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Poster: Joni Mitchell Tribute Night 2012

Joni Mitchell Tribute Night 2012

Once again I have had the pleasure and privilege of designing a poster for the annual Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert, a benefit for the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) scholarship program, in Ithaca NY. As a Joni fan, songwriter and musician myself, this is a distinct pleasure.

Thanks to CSMA Board member Joe Gaylord, who works tirelessly to organize and promote the event. He is also a songwriter, musician and good friend.

The performers this year are …

Amelia Burns

Joe Gaylord

Colleen Kattau & Some Guys

Jody Kessler

Ron Kristy

Erika Lundahl

Susan Lytle

Sue Tierney McNamara

Eric Miller & Christine Evans

New Roots Chorus

Tom Peters & Ben Wells

Susan Terwilliger

Maggie Whitehead

 

See my posters for previous Joni Mitchell Tribute Nights
Oh. You might want to visit jonimitchell.com

I am making a book of sunrise and sunset photos, but first I made this music vid to one of my favorite songs.

CD Design
No More Invitations (Jennifer Haase www.ryhmeswithclassy.com)

Several months in the making, singer-songwriter Jennifer Haase’s long-awaited CD is now out. I found an amazing photo of antique Edwardian doll’s heads at the Flikr photostream for alliesadornments.com. We were given permission to use this photo, which is so perfectly in keeping with the thread that runs through Jennifer’s songs, and a little creepy! Subtle enhancements in Photoshop included desaturating slightly and adding a gradient shadow at the top of the photo. The entire design — colors, type, etc — followed from there.

But there were some challenges for me. Jennifer said she wanted RED and a vibe that was sexy and sly, and no photos or images of herself. But the biggest challenge was to include a lot of text thanking her many album investors. I even created a short video for Jennifer to give her an idea of how the layout would look.

After a few false starts, we hit on the right packaging design and overall concept that led to this classy album with its arresting cover. Rosanne Cash, who sings with Jennifer on one of the songs, reminded us about its similarity to the infamous Beatles’ cover that never was, with the Fab Four holding creepy dolls (‘Yesterday and Today’ — go on, google it!).

Font: Despieneda (MyFonts)
Template: modified 6-panel “Jewel Free” with a clear hinged tray from OasisCD.com.
Layout: InDesign
Photo effects: Photoshop

Listen and buy at www.ryhmeswithclassy.com

Cover for Jennifer Haase CD, 'No More Invitations'

Front/Outside of Jennifer Haase’s CD, ‘No More Invitations.’Cover for Jennifer Haase CD, ‘No More Invitations’

'No More Invitations' inside panels and disc on hinged clear tray.

Signed Posters

Signed Posters

It’s a great joy to combine my passions for graphic design and music in poster design.

I have been a devotee of Mitchell’s songs and guitar playing for almost 40 years. A few years ago I started a tradition of “Only Joni” open mics featuring local musicians performing Joni Mitchell songs. They were the outgrowth of a fun set I performed at the 2002 Ithaca Festival , complete with long blond wig.

These events were hugely popular and spawned another local tradition, the Joni Mitchell Tribute Concerts benefiting the Community School of Music and Arts, part of their Arts For All Marathon fundraiser held each Fall.

I was thrilled to create the posters for these events.

Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert 2010 alternate

Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert 2010 alternate

Joni Tribute Poster 2010

Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert Poster 2010

Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert Poster 2009

Joni Mitchell Tribute Concert Poster 2009

Joni Mitchell set at 2002 Ithaca Festival

My Joni Mitchell set at 2002 Ithaca Festival

 

Jennifer Haase

 

“Jennifer Haase is a unique and gifted songwriter with the voice of an angel. I highly recommend her.” –Rosanne Cash

I’m excited to begin working on the new CD for my friend Jennifer Haase.

Jennifer is an amazing, subtle songwriter with a coy, charming voice much like Alison Krause, but this sweetheart can deliver a cutting comment or two and before you know it you realize you are dealing with a formidable observer and storyteller. We met at Rosanne Cash’s songwriting workshops.

By sheer dint of optimism, Jennifer has raised more than $10k to fund her second album project.  I’ll be donating some of my time and a discount to help her make it happen. ”No More Invitations” will arrive in 2011. The 1st single NEW PINK SWEATER is available for download now at www.cdbaby.com/cd/jenniferhaase or your favorite music e-tailer.

This is going to be so much fun!

Finished Product

Cross pollination is inevitable with repeat clients.

Enjoyable, too. In this case, really something to celebrate as Paper Kisses (Tom Mank and Sera Smolen) and Xerox The Clouds (Susan Hoover and Sera Smolen) were debuted on the same day, at Tom’s birthday party in Ithaca.

There is always a chance the printing can go terribly wrong so I was very pleased and relieved to see the results. Two very fine products looking exactly as hoped for.

Paper Kisses was manufactured by oasiscd.com and Xerox The Clouds was made by mixonic.com.

CDs, Paper Kisses and Xerox The Clouds

The finished CDs came out looking exactly as hoped for. Everybody happy!

If you’ve been longing to start your own blog but don’t know where to begin, I can help!

My friend TMann writes about recovery, sports, and American culture. He is also a house painting contractor here in Ithaca, NY.

While painting a room in my house, TMann confessed he had been thinking about creating a blog but had no idea where to begin. So we met at my computer and within an hour we had published an About page and his first post for thesoberguy.wordpress.com.

TMann's blog, thesoberguy

thesoberguy "About" page

I chose Blix for the theme and photographed TMann’s portrait for the “About” page. TMann sends me his posts as Word files attached to an email. I do a quick spell and format check and paste it into a new post. Our basic categories are “Sports” Sobriety, “Living Sober,” etc.

Careful tagging is the key to bumping TMann’s posts in wordpress serches. For instance, search for  sobriety and food at wordpress and TMann’s post For Drunkards, Food Is Secondary tops the list of related posts.

What can I do for you? Leave a comment or email me patti@pattiwitten.com

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