Sherlockboards

Sherlock at the Castle: Influences

This brief concentrates on promotion for an event, so by looking creative examples of copywriting, and either photography or other means of image making. The Beautiful Meme (English National Ballet) used unusual and memorable copy to grab attention and show off the photography of the dancers. The work for Theater StGallen simply uses a diagonal grid, with a strong use of typography. There is no use of creative copy for this promotional material, just strong typography and photography.

Another interesting use of photography is for the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, where a lighthearted behind the scenes insight keeps the viewer captive, and puts them in a voyeuristic position.

Design concept

Watch the mystery unfold became the concept that felt appropriate to use for this event. Originally the concept of using simple emblems related to The Hound of the Baskervilles such as a deerstalker hat, a magnifying glass and hound paw prints were going to be used, however they did not feel exciting or memorable, and the marriage between the bodycopy and the imagery became the important factor.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a classic, and I felt that something so iconic needed simplicity. Again I concetrated on using related imagery, such as the hound, a magnifying glass and a gun, and this time used coloured paper to physically cut out the symbols, and photograph them unfolded, to go with the copy ‘watch the mystery unfold’. This type of imagery felt simplistic and tasteful, along with appealing to a more mature audience. The overall feel of the design began to look and feel very contemporary. In addition to a strong concept, I concentrated on creating strong typography and layout.

After working with the layout, I had a crit to try to and get another opinion, and it was suggested that the heirachy wasn’t quite working well as far as readability, and in order to make it far more attractive and readable, I used just a single image instead of three, and had three variations of the poster design, with the tag line sitting at the top.

Design resolutions