Design insights are back! At least for the N.
We have been struggling a lot as many of you know and we let the design insights fall off, but Next to Normal is a special show to me, so I thought I'd take a stab at doing one for it.
Next to Normal was the show that I listened to while I was going through getting my mental illness diagnosed and trying to find meds that would work. Needless to say a few of the songs fit a little too well. I still call it my breakdown show and will belt The Break whenever I'm having a rough time with it again. (We have a story that I find funny about me scaring our roommate at the time with Catch Me I'm Falling.)
For the graphics I started with the piano keys, because I really wanted to get them and the music notes in. I didn't want to do a full piano however, so we decided to have the keys weaving around the letter.
The porch light on the side is a reference both to the house on the poster and playbill, the last song (Light), and Light in the Dark. I looked at an embarrassing amount of porch lights to decide on the design. I think I got a little stuck, because it took me about 3 times as long as everything else on here.
Of course we had to include some pills, though I didn't want them to be the main focus. For this one I went with Paxil (orange), Zoloft (green) and a mix of Clonophin and Ambien (shape and color.) I had actually drawn all of them as larger pills for a different project and pulled from that.
The bread and the meat on the ground, as well as the loaf of bread poking out, are a references to the sandwiches being made on the floor at the beginning of the show. The cake is a reference to He's Not Here.
Of course for the color of the letter we had to go with purple, making it our first purple letter. We were actually recently using the same purple and white for a Suffs pattern and had to adjust, because it looked too much like Next to Normal.
The wording was taken from Light, the last song in the show.
We hope everyone enjoys this letter as much as I enjoyed making it.
