I think festival posters are the perfect place for this type of design - if you're looking to buy a ticket you won't use this you'll check the lineup on the website. If you go to the festival and loved it and you want a momento to put up at home this looks great on your wall
Hm that’s a really good point. To add, this might be a scenario where art/creativity can take precedence over function to some degree because (1) the user is engaged and invested and willing to take time to read through the content and (2) music festivals are about art after all.
Furthermore the nature of this festival is small and intimate and has a relatively small lineup. If this was a Coachella or something massive with 200 artists, this wouldn’t work so well
I've gone to 30+ music festivals and the lineup graphic is always where I look 1000% of the time. A large part of design is legibility and delivery of information. This is the worst lineup graphic I've ever seen.
A festival print, what you'd put on your wall afterwards (and I also collect), is where more fun designs are, but they usually have some imaginative and creative artwork to accompany the lineup.
I respectfully disagree with you. It fails in both realms.
I mean the balance is on point because it’s completely symmetrical lol I’d have brought the two on the top/bottom middle a bit closer together but yeah visually this is a fun design. Legibility wise, erm not so much.
If anything I actually read it more because of the odd justification.
But the hierarchy isn’t the most functional.
The only thing I would add is some way to distinguish the band names from each other.
Like is the name of the band “Angel Olsen Barry Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen Barry” and “Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen” and “Barry Can’t Swim”
Or “Angel”, “Olsen Berry” and “Can’t swim”
But then again the people who like the bands would still know.
>Like is the name of the band “Angel Olsen Barry Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen Barry” and “Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen” and “Barry Can’t Swim” Or “Angel”, “Olsen Berry” and “Can’t swim”
I legit had to look this up because I intuitively decided it had to be "Angel Olsen", "Barry" and "Can't Swim". Nope, it's Angel Olsen and Barry Can't Swim.
You can tell I'm not a music person lmao
Imagine a musician just called "Barry".
If you’re the target audience, you immediately recognize a decent amount of the names. I know about 1/3 of the acts and I have NOT kept up with new acts from the last decade or so. But between notoriety and pattern recognition, most people would get what they need from the poster.
It definitely isn’t designed for that in mind. I think it is much more social media facing. Ironic for a “Poster” but like it says tickets are already sold out. I don’t think it was designed for advertising but rather informing the people who already pre-purchased their tickets.
Same. Legibility is still an important concept no matter how cool the poster looks. You CAN do both. I know. I design event posters and have for over 20 years. The cool, illegible stuff had little response to the event because no one knew who was playing. Looked great, but the purpose of communication was ignored over form. It doesn't always work.
And with these huge events full of a plethora of bands, the posters are like reading the phone book. Alan Cross did a bit on them and says it's part of the reason that these bigger festival style shows are seeing a reduction in attendance (not withstand the economic situation of where we are as music lovers)
Same as. I've been designing for the music industry for 20 years - I work ad hoc for Live Nation along with some more indie promoters plus a few festivals.
But hey, WTF do I know lol. The above poster looks like a student project - zero consideration for the end user.
No wonder there are so many on this sub wondering why they can't get a job when this gets held up as an example of good design.
I think some of that way of designing is based upon people who do not really understand the Principles of Design but think a few youtube videos on Photoshop and figma make them a graphic designer. Sure, I have augmented my learning with short courses and one-off videos, but the core understanding of communication was important. Not just learning the software. A cool looking graphic does nothing if it can't convey its meaning easily. In today's world, it has to be understood very quickly, or people move on to the next.
There's a huge misunderstanding of what graphic design is. Most of the examples posted on this sub are graphic art, a completely different discipline where the client is "self".
Normally I'd agree but gig posters have a tradition with the type art and hierarchy and while it's okay to break the rules, I cannot tell you you who the headliner is here, and that puts it into the bad territory for me. The balance between art and design is lost here.
Just realised they ordered it alphabetically. Come on. It's a multiday fest. Who's playing what day. Who are the biggest acts. Art can still convey info (and design pretty much has to).
> I cannot tell you you who the headliner is here
That is on purpose. They're trying not to create a headliner/second-class distinction. From their website:
> FORM reimagines what a festival can be. No VIP sections. Breathtakingly intimate performances with no overlapping sets.
If you can't figure out who's headlining, sounds like the design is functioning as intended :)
Normally I’d agree, but as a music festival-goer, the initial lineup announcement is just to let me know who’s playing and get me excited for the event. I expect the initial lineup announcement to ONLY have names on it. Then, closer to the date of the event, I expect to see a set schedule released that conveys more information about when/where etc. This is just a hype poster in my opinion and it’s different but I think its gets the job done.
