Fairy Tale Fiascos

I was asked to develop a poster for the 2008 production for Alberta Dance Theatre, titled Fairy Tale Fiascos. It was a series of fractured fairy tales much like "the True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" or "the Stinky Cheese Man" so there was a lot of fun to be had. The key thing was that it had to look fun and appeal to their demographic.

When I presented the first round of concepts it seemed clear to me that I was over-complicating things so while we looked at the first concepts we started to talk about the fractured fairy tales that were to inhabit the performance.

I kept going back, in my mind, to the fractured fairy tales from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show and how the Fairy Godmother was crushed in the pages of the book. This led to the idea of the wicked witch from Oz being crushed under the weight of a book, with only her ruby slippers and striped stockings exposed. The client loved the idea and requested some additional elements be added to show context for the scene.

When all was said and done, though, it was apparent to me that as a poster it would work best if it was as simple as possible, so setting disappeared, as did extra characters, and the book became the only element floating in a happy sea of blue.

The finishing touch was adding a spot foil to the shoes (which doesn't translate very well here) to make them look more like the ruby slippers of the Wicked Witch. The end result is a poster I'm quite proud of.