Beetlejuice:
The Musical Musical Musical!
About
Creating key art for a movie or Broadway show is essentially branding at its core. You must deeply understand the audience’s desires and needs; you must capture and successfully relay a core message through the feeling you’ll get by experiencing the product; you must create a visual language to be used by multiple people across countless mediums; you must create something compelling, memorable, and worth a second look; and you must, of course, create a logo.
I fancy myself a bit of a Beetlejuice expert, so was beyond excited when my former studio Passage, reached out to me to create a brand through key art for the upcoming premiere of Beetlejuice on Broadway.
My Role
☁ Conceptualization and brainstorming
✒ Illustration
𝕴 Typography
❑ Graphic Design
Project Info
Studio: Passage
Creative Director: Paul Evan Jeffrey
Client: SpotCo
Timeline: One week
The Outcome
Click to enlarge posters. Note that the copy line “The Musical Musical Musical” was provided by the client.
Process
It was an exceptionally fun but difficult challenge. We weren’t given much to go on, not even the script. The work needed to reference the original in some ways but stand out on its own. They specifically asked to not feature any of the characters, including the Bioexorcist himself. Also, please don’t make it look like a Halloween party. Oh and it’s kind of raunchy, so it should appeal to adults. Such limits required a lot of research and brainstorming.
I came up with about 20 concepts but could have kept going forever. With a turnover of about a week, I whittled it down to the strongest ideas and reviewed with Paul Evan Jeffrey at Passage. I then built the top three into more comprehensive comps.
In the world of key art creation, you must walk a fine line between a fully thought-out concept and a sketch. The client must be able to fully grasp the concept with high-quality visuals, but as the designer, you are cranking out several ideas within a matter of days.
Final design and type treatment created by SpotCo.
Results
Often when you work on key art for branding agency, you won’t hear back if your art was chosen. You may stumble upon it months or years later buying tickets on StubHub.
To the left, you’ll see the final design on the Playbill, produced by SpotCo. Though I cannot say for certain my design was the inspiration for the final deliverable, it clearly has the same DNA.
This was one of the most fun projects I’ve gotten to work on, combining two of my passions. I can only hope the musical gets revived so I have a chance to work on it again!
