Broadway SAL - Release 4 Design Insights

We've reached the halfway point! I will admit that I felt a little bad that this one isn't Little Shop of Horrors after seeing how many people guessed that for based on the two new greens coming in from next weeks release. We did have on person guess Hamilton however!

This letter was a lot of fun to design. Of course we had a fit in a star and decided to do it large to bring it into play a little on the next letter as well. Then there were the silhouettes. I will admit that we were not sure these would work at all given how small they needed to be, but they were some of the graphics that I had the most fun on. As we have been going through the releases we have seen so many fun little changes being made and I'm excited to see what people will do with these if there is anyone who likes 3/4 stitches. As it is they were kept a little more blocky so that the pattern was more beginner friendly, but I was so pleased with how they came out.

The extra graphics on this one are fairly simple. The last of the shoes from the O are being completed and the vine is still snaking it's way across. You can see the introduction of two more greens and I think you know what that means for the upcoming D. The bubbles have, for now, disappeared, but don't worry that will be back and soon we will be getting to their source. I know some folks already have good guesses of what and where it is.

As for the lyrics we once again had a couple to consider, things like Rise Up and Not Throwing Away My Shot. But Young Scrappy and Hungry fit so well in the A we had to go with it.

The color choices were probably the simplest for this letter, as Hamilton has a very particular palette.

We have had so much fun so far on this SAL with y'all. I've loved seeing all the little changes and the guesses each week. We can't wait til you can see more of it, and we definitely can't wait to see everyone's finished projects!

Broadway SAL - Release 3 Design Insights

We're on our third release! I'm so excited we have so many amazing folks working on this with us! It has been so much fun seeing all the personalization's everyone is doing! So this week you've probably noticed a few changes to the pattern based on requested changes and an option for this letter to make it easer to those who chose to do the letter outlines in a different color. They should have all been covered in the email, but feel free to reach out if your having any confusion over them.

So this week is Rocky Horror! I think this was the first one that we had as a write in vote that made the final cut! I know the color list threw some folks off on Facebook (though we did get a correct guess there!) and I saw a lot of good guesses based around the pink and blue (I now deeply need to make a Catch Me if You Can pattern after someone guessed that! Waitress is actually open in another window being worked on as I type this.) We also did have a few people guess it correctly in the Zoom meetings based off the shoes.

For the lyrics, we of course had to go with Time Warp - and we wanted to show some of the circular nature of that song (one of the reasons it went on the O) so we made sure that it was set up to repeat on and on in the circle.

Of course the first graphic for this was the easiest. You have to have the lips. The shoes were, of course, off of the Time Warp dance scene. Getting those shoes to work with the black letter was a challenge, and part of the reason we went ahead and highlighted the outline for y'all this time. After we put it all together I thought of some other graphics we could have gone with, most of which went into the lyric pattern I put together for this one. But over all I'm happy we went with the feet, as Time Warp is my favorite song.

We know the colors on this one threw some people off, we really didn't want to have just red and black on this letter, so we went looking through some posters and graphics for the show, the color inspiration was pulled from ones in the style of the poster shown here, pulling in the blue and pink just for the wording.

For graphics from other letters we still have the vine and the bubbles, which a lot of folks have already guessed correctly. But we also have a bit of the A poking in and giving you a sneak peak at the letter color there.

For those of you still working on your border, or who have just finished all that 310, I am sorry for the color of the letter, but we trust you can power through! And we are almost to Audrey II!

Broadway SAL - Release 2 Design Insights!

We're so glad people enjoyed the first release and we're hoping everyone likes this one as much! This weeks release is Rent, which I was a little too happy we ended up putting on the R. Though it's the second release it was one of the last letters we worked on design wise, both because it was one of the later shows to make the cut in the voting and because it has more colors to work with, meaning it could be made to fit in easier next to the colors of Les Mis and the next release.

The graphics were a lot harder to choose here as well, and to a certain extent it once again went to graphics that would represent it well without being too much with the ones around them. Here you can see where the smoke is connected to, showing the candle has recently been blown out. I did sing "would you light my candle" the whole time that I was working on that as well. Other than that were were many choices to choose from. Doing a larger graphic like Angel's pickle tub drum or a guitar for Roger would get interfere with the other graphics at the bottom, or just be to large to do a good representation of. We tossed around the metal moon for Maureen, Collins' coat, and an old fashioned camera for Mark, but in the end we were having a lot of trouble choosing and decided to do the city scape to represent everyone and the backdrop against which their stories are happening. This was the silhouette that I was referring to when I talked about the barricade silhouette in our last design insight. I did try to fit in a camera as well, but it made the whole area just a little to busy.

Here we also have more graphics sneaking in as well. More vines, and now you can see more what the blood drops attach to on the first release. Someone in the FB group already correctly guessed what those bloody vines go to, but as some folks have said their not in the group or on FB I don't want to risk spoiling it for them by saying here, but if you know you know ;) And of course more bubbles. I'm sorry friends it's going to be a little bit before we get to where those bubbles are coming from. We've had a few people guess, but no one has hit on it quite yet. I'll give you a hint, while they are associated with one of the main characters in the show they represent, they were actually part of a bigger element for them. Lastly we have a black spot that if I ID what it is for you I'm afraid I will give it away entirely, but I will say that it matches with one of the teaser photos we put out. And of course you can see the flag being finished up from Les Mis here behind the R.

I also feel for this one we should discuss color choices. As I said Rent has a lot of colors that could go into it, and the movie poster is a lot more vibrant then the stage production's. To keep with the theme we went with the Broadway poster, hence the browns.

Rent was a very fun one for me to do, the movie version came out when I was in high school and my friends and I had it broken down and cast out among us so we could sing it at lunch. I hope everyone enjoys this one as much as they did the last! This one is a thinner release, the next one will be a bit thicker, each varies in size a little with the effort not to give too much in future releases away.

- Tina