Atlantic City
Song Poster
Design a poster inspired by one song from Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska to visually communicate the song’s theme through typography, image, and layout.
This is a song about being forced into a life of crime because of a lack of money. The idea here was to create a poster that looks like a newspaper at a glance, but if you look deeper you can see that things are off about it. This mimics Atlantic City, which is a seemingly normal city with a dark underbelly.
One way to make the newspaper look “off” was to edit an actual photo of Atlantic City until it was unrecognizable. Another was to redact the words “Atlantic City” any time they appeared. This reflects government documents which redact confidential information.
This poster couldn’t look digital; it had to appear like an actual printed newspaper. I knew I could accomplish that via xerox transfer. I printed the poster ten times and xerox transferred each version and scanned them back into the computer. Then, I photoshopped together the best parts of each scan and cleaned it up. I created a few different options for the final product and eventually landed on this version.
One way to make the newspaper look “off” was to edit an actual photo of Atlantic City until it was unrecognizable. Another was to redact the words “Atlantic City” any time they appeared. This reflects government documents which redact confidential information.
This poster couldn’t look digital; it had to appear like an actual printed newspaper. I knew I could accomplish that via xerox transfer. I printed the poster ten times and xerox transferred each version and scanned them back into the computer. Then, I photoshopped together the best parts of each scan and cleaned it up. I created a few different options for the final product and eventually landed on this version.
four unedited scans of the xerox transfers