I personally like when festival lineup posters don’t have the headliners *literally* headlining the poster. It gives smaller acts a chance to be seen in the same type size as the more well-known acts which can help attendees discover new artists and perhaps become more likely to attend a set they may have otherwise overlooked.
With that being said I don’t love the letter spacing in some of the artist names. For example, Four tet is the name of one artist. Yet it appears on two lines and “tet” is way more spaced out than “four” so if I wasn’t already familiar with them I don’t know that I’d be able to decipher the name. I might mistakenly think “four” and “tet” are two different acts
Just to add to this, it sort of sucks you in to reading the whole lineup and trying to find people you’re excited to see on there. Traditional lineup designs forces attention to the very top and many people don’t read beyond that.
It also is kind of cool that each artist is treated more “equally” and the festival itself isn’t screaming at you who they say the headliners are. Maybe the “headliner” in your mind is one of your favorite bands but they’d be considered “3rd tier” by the festival and in tiny print.
At the end of the day, this style of poster can be very hit or miss. iii points just released theirs and they did something similar, but I felt it was less successful and impactful with obvious imbalances and awkwardness.
Idk if this is supposed to be a gotcha, these are great art pieces and have good hierarchy. I probably should've specified festival poster instead of gig, but these are still better than the OP.
You are correct, they mostly have better hierarchy. From my knowledge of this event, they literally don’t want a hierarchy of performers. It’s much more of a community vibe. I mean, have you seen video of the event? It’s not a normal festival.
the only thing that turns my stomach is the emphasis on "glamping". Although, it does let me know that it's clientele is not in the same category as, let's say, Gathering of the Juggalos.
You get the info from the website. This isn’t meant to convey that information. If all the letters became Xs it would still look great.
Like I said, it’s meant to be art.
>The balance between art and design is lost here.
Exactly. When you are trying to announce a festival lineup, hierarchy and solid typography are key. This is just a muddled mess. The intent behind the design is blurred, and it's much more art than anything. This should be a variant gig poster sold in the merch booth, not the actual lineup poster.
I’m not. You know the answer is that the info I mentioned is on the website, where the line up is.
This fits the purpose of the poster very well, you can’t convince me it’s bad. It’s good art.
I don't know what you don't get hahaha, I agree with you that as an art piece, it is cool and interesting. As design work goes, it is bad.
Trying to decipher this lineup on a smaller scale is a nightmare (social media). if I look up "Form 2024", I get IRS tax forms, and there is no mention of a website URL anywhere on the poster. Idc if the fest is sold out, this is the first time anyone is seeing the lineup. If you are trying to tell people who is who, you are doing a bad job when you can't tell where one group ends and another begins.
Simply, if many people are complaining that it is illegible, then you failed to do your job as the designer.
I get it fine. You’re imposing your own rules on what the purpose of this poster is. It fails by those arbitrary rules.
It wins for what it’s meant to be. Again, it’s sold out. This is not meant to sell tickets.
I remember reading some comments on this sub about people complaining that art is not design, but this poster is such a good example of art emulating design. Some people have their Apple Pencil too far up their bums
This is meant to sell at the merch table. It is not meant to convey useful info to sell tickets. Because again, the festival is sold out.
But thanks, it’s great to see someone use ‘actually’ in real life!
No. I did what anyone interested in further info would do. I went to the website.
There are only 2500 tickets available for this festival. It’s very expensive and deliberately exclusionary.
If you looked into it you’d realize you’re just wrong on this. They don’t need to do any advertising to sell out, period. They don’t even need to publish a list of performers I’d wager, they’d still sell out right away.
Yeah, justified text sucks to read. I'm admittedly not too sure how well it would look visually without the justified text, but at least it'd be more readable.
It looks cool if the intent is for it to be abstract artwork meant solely for decoration.
But if people are actually supposed to read this thing and get information from it? Hell nah.
**I dig it.**
Sort-of-Constructivist inspired design here.
I guess, ***goes with theme of "FORM".***
Ironic, though, since it uses fully justified text ***(flush left and right),***
when Constructivists were more than likely
**to eschew formal, shape conforming, formatted text.**
That part's the only real problem of this poster,
***seems really forced to fit the idea of the design.***
Not a big fan of ever doing that **for legibility and design hierarchy purposes.**
Proof of this recklessness, ***also shows up in the horizontal version of this poster.***
https://preview.redd.it/rxyon3h67g6d1.jpeg?width=1303&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d493057396cc413d95be4bc97f8f7f087486915e
The performers here are listed alphabetically *(left to right, top to bottom)*
and aren't indicated as in an order of performance.
