NessIllustration The credit line is also really hard to read with a triple threat of small size, thin lines and funky font! I can't for the life of me make out your Instagram handle This is your time to shine to choose a simpler and thicker font!