In September 2018, I was approached to design the poster for Loyola University Maryland’s student-directed fall play, “Getting Out.” The show follows the 24 hours after a woman (named Arlene) gets out of prison. All she wants to do is live a good honest life on the other side. Unfortunately, people from her past keep finding their way through her door. The play features two Arlenes; one was a flashback Arlene who portrayed her character in prison or even as a child, and the other was a present-day Arlene, dealing with the trials of her first day out of prison.
The first concepts for the poster were centered around rendering Arlene’s face or her silhouette twice to show the duality of her character, with one face behind bars and the other freed. As I was sketching out ideas, I suddenly came up with the concept to abandon the human image altogether and purely focus on the aspect of place. To keep with the concept of juxtaposition, I divided the image but kept continuity and symmetry using the bed frames to give the viewer the impression that the two places exist simultaneously–just as Arlene never truly leaves her past behind. I designed the poster in Adobe Illustrator.
I love the concept of this poster and I’m happy that the design is not extremely literal. I also included elements of the set mentioned in the script, such as bars on Arlene’s new apartment windows and a trunk in which she stores her belongings, which audience members made connections to when they saw the show.