**Therefore, it's practically a random order.**
I would have moved the names around
*until I got a more aesthetically pleasing setup,*
***while remaining in this pseudo-grid format.***
Having the variability of 3 to 5 lines per square top there,
would have helped a lot.
**Then center justified,** ***not fully justified,*** but kerned / letterspaced,
so that long enough names would reach both left and right edges.
**Also, would've used the tiny bullet points,**
***they used to separate the festival sponsors***
at the bottom of the graphic above the dates,
*to separate the full names of these performers.*
I think compositionally, ***that's really an easy fix.***
**Lack of effort by this designer appalls me.**
After going to the [festival website,](https://www.experienceform.com/)
**it even seems that they used someone else,** ***for this poster,***
*other than the established theme and aesthetic,* they already had designed.
??
Looks great, lovely piece of art. It’s clear that the majority here haven’t taken the time to understand the premise or context of this festival/poster.
This sub needs to relax a bit.
Yeah, I follow 3 design subreddits and this specific one feels like a cult. They treat design rules as if they were on the bible.
Sometimes I feel like some people don't even appreciate art because they're focusing too much on the 5 design rules they saw on a TikTok once
100% - the remarks here just remind me of being in university. Everyone trying to flex their knowledge without any realisation of how this craft is applied in the real world.
The one that seriously bothers me is the Skrillex Thunder C A T. It's the only one with a blank space in the middle.
I like it though the legibility is not great, but it's the kind of poster that forces you to pay attention and look for a while and it does that job well.
Form over function.
It gets peoples attention but good luck keeping it once they try to understand it.
Speaking of which, can anyone figure out what its for?
I dig it. You can let go of some legibility on gig posters. We already know it’s “FORM” and not FR22. The band names are a bit clumsily done. Whatever.
this is for sure bad. on the bottom rung, P I N K with that kind of spacing should only be referring to PINK. pantheress seems entirely unconnected on the next line. Plus PinkPantheress is all one word anyway. Other spots with one word artists like skillex and then a massive space? the idea is cool but the content doesn't suit the space well
Nah we can disagree. But a lot of this sub loves to shit on anything that isnt groundbreaking. Which nothing is. Its graphic design. Were not changing lives here.
I think it’s rad. It caught my eye and I took time to look at it which is all I really want lol. I wish there were clear headliners but it’s also pretty cool to put everyone on one level.
Edit: after reading some comments I want to add that I think OP is looking at this wanting it to be more informative whereas I believe the goal was more of an art piece people would keep.
Your edit is correct. It just kinda irked me that they used this as the branded lineup announcement when it should have only been a merch booth variant. Cool art, weak design. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Was cool to have some debate in this sub which has really turned into burn out stories, portfolio reviews, and then occasionally a showcase.
I love it, I just wish the text layout was friendlier
Like I can’t tell if that’s a guy named Mustafa and the rapper Noname or a guy named Mustafa Noname
Hey, real world gig poster designer here with 20+ years experience in the field, working for Live Nation, a bunch of indie promoters and a few festivals (30k+ capacity).
>but gig posters are mostly art anyways
Bullshit.
I love the design and color scheme. Great retro feel! If people are supposed to get any info from this, then I’m more of a sceptic. At first glance I thought the text around was just a texture to my peripheral vision. And then I discovered there’s a date at the bottom and that the “texture” was artist names.
Here’s my point: as an art project, it’s pretty cool. As an informational piece, there’s too much noise. Remember: you’re designing for the reader, not the eye. Yes, make it look good but not at the cost of the information that you are to convey.
Imagine yourself as an employee and you hire someone to design a poster for you and the poster doesn’t communicate what you want it to say but looks great. What is most important?
Looks okay, and honestly love that it’s alphabetical. Makes it easy to look for artist names. Although the justified text with this type kind of throws me off a bit.
It's very well done. Congrats to whomever designed it. Bravo.
Guys, if this was a label for medication, then there would be some significant type legibility BUT it's for a concert!
Design is all about understanding use and audience.
* Easy to read
* Unique and eye-catching design
* Design thematically reflects name of festival
* Decent enough typography
* Decent enough visual hierarchy
OP's mistaking personal taste for objective quality
I actually think it works. It's pleasing to look at, attracts the eye, and then it forces you to linger because it's slightly difficult to read, which can be a good thing.
