On the first day of my Internship, I received my first assignment, which was designing a Playbill-Memory Book for the 21st Birthday of Alex Ko, the son of Dr. Tammie Cumming, and a former Broadway star, who got the starring role in Billy Elliot, the musical by Elton John.
Knowing the kind of people who would meet at this event, I knew that they were going to need something elegant. So, after having conversations with Tammie and her Assistant, Yimmy, we started laying out the project. Of course, I started with a mood board, and then generating different layouts according to the instructions Tammie gave me.
Thank God, the first mockup that I did, was very well received by Tammy and everyone else in the Office, and was later presented to the other two sponsors of the celebration; Kenny Ortega and Stephen Dauldry. That was a little intimidating, Ortega is a very well known choreographer, producer and director who has worked with people like Michael Jackson, and had produced or choreographed series such as High School Musical, Hanna Montana and the movie Ferrys Bueller’s day off. Meanwhile, Stephen Dauldry is a British producer and Director who has won several Tony Awards, and has been nominated to 4 Academy Awards (Oscar) as best Director or best Movie. He has worked with figures as Tom Hanks, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman and Nicole Kidman.
The cover of the booklet was designed using a grid, and script typography, and was practically used the way it was originally designed, only with slight changes. While, the inside pages took a little extra time, due to the fact that they didn’t provide me with all the information until some days before the event, and I had to keep adding pages or doing variations in the design in order to accommodate all the information that was being added. Finally, after working some extra hours, the playbill was done, and print copies were made. The same layout was also used to make a huge Poster. We also had to work on a slideshow that was going to be looping continuously on a Huge flat screen at the Party Salon.
Thank God, the event was a success according to the words of Dr. Tammie and we continued working on the following assignments.
