Ivor Markman
Poster Designs
Creating theatre and publicity poster is one of the things I really enjoy. Here are a few examples of some of the posters I have put together both for fun and for work, such as my exhibition, sometimes using my photography, at other times using the work of other people. None of these have ever been used commercially.
Chamber of Horrors poster
In 1937, when the committee was planning the New York World's Fair for 1939, the Mayor of New York, Fiorello Laguardia, jokingly suggested that a Chamber of Horrors be built featuring that "Brown-shirted fanatic".
Well, the Nazis were really upset and this developed into something of a diplomatic crisis and eventually, the State Department apologized for the comments but the Mayor refused to stand down and made the same suggestion again. So you see, you won't see this poster anywhere else as it was never used.
To create it, I found a monotone purple anti-Nazi poster of Hitler which was printed in 1942 and removed the original background and the text.
Then I changed the colour of his shirt to brown and made the blood on the dagger red. Next, I found a spooky looking background and flipped it so the moon was on the left-hand side.
It seemed appropriate to use a typeface which looked like it was dripping blood and a red border was added just to finish off the poster. I tried turning his eyes red but it was a bit of overkill so I left them in their original colour.
History of Theatre in Port Elizabeth
A while back I was asked to put on an exhibition at the Port Elizabeth Opera House depicting the history of theatre in Port Elizabeth. It was great fun but unfortunately, I only had seven weeks in which to research, write, design and print it. During the process, I found out about various productions but could not find any of the posters. No problem, I designed my own, some of which are here on display. The info is correct, and in some cases, I managed to find publicity photographs and include them into the photo. In other cases I had to use a bit of imagination.
In 1957 Leonard Schach brought his company to Port Elizabeth and staged The Diary of Anne Frank and yet again I could not find anything with which to illustrate the production. I found a photograph of Anne Frank and a photograph of a page from her diary and blended the two images together. The intention here was to create the feeling of the diary flowing from Anne. I chose a script-like typeface yet I wanted one which still carried a bit of class. I was very happy with the result. The name of the play was written across the entire page with details at the bottom, all in white except for the venue, which was written in red to give a bit of a visual separation.
The Collector is about a man who collects butterflies. I had no production images to work with but a few years ago, while on a trip in the Baviaans River Valley outside Bedford, I took this photograph of a butterfly feeding off a flower. The image was enhanced by a soft, flowing type of font in soft colours making the text easily readable but not obtrusive. The only variable in the text is the size and the plain text of the production company at the top of the page, but out of the image.
This lovely old United States naval recruitment poster seemed like the most appropriate image to use for the production of Sailor Beware. All the original text was removed and replaced with the details of the PEMAD's production.
It was a real stroke of luck to find a black and white production from Will Jamieson's production of The Geisha in an old scrapbook. It had a very unattractive background so I cut it out and replaced it with a beautiful photo of a Japanese tea garden. I found this Chinese-ish typeface for the title and used a very plain and simple font for the rest of the text. It was quite a bit of experimenting with different colours and variations to the text before I got it right. The text had to be placed precisely in the correct spot to ensure it was legible. The black border just seemed to work very well and the single line of red text works well.
In 1949 the National Ballet came to Port Elizabeth. All I could find with regard to their visit was the newspaper advert. Unfortunately, it carried only the barest of information which I included in the poster. This is one of the few occasions when I felt I needed more text. However, even without extra information I feel this poster works.
Nag Het die Wind Gebring (Night Brought the Wind) is a play about the conflicts within a Boer family during the South African War 1899-1902. I needed to create a poster to make the point. I found two black and white photographs, coloured the skin tones, reduced the contrast in the background photo and brought in the graphics on the left to create the feeling of wind and dust. Could have created a dark sky to indicate the night but decided against it. Maybe I'll still do it. The man with the rifle was cut out from a group photo and by careful positioning and enlarging the image, made it appear as though the family in the background are watching him.
At first, after I found this photograph, I couldn't figure out how to use it. The photographer had used direct flash which created awful shadows in the background. The production was for a ballet school to allow the young girls to experience what it was like to perform in public. Then, when I realised the name was a play on the French pronunciation of Paris, I searched for a suitable illustration and came up with this drawing which used soft, pastel, colours. The type was tilted to utilise the space and also to miss the landmark Eifel Tower. The colour of the text was chosen to match the colours of the drawing. Even though I know who the girls are, I didn't include their names as they were only representative of the many who participated in the programme.
This photo is of a painting on the side of an ancient ceramic pot depicting King Oedipus. It is such a beautiful painting I did nothing to it except to enhance the colours slightly. The type was then dropped in and coloured to match the colours of the painting on a very muted mid-grey tone background.
All I had to help with the creation of this poster was an entry in an old programme. It just gave the name of the group. The rest I put together by the rest of the programme. Then I searched for what I thought would be an appropriate illustration and presto, I found this one and dropped in the text. I think it 'works like a dream'.