The design is kinda cool as far as the solid orange/brown shapes, but the FORM 2024 should have been done differently and the text blocks around the shapes are all jacked up regarding spacing, etc. which is pissing me off.
I don't hate it. At least the styling is consistent—and by consistent i mean intentionally shotty kerning.
If everything was kerning and spacing like it *should* this poster would be a million times less interesting
Festival posters are a great place to be experimental!
Some things are not meant to be technically good.
I've said this so many times in this group: Graphic design has no bible. You can have rules, but you can't turn them into your judgments.
I think this poster is insanely good in concept and execution. might not be 100% readable and could have more contrast to focus on some elements but I don't think that this is bad design at all.
You obviously don’t know about Paolo Soleri. You should study up on the architect who built the compound Cosanti and Arcosanti. This poster is fantastic. Not everything is about readability.
Ngl, I kinda like it. Just don’t ask me to actually read it lol.
The balance is on point, I love it. Legibility wise it’s kinda garbage
I think festival posters are the perfect place for this type of design - if you're looking to buy a ticket you won't use this you'll check the lineup on the website. If you go to the festival and loved it and you want a momento to put up at home this looks great on your wall
Hm that’s a really good point. To add, this might be a scenario where art/creativity can take precedence over function to some degree because (1) the user is engaged and invested and willing to take time to read through the content and (2) music festivals are about art after all. Furthermore the nature of this festival is small and intimate and has a relatively small lineup. If this was a Coachella or something massive with 200 artists, this wouldn’t work so well
yeah the poster isn't really about information it's about EXCITEMENT
I'm getting neither.
🙄
I've gone to 30+ music festivals and the lineup graphic is always where I look 1000% of the time. A large part of design is legibility and delivery of information. This is the worst lineup graphic I've ever seen. A festival print, what you'd put on your wall afterwards (and I also collect), is where more fun designs are, but they usually have some imaginative and creative artwork to accompany the lineup. I respectfully disagree with you. It fails in both realms.
I mean the balance is on point because it’s completely symmetrical lol I’d have brought the two on the top/bottom middle a bit closer together but yeah visually this is a fun design. Legibility wise, erm not so much.
Ok yea this would make a cool abstract geometric poster lol
If anything I actually read it more because of the odd justification. But the hierarchy isn’t the most functional. The only thing I would add is some way to distinguish the band names from each other. Like is the name of the band “Angel Olsen Barry Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen Barry” and “Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen” and “Barry Can’t Swim” Or “Angel”, “Olsen Berry” and “Can’t swim” But then again the people who like the bands would still know.
>Like is the name of the band “Angel Olsen Barry Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen Barry” and “Can’t Swim” or “Angel Olsen” and “Barry Can’t Swim” Or “Angel”, “Olsen Berry” and “Can’t swim” I legit had to look this up because I intuitively decided it had to be "Angel Olsen", "Barry" and "Can't Swim". Nope, it's Angel Olsen and Barry Can't Swim. You can tell I'm not a music person lmao Imagine a musician just called "Barry".
If you’re the target audience, you immediately recognize a decent amount of the names. I know about 1/3 of the acts and I have NOT kept up with new acts from the last decade or so. But between notoriety and pattern recognition, most people would get what they need from the poster.
Try reading it while driving past in a car.
It definitely isn’t designed for that in mind. I think it is much more social media facing. Ironic for a “Poster” but like it says tickets are already sold out. I don’t think it was designed for advertising but rather informing the people who already pre-purchased their tickets.
It's purpose is to serve as a $50 souvenir for the wall at home.
Exactly
Is it now. Wonder how many they sold.
Even as a piece for social media, it’s illegible bollocks.
“How does my business card look?” “Try reading it while driving past in a car.”
It’s not a business card. No promoter I work with would let that fly. Souvenir or otherwise.
Same. Legibility is still an important concept no matter how cool the poster looks. You CAN do both. I know. I design event posters and have for over 20 years. The cool, illegible stuff had little response to the event because no one knew who was playing. Looked great, but the purpose of communication was ignored over form. It doesn't always work. And with these huge events full of a plethora of bands, the posters are like reading the phone book. Alan Cross did a bit on them and says it's part of the reason that these bigger festival style shows are seeing a reduction in attendance (not withstand the economic situation of where we are as music lovers)
Same as. I've been designing for the music industry for 20 years - I work ad hoc for Live Nation along with some more indie promoters plus a few festivals. But hey, WTF do I know lol. The above poster looks like a student project - zero consideration for the end user. No wonder there are so many on this sub wondering why they can't get a job when this gets held up as an example of good design.
