LEAR Poster & Billboard

Project
Design poster and billboard for upcoming production of LEAR

Client
Obvious Dad Theatre

Year
2023

My Role
Graphic Design

Obvious Dad is a theatre company that aims to “create defiant theatre that spotlights diverse voices, ideas, and expressions.”

I was commissioned by Obvious Dad to create a poster and billboard advertising their upcoming production of LEAR by Young Jean Lee.

LEAR has been described as an absurdist tragedy about familial piety, despair, and the end of life. It is inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Intake

The main request I received for this design was to consider the theatre’s previously established brand identity which was described as retro, avant-garde, and collage style.

With this in mind I decided to cast the subject in a newsprint style halftone to mimic the cut and paste aesthetic the theatre was already conveying.

Why Big Bird?

– Spoiler alert –

One of the ways in which LEAR tackles its broader subject of mortality is by re-enacting a scene from Sesame Street where some of the adult cast members explain the loss of the show’s beloved Mr. Hooper to Big Bird, who is learning about the finality of death for the first time.

It’s a serious matter that Lee cleverly wraps in comedy and delivers with bold, poignant strokes.

And of course the presence of Sesame Street in an adult comedy about mortality is bound to incite a certain amount of curiosity, it’s that curiosity that I hoped to harness when referencing Big Bird in my design.