Designing Floyd Collins
This fall LMPR had the opportunity to work with Vancouver-based artist Emily Cooper as she designed artwork for Patrick Street Productions‘ 2014 season. The photographer and designer’s signature style, instantly familiar to fans of Pacific Theatre and the Shaw Festival, combines photo illustration and collage to create compelling, abstracted imagery.
We were fascinated by Emily’s process and thought our readers would be equally intrigued by this unconventional approach.
Below we follow the development of artwork for Patrick Street’s March production of Floyd Collins. The haunting musical, based on true events that took place in 1925 Kentucky, tells the story of a man who set out to find the ultimate tourist attraction, but instead found himself trapped 100 feet below the earth.
Step one was finding Floyd. This gent had the look, but was too well dressed…
Emily was able to find this individual however, whose garb fit the part.
Once combined, we had our Floyd.
Possessing a Floyd we now needed a cave, several of which were explored…
… such as this abstract, starry rift.
The successful candidate ultimately saw a strong, solid cave that opened to a celestial expanse.
In the final iteration caving gear was removed to make Floyd more vulnerable, hanging lights added to make it less literal, and a vintage treatment applied to convey the era.
The final step was to have Copilot Design create a text treatment that complemented the aesthetic and energy of the piece.
Floyd Collins runs March 11-30, 2014 at the newly-opened York Theatre on Commercial Drive. Tickets & info at thecultch.com.
Categories: Client News