I think some of that way of designing is based upon people who do not really understand the Principles of Design but think a few youtube videos on Photoshop and figma make them a graphic designer. Sure, I have augmented my learning with short courses and one-off videos, but the core understanding of communication was important. Not just learning the software. A cool looking graphic does nothing if it can't convey its meaning easily. In today's world, it has to be understood very quickly, or people move on to the next.
There's a huge misunderstanding of what graphic design is. Most of the examples posted on this sub are graphic art, a completely different discipline where the client is "self".
It’s really ironic that the festival is named “Form” but the designer doesn’t remember “Form follows function.”
I'm not reading any of the squares. All I see is form 2024
It also can be from 2204, like from the future
I think this is a lot easier to read than a typical wall of text style flyer
Yeah I love this.
Caught my eye enough to tap on it on social media. Dont hate it
Ugh I actually love it.
It's sold out already, making this poster more a souvenir art piece and I respect its formatting while not personally loving the design.
I love it. This isn’t meant to easily convey info, it’s art.
Normally I'd agree but gig posters have a tradition with the type art and hierarchy and while it's okay to break the rules, I cannot tell you you who the headliner is here, and that puts it into the bad territory for me. The balance between art and design is lost here. Just realised they ordered it alphabetically. Come on. It's a multiday fest. Who's playing what day. Who are the biggest acts. Art can still convey info (and design pretty much has to).
> I cannot tell you you who the headliner is here That is on purpose. They're trying not to create a headliner/second-class distinction. From their website: > FORM reimagines what a festival can be. No VIP sections. Breathtakingly intimate performances with no overlapping sets. If you can't figure out who's headlining, sounds like the design is functioning as intended :)
That makes more sense thanks
Normally I’d agree, but as a music festival-goer, the initial lineup announcement is just to let me know who’s playing and get me excited for the event. I expect the initial lineup announcement to ONLY have names on it. Then, closer to the date of the event, I expect to see a set schedule released that conveys more information about when/where etc. This is just a hype poster in my opinion and it’s different but I think its gets the job done. I personally like when festival lineup posters don’t have the headliners *literally* headlining the poster. It gives smaller acts a chance to be seen in the same type size as the more well-known acts which can help attendees discover new artists and perhaps become more likely to attend a set they may have otherwise overlooked.
With that being said I don’t love the letter spacing in some of the artist names. For example, Four tet is the name of one artist. Yet it appears on two lines and “tet” is way more spaced out than “four” so if I wasn’t already familiar with them I don’t know that I’d be able to decipher the name. I might mistakenly think “four” and “tet” are two different acts
Just to add to this, it sort of sucks you in to reading the whole lineup and trying to find people you’re excited to see on there. Traditional lineup designs forces attention to the very top and many people don’t read beyond that. It also is kind of cool that each artist is treated more “equally” and the festival itself isn’t screaming at you who they say the headliners are. Maybe the “headliner” in your mind is one of your favorite bands but they’d be considered “3rd tier” by the festival and in tiny print. At the end of the day, this style of poster can be very hit or miss. iii points just released theirs and they did something similar, but I felt it was less successful and impactful with obvious imbalances and awkwardness.
Good luck trying to decipher the names of the smaller acts. I can't tell where one group ends and another begins.
“gig posters have a tradition” https://preview.redd.it/rzb2vtkibd6d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d50c1527d61fec19115887f6d7c0b7db2425311
“gig posters have a tradition” https://preview.redd.it/xn8mlosjbd6d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e068189c1b66b3c30324aa1025e8dbfc5ce69b3
“gig posters have a tradition” https://preview.redd.it/7944m72lbd6d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb5241b4a85eb66c84e8687f75af5694427ac50f
“gig posters have a tradition” https://preview.redd.it/pyma1kfmbd6d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf3434e164eeaa2430970149b62b92135bcb4713
Those were meant to be readable by people on acid lol
Idk if this is supposed to be a gotcha, these are great art pieces and have good hierarchy. I probably should've specified festival poster instead of gig, but these are still better than the OP.
You are correct, they mostly have better hierarchy. From my knowledge of this event, they literally don’t want a hierarchy of performers. It’s much more of a community vibe. I mean, have you seen video of the event? It’s not a normal festival.