It was quite a stroke of luck, after much searching, to I find an original black and white photograph of Harold Reece, the star of the local production of The Pirates of Penzance, pasted into an old scrapbook. The background was pretty awful so I removed it, coloured his face and hands, and posted it over a Carribean-type pirate ship backdrop. I used a sort of "spooky" typeface to create a more threatening mood.
Zim Ngqawana, who died in 2011, was widely known as one of South Africa's finest saxophonists. I believe that simply by dropping in a brightly-coloured text, the poster would "pop". One always has to be careful not to destroy the integrity of the poster by having too many logos and sponsors names.
When I discovered that a 16-year-old schoolgirl had produced "The Grey Angel" I just felt it needed to be illustrated. So I found out what the play was about and found this illustration which looked appropriate. I would have preferred to use less text, but that is what I felt was essential to make a point about the play.
Found a rather flat, but otherwise lovely, black and white photograph of Tito Gobbi and increased the contrast. Did a bit of retouching to get rid of scratches etc, coloured a black and white illustration of a picture frame, added a shadow to the text, and dropped it all onto a gradually toned, blue background, with a matching blue-graduated border. From nothing, here's a theatre poster.
This poster posed a number of problems. It was difficult to establish the exact date of Lovelace Watkins, visit to Port Elizabeth, hence I was only able to say 'June'. Finding a decent photo of him also proved a problem until I went to'Art In the Park' one Sunday morning. There, an old LP with this photo of him on the cover was found. It was on a really ugly pink background. The photograph was cut out and then placed on a 'starry' background. I had to place the photo on the left because that was how it was used on the LP cover.
Sarah Churchill, the daughter of the famous British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was a very successful actress but I couldn't find a programme. So I searched for a photo of her and eventually found this one, which was taken more or less at the same time she visited Port Elizabeth. But I wanted to add an unusual British theme and eventually, I found the very beautiful "blob" which I used in the background. I coloured the typeface red to tie up with the red stripe in the background.
A poster advertising Georg Buchner's play "Woyseck," was an absolute 'must have' because it was produced in the Crispin Hall, Port Elizabeth, and was staged by Athol Fugard and the Serpent Players, one of Port Elizabeth's first black acting company. I found one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings and included the photo of Mabel Magada, who plays the part of a murdered woman. I was very happy with the result.
The happy and cheerful oil painting just seemed to capture the spirit of the Eoan Group. The white border works beautifully, providing an area in which to place the text and bringing out all the vibrant colours of the painting.
I wanted to illustrate the 1922 visit of the Cape Town Orchestra but had no illustrations with which to work until I found this black and white cartoon drawing in a 1948 newspaper. The musician with the mandolin is supposed to be wooing Juliet (aka Port Elizabeth) as she looks down from her tower. There were originally two musicians, the other guy was further away, so I removed him, dropped in the brown soil photo, stuck in a typical Eastern Cape tree and colourised portions of the cartoon. Again, all the information is correct.
Believe it or not, but apart from the type, six different elements went into the creation of this poster. For those of you who don't know it, Goldberg and Solomon were two comedians whose entire show was a parody on Gilbert and Sullivan's shows, but with a Jewish humour theme. The words of the famous songs were cleverly changed into Jewish humour. The illustrations were originally black and white and all the colour in the poster was introduced by me. I chose a typeface which just happens to be called Broadway.
It was a stroke of luck to find this black and white production photograph of Athol Fugard wading through the shallows of the Swartkops River during the filming of Boesman and Lena. It was such a great shot I decided to keep the text on the photo to a minimum. The photo was changed into a sepia-toned photo and the title text was kept a simple black and white while the secondary text is a subtle tone of grey.
All I had for this poster was the romantic production photo. I don't believe it was intentional, but the lens must have been scratched and then the bright background caused the misty background effect. The photo was dropped in over a graduated background, trying out various colours until finally it was decided to settle for the blue.
Again, all I had to go by was an old newspaper clipping which advertised Newell High School's concert at the Port Elizabeth City Hall. In 1949 there was no way Newell would have been able to afford fancy posters so I created one for them. I found this beautiful backdrop, brought in some borders on which to drop in some text, matched the colours and presto!. I was very happy with the result.
Night Must Fall is a play about a crippled, wheelchair-bound, woman whose body was found in a forest. The image needed quite a bit of manipulating but I believe the end result works well. I coloured the name of the play in red in order to make it stand out from the rest of the poster.
Pagel's Circus was famous South African circus which travelled around the country. I found an old newspaper advert advising the public that Pagels were about to celebrate their 50th anniversary. After conducting a search, an old poster was found which said nothing about the birthday. After a lot of cleaning up, it was dropped onto the orange background and the 50th-anniversary logo and the text were added. The information all came from the newspaper advert. Finished it all off with a gold border.