Admiral Fallow information poster

“(Their) brooding, heartfelt folk leanings are bolstered by a sound track of colourful orchestration, including flute, strings and double bass - a rich concoction that has caught the attention of more than a few unsuspecting ears.” The List 

Admiral Fallow is a group formerly known as Brother Louis Collective, born in 2007 and gathered round the singer/song-writer Louis Abbott. It includes 6 members : Louis Abott- lyrics/singing/guitar, Sarah Hayes - piano/flute/singing, Kevin Brolly -clarinet/piano/drum, Philip Hague - drums, Joseph Rettray - bass, Tom Stearn - guitar and singing. Their great voices and the use of instruments create great folk/indie music.

Lead singer and main writer Louis Abbott has said that “All of the songs document the first chapter of my life, be it memories from school or kicking a ball about with my childhood chums. All of the songs are taken from real life events. There's no fiction. I'm not into making up stories or characters for the sake of trying to stir emotions. They are songs about friends and family as well as a fair bit of self-evaluation.”

As Louis expressed, their music is full of pain. It’s nostalgic and touching.

Also, in their songs, Admiral Fallow uses much metaphor, what puts the listeners into the state of katharsis even more.

Therefore, what I have noticed while listening to their music was that even if the lyrics were very sad, the music, still, was very happy, dancey and cheering up. If not listening to the lyrics, you actually could think their songs are about cheerfull moments.

My design is focusing on the aspect of the happy feeling of the music contrasting with the sadness of lyrics, shown methaporically by the count of the movement done by them on the stage and information of the instruments used by each of them. 

The bacground colour expresses the unhappy content of the lyrics. The grey and blue colours create the feeling of sadness and nostalgy. The texture put in the background is not only adding to the general meaning, both of sorrow and folkiness, but it also refers to the bands’ album covers :

Another part of th design conveying the sadness is a willow tree. This symbol is not random, as it’s taken from one of their songs (“Dead against smoking”) where the lyrics say “You are like the willow tree”. The willow tree, also called crying tree, represents sorrow.

Taking this important symbol into consideration, and conveying it into the design meaningfully, I have presented the members moves as the leafs on the tree. Each person has their own colour and the amount of leafs expresses the exact amount of movements performed by each person on the stage, based on four live performances.

I have used cheerful colours to reffer to the happy feeling of their music. The colours are vivid, but they are kept in the colour theme of folk/indie music (natural colours), as well as toned down a little to keep the overal concept consistent.

All leafs on the tree together show the contrasts and similiarities to the amount of movements done by each member, which is the funny and interesting part of the design.  I did not want to show a very common information about them, instead showing something unexpected.

The leafs are taken on the bar to show the amount of movements of members on a basic diagram, where the audience can see the whole “100%” and compare the member without problems.

The lines coming from the bar and matching each persons leaf are thin and simple, not to disturb the design nor catch too much attention, and very straight to give the design a little more feeling of clarity, and simpliness. That not only makes the design look more like actual information poster, but also reffers to the simple feeling of the bands album cover traphics.

The leafs on the left side represent each person’s individual style and how they participate in creating this great music. Each leaf consists of few parts, showing the exact movement done by a member, as well as showing the amount of particular movement in contrast to the other ones performed. It also, again, shows the contrast between individual members.

I have also used the bracket symbol, as it is a unique detail used by the band.

The fontused for most of the text is Bodoni. I have chosen this font for three reasons : first of all, it is used by the band n their logo, second of all, the font expresses the band perfectly : it’s simple, looks trustworthy, and sophisticated. The serifs add more of a readibility, and with the curvy letters ( for example the leg of an “R”) look very naturalistic. The third reason is that it is a modern font, conveying the time the band is producing in. They are new and fresh.

The font used for the poster name is also simple and thin. It’s imitating the font used by the band for their album covers. Its a sans serif, looking very modern, what is a similiarity to the Bodoni font, nonetheless, its very simple and thin, what also creates a great contrast to Bodoni, giving the title attention as well as making it consistent with the thin lines on the design.

The title is a big metaphor, as the bands lyrics use much of it as well. Weeping willow sways to the beat - those words basically explain the poster. A sad tree (the members of the band) dance to the music they create.