No I clearly haven't seen anything and was just judging it like a normal festival poster
The concert was pre sold out. I think that gives them the ability to be less informative than a normal announcement.
Wait until you see posters for black metal festivals
Yeah there's so much focus on the centre, the festival name and the design that they forgot the event is actually about the musicians lol
> I cannot tell you you who the headliner is here Hot take but this is a good thing actually
the only thing that turns my stomach is the emphasis on "glamping". Although, it does let me know that it's clientele is not in the same category as, let's say, Gathering of the Juggalos.
You get the info from the website. This isn’t meant to convey that information. If all the letters became Xs it would still look great. Like I said, it’s meant to be art.
I do not think there's meant to be a hierarchy because they're placed alphabetically. I personally love the lack of hierarchy
>The balance between art and design is lost here. Exactly. When you are trying to announce a festival lineup, hierarchy and solid typography are key. This is just a muddled mess. The intent behind the design is blurred, and it's much more art than anything. This should be a variant gig poster sold in the merch booth, not the actual lineup poster.
It’s sold out. This isn’t trying to sell tickets.
Regardless, it's a festival poster and it needs to convey key information (i.e. the lineup headliners, mid card, and lower card).
Why does it need to do that? Does it also need what stage they’re on and the set times? What about the address?
Now you're just being facetious lol. As art it's cool, but as a lineup announcement poster it fails its duty of conveying info effectively.
I’m not. You know the answer is that the info I mentioned is on the website, where the line up is. This fits the purpose of the poster very well, you can’t convince me it’s bad. It’s good art.
I don't know what you don't get hahaha, I agree with you that as an art piece, it is cool and interesting. As design work goes, it is bad. Trying to decipher this lineup on a smaller scale is a nightmare (social media). if I look up "Form 2024", I get IRS tax forms, and there is no mention of a website URL anywhere on the poster. Idc if the fest is sold out, this is the first time anyone is seeing the lineup. If you are trying to tell people who is who, you are doing a bad job when you can't tell where one group ends and another begins. Simply, if many people are complaining that it is illegible, then you failed to do your job as the designer.
I get it fine. You’re imposing your own rules on what the purpose of this poster is. It fails by those arbitrary rules. It wins for what it’s meant to be. Again, it’s sold out. This is not meant to sell tickets.
I remember reading some comments on this sub about people complaining that art is not design, but this poster is such a good example of art emulating design. Some people have their Apple Pencil too far up their bums
Actually it’s graphic design which the main goal of is to communicate information.
This is meant to sell at the merch table. It is not meant to convey useful info to sell tickets. Because again, the festival is sold out. But thanks, it’s great to see someone use ‘actually’ in real life!
Where did you read that the tickets are sold out? On the poster that doesn’t communicate information?
No. I did what anyone interested in further info would do. I went to the website. There are only 2500 tickets available for this festival. It’s very expensive and deliberately exclusionary. If you looked into it you’d realize you’re just wrong on this. They don’t need to do any advertising to sell out, period. They don’t even need to publish a list of performers I’d wager, they’d still sell out right away.
None of that makes this a good piece of design. The typesetting is just bad.
OP’s image says it’s sold out on the bottom.
Cool design but yeah the text is a bit much. Also I would have hated having to do the text lol.
why? that’s quite easy in Indesign
People downvoting… linked boxes, full justification, paragraph styles with some GREP.
Yeah, justified text sucks to read. I'm admittedly not too sure how well it would look visually without the justified text, but at least it'd be more readable.
Would look weird. The boxes look cool but limit what you can do.
Hate the tracking but love the sense of depth they created, overall it’s pretty neat design IMO.
It looks cool if the intent is for it to be abstract artwork meant solely for decoration. But if people are actually supposed to read this thing and get information from it? Hell nah.
Design is not just to make things pretty. This is not good.
