In March of 2023 Crosstown Arts decided to go all out on our Jazz Month celebration. I was given relatively short notice to come up with an entire campaign for the event and luckily, thanks to my excellent managers, I was given a lot of freedom and resources to get it done. I started with the building graphic on the poster and moved forward from there. I broke it down into types of instruments - stringed instruments got stars, woodwinds got music notes, brass got wonky and loud rectangles, and percussion had expressive double-lined borders in their sections. I took these rules to heart and fleshed out a whole scene of the building becoming a living symbol of Jazz. From there I took those aesthetics and carefully fleshed out several types of social media sizes, print ads, calendars, and whatever else our music and marketing departments needed to make Jazz Month a success, and what a success it was!
In my entire tenure at Crosstown Arts nothing has had as positive a reaction as my work on Jazz Month. I really had a wonderful time working on it and I can’t wait to stretch my wings like this again soon.
As a key responsibility at Crosstown Arts, my role revolves around maintaining and adapting the meticulously crafted brand established since 2019. This is particularly evident in the creation of our ad mats. Given that we attract artists from diverse backgrounds, styles, and levels of recognition, it is essential that all promotional materials exhibit a consistent and refined presentation so that the artists remain the focus.
When Crosstown Arts resumed hosting shows after the pandemic lockdown, I took the initiative to align our brand with a more refined and sophisticated approach akin to that of a "Crystal Goblet." As evidenced, our visual aesthetic has evolved over the past few years, transitioning from prominent white boxes to a more photo-focused design. Emphasizing simplicity and unobtrusive graphics, we strive to allow the artists' imagery to take center stage without compromising our brand's identity and aesthetic.
My objective is to make the Crosstown Arts brand as invisible as possible while maintaining a clear hierarchy of information. By continuously simplifying our approach, I aim to better serve both our performers and the community we represent on a daily basis.
Probably my favorite series of events to work on were our monthly jazz shows put on by Strictly Jazz Entertainment. The idea was that they would perform tribute sets based on some of the all-time greatest jazz musicians and, much like jazz itself, I had a lot of freedom to just take the idea and run with it. Before I came onboard they had been using a splotchy, image-traced style for the photos of the jazz greats. But over the course of a few months I eased the aesthetic into a more stylized, photo-based aesthetic. I think you can see a huge improvement if you compare the early posters (Lee Morgan, Nat King Cole, Dexter Gordon) to the later posters, particularly Joe Sample and Wes Montgomery/Charlie Christian. I think I really nailed those two, in particular.
One of the first art exhibits I had a hand in developing was Color Schemes, an open call show for artists to display works that emphasize the impact and significance of color in their work. From the ground up I worked with the curator, Terri Phillips, to create a simple design that allowed the colors themselves to really strike, and sometimes even overwhelm, the viewer. We ended up clashing with some of the higher-ups on some of our design choices but I think we all came to some really good compromises and it turned out really great.
Being an arts non-profit, one really cool thing we did at Crosstown Arts was youth arts workshops. These kids would do anything from theater to dance to music to poetry - they even wrote and filmed two entire horror short films (The Lock-In & The Lock-In 2)! I got to kind of go wild on most of these graphics and I really had a great time. These kids really put their heart and soul into these projects and I just hope that I helped to communicate all their hard work.
Extensive ideation on a new direction for our Continuum Music Festival. We wanted to drive home the festival’s focus on “Adventurous Listening” so I decided to take the design into a more exploratory direction. The concept calls to mind the aesthetic of the Space Race, early science fiction, and the pioneering spirit of space travel all while feeling hopeful, inclusive, and - most importantly - cool.
At Crosstown Arts I was given the opportunity to work with Grammy-winning music artist Kirk Whalum. Kirk had been doing a monthly series of performances with special guests called “Kafé Kirk” and was moving the series to a new home in one of our venues, Crosstown Theater. So, while the logo already existed for Kafé Kirk, I was able to reinvent the aesthetic of the series and really help it establish itself as a monthly destination for Memphis music fans.
Probably the coolest things about working at Crosstown Arts was the opportunity to work with a lot of absolute legends. One of the most insane instances of this is when I got to design the poster and general aesthetic for a live performance of Memphis powerpop heroes Big Star’s album, THIRD. I mostly drew from the album’s cover and overall vibe but I had to make a lot of creative decisions about how to list the participants. I feel like it really came together in the end (plus Jody Stephens said he loved it and that really sealed the deal for me - what a guy!).