12 Angry Men

For this Playhouse Merced poster, I was channeling Saul Bass, genius designer of iconic posters for movies like Vertigo, West Side Story, The Man with the Golden Arm and many others.

The play takes place in a jury room, where tensions rise as jurors decide the fate of a young accused murderer. The idea of the poster was to show 11 jurors vs. 1, which is how things stand after the first vote: 11 say guilty, 1 says not guilty). The murder weapon, a switchblade - Exhibit A, is pointed toward the chair, which hopefully seems as if it was knocked over during a moment of heated debate.

Check out the show in Merced September 24 - October 3. It's being directed by my good friend Jim Kocher.

An Unfamily Tradition

In 1968, I was 6 years old. My folks decided to have a picnic in San Mateo County Memorial Park. There were about a dozen or so folks there that first year. It became an annual event each summer and through the years more and more people started attending the picnic.

We called it our family picnic for many years until one of our friends, Jann Boyd, said it's really an "unfamily" picnic since there were so many various families and individuals that attended each year. The name stuck.

It's a day of food, horseshoes, BBQ, volleyball, food, enjoying the redwoods, hiking, food, laughter, friendship and, of course, food.

Year before last, my brother and I devised this logo which captures some of the spirit of the day. (The "L" in the logo is a banana slug, which you can find throughout the park if you look carefully.)

New Playhouse Merced Poster

This is the latest poster I did for Playhouse Merced's upcoming production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The design elements are picked up from the set designs by Playhouse Merced's Corey Strauss, who creates these incredible worlds on stage. I really like that the poster will tie in with the actual show. Also, it's fun to come up with posters that are mostly type design sometimes.