Visually I like it. In terms of legibility it may not be ideal
Even some of the names on the edges are yikes
**I dig it.** Sort-of-Constructivist inspired design here. I guess, ***goes with theme of "FORM".*** Ironic, though, since it uses fully justified text ***(flush left and right),*** when Constructivists were more than likely **to eschew formal, shape conforming, formatted text.** That part's the only real problem of this poster, ***seems really forced to fit the idea of the design.*** Not a big fan of ever doing that **for legibility and design hierarchy purposes.** Proof of this recklessness, ***also shows up in the horizontal version of this poster.*** https://preview.redd.it/rxyon3h67g6d1.jpeg?width=1303&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d493057396cc413d95be4bc97f8f7f087486915e The performers here are listed alphabetically *(left to right, top to bottom)* and aren't indicated as in an order of performance. **Therefore, it's practically a random order.** I would have moved the names around *until I got a more aesthetically pleasing setup,* ***while remaining in this pseudo-grid format.*** Having the variability of 3 to 5 lines per square top there, would have helped a lot. **Then center justified,** ***not fully justified,*** but kerned / letterspaced, so that long enough names would reach both left and right edges. **Also, would've used the tiny bullet points,** ***they used to separate the festival sponsors*** at the bottom of the graphic above the dates, *to separate the full names of these performers.* I think compositionally, ***that's really an easy fix.*** **Lack of effort by this designer appalls me.** After going to the [festival website,](https://www.experienceform.com/) **it even seems that they used someone else,** ***for this poster,*** *other than the established theme and aesthetic,* they already had designed.
https://preview.redd.it/gmhhaeto0e6d1.png?width=174&format=png&auto=webp&s=60468d246518adfd2f8ff6f2650380f688a4ed8d Can't unsee.
?? Looks great, lovely piece of art. It’s clear that the majority here haven’t taken the time to understand the premise or context of this festival/poster. This sub needs to relax a bit.
Yeah, I follow 3 design subreddits and this specific one feels like a cult. They treat design rules as if they were on the bible. Sometimes I feel like some people don't even appreciate art because they're focusing too much on the 5 design rules they saw on a TikTok once
100% - the remarks here just remind me of being in university. Everyone trying to flex their knowledge without any realisation of how this craft is applied in the real world.
100% They just want to READ not THINK. Boring........
As a designer the typesetting in this poster upsets me.
As a designer... no one cares....
…
The one that seriously bothers me is the Skrillex Thunder C A T. It's the only one with a blank space in the middle. I like it though the legibility is not great, but it's the kind of poster that forces you to pay attention and look for a while and it does that job well.
Form over function. It gets peoples attention but good luck keeping it once they try to understand it. Speaking of which, can anyone figure out what its for?
Form over function but it looks cool Edit: no pun intended
Holy readability issues, Batman!
Work to read it
It’s giving SA SA LE LE.
That tracking is insane, surely they could have just justified the names to make the square instead of doing whatever this is?
FR22 OMO4, I never miss it! All the typesetting is awful
I’m usually for aesthetics over function but looking at this on Instagram trying to figure out who was playing was totally insane
Well you couldn’t buy tickets anyway right?
You could GLAMP!
This is dope and different then any other festival poster I’ve seen. Do I like the kerning? Fuck no. But it’s different so cheers to that
I get what they tried to do but this is not the way to do it.
I dig it. You can let go of some legibility on gig posters. We already know it’s “FORM” and not FR22. The band names are a bit clumsily done. Whatever.
This looks moderately cool as long as you’re not supposed to read any of it. Graphic design fail
this is for sure bad. on the bottom rung, P I N K with that kind of spacing should only be referring to PINK. pantheress seems entirely unconnected on the next line. Plus PinkPantheress is all one word anyway. Other spots with one word artists like skillex and then a massive space? the idea is cool but the content doesn't suit the space well
Thats cool. I like it! Yall just haters. It can be a fantastic design but many of your egos don't let you appreciate anything.
So basically anyone who doesn't agree with your own opinion is just an egotistical hater? Wow.
Nah we can disagree. But a lot of this sub loves to shit on anything that isnt groundbreaking. Which nothing is. Its graphic design. Were not changing lives here.
The Jamie X X is killing me
Looks like one crazy eye exam chart 😵
Looks like the posters we used to have in Poland during communist/sociallist times. Looks neat.
It definitely seems **Constructivist inspired.**
I think it’s rad. It caught my eye and I took time to look at it which is all I really want lol. I wish there were clear headliners but it’s also pretty cool to put everyone on one level. Edit: after reading some comments I want to add that I think OP is looking at this wanting it to be more informative whereas I believe the goal was more of an art piece people would keep.
Your edit is correct. It just kinda irked me that they used this as the branded lineup announcement when it should have only been a merch booth variant. Cool art, weak design. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Was cool to have some debate in this sub which has really turned into burn out stories, portfolio reviews, and then occasionally a showcase.
The design did its job (to get attention) well enough for you to take notice and repost it here though....
I love it, I just wish the text layout was friendlier Like I can’t tell if that’s a guy named Mustafa and the rapper Noname or a guy named Mustafa Noname
Yikes nothing. This is rad. Concert posters are like 30% legibility and 70% "I wanna put that on my wall."
Took me a solid 6 seconds to notice that there were words here.
It’s like this started with a good idea, but they stopped at the first draft.
straight out of 2012
This is good. It's a branding piece, not a brochure. You guys are just old and/or grumpy.
There's a lot I like, but if it fails legibility, then it fails.
Reminds me of a watch face in some ways. But the text is not perfect, no
I guess you could say the design is an example of FORM over function…
good art, bad design but gig posters are mostly art anyways
Hey, real world gig poster designer here with 20+ years experience in the field, working for Live Nation, a bunch of indie promoters and a few festivals (30k+ capacity). >but gig posters are mostly art anyways Bullshit.
The more I look at it the more I like it, first glance I thought I was having a stroke but after the initial shock it drew me in
I'm a very new designer so my opinion doesn't matter but to me it looks really nice and I can read it fine.
Terrible for reader accessibility, but the design is really great tbh
I like the look. But trying to read it gave me nausea.
What's wrong with it?
I love the design and color scheme. Great retro feel! If people are supposed to get any info from this, then I’m more of a sceptic. At first glance I thought the text around was just a texture to my peripheral vision. And then I discovered there’s a date at the bottom and that the “texture” was artist names. Here’s my point: as an art project, it’s pretty cool. As an informational piece, there’s too much noise. Remember: you’re designing for the reader, not the eye. Yes, make it look good but not at the cost of the information that you are to convey. Imagine yourself as an employee and you hire someone to design a poster for you and the poster doesn’t communicate what you want it to say but looks great. What is most important?
fun to look at, bad to read info lol
To people who attend, it’s great. For the rest of us, I thought they misspelled FROM.
Looks okay, and honestly love that it’s alphabetical. Makes it easy to look for artist names. Although the justified text with this type kind of throws me off a bit.
I wish they added a secondary shadow to the box shadows… that way this wouldn’t look like a military medal, to me
wtf is this?!
So many type crimes… 🙈
It's very well done. Congrats to whomever designed it. Bravo. Guys, if this was a label for medication, then there would be some significant type legibility BUT it's for a concert! Design is all about understanding use and audience.
I kinda like it. Feels old in a way
Fuckers Fifi?
Feel like I’m at an eye clinic about to do an eye exam.
I like it
The design is cool, but trying to read it is like reading an eye chart at the eye doctor 😂
Holy kerning Batman
If this was an optician eye chart test the whole world would be blind.
Uh choices were made 🤭
Shouldn't Thunder Cat and Team Ezy be swapped, to maintain alphabetical order?
All I know is Kim Gordon. I'm old. EDIT: And Thundercat.
Design good. Typesetting bad.
Really great piece of art. Terrible at conveying any information.
* Easy to read * Unique and eye-catching design * Design thematically reflects name of festival * Decent enough typography * Decent enough visual hierarchy OP's mistaking personal taste for objective quality
on what planet is this easy to read, and what visual hierarchy? lol
Earth
Upvote for the gif, got a chuckle out of me
damn they must got the intern to do the design
Hard to read but I dig this.
I actually think it works. It's pleasing to look at, attracts the eye, and then it forces you to linger because it's slightly difficult to read, which can be a good thing.
The design is kinda cool as far as the solid orange/brown shapes, but the FORM 2024 should have been done differently and the text blocks around the shapes are all jacked up regarding spacing, etc. which is pissing me off.
Fruit Omoa
I don't hate it. At least the styling is consistent—and by consistent i mean intentionally shotty kerning. If everything was kerning and spacing like it *should* this poster would be a million times less interesting Festival posters are a great place to be experimental!
Some things are not meant to be technically good. I've said this so many times in this group: Graphic design has no bible. You can have rules, but you can't turn them into your judgments. I think this poster is insanely good in concept and execution. might not be 100% readable and could have more contrast to focus on some elements but I don't think that this is bad design at all.
Would you prefer another freepik template with neon gradients and dropshadows set in Bebas?
Its beautiful
Amazing
i love it too hahah id def collect this or have it on a tshirt
HATER ALERT
You obviously don’t know about Paolo Soleri. You should study up on the architect who built the compound Cosanti and Arcosanti. This poster is fantastic. Not everything is about readability.
It is when you are relaying information.
I swear. There aren’t actually any legit designers on this sub. It’s just people who think they know design because they watched “Helvetica” once.