Check out the Refrain Series!

The Refrain Series is something that has been in the works since the start of the year, but that we waited on releasing because of it's similar style to the Broadway SAL. We didn't want to give anything away to folks participating in the SAL. It is also the first collab line Cynthia and I have made. While I've occasionally done research or graphics for her and she's done wording or touchups for me we normally do our own things, with her doing most of the musical patterns.

It came about because I set down to make a Broadway themed alphabet pattern (something I got distracted from, but is still stewing on the backburner.) Feeling frustrated by that I started thinking about the musicals people had requested for the SAL that didn't make the voting cut. Both of them, Into the Woods and Mean Girls, weren't something we had anything of in the shop and I wanted to make something for them. I started with Into the Woods and listening to it decided it would be neat to do something with the repetitive I Wish in the opening, something similar to what we did with the lyrics in the larger letters like we did for the Broadway SAL. Everything else came from there.

Some of the musicals presented different challenges, either because I just wasn't as familiar with them and had to do a lot of watching and listening (thank you to you wonderful animators on YouTube, I got lost several times just watching your videos!), because there weren't a lot of graphics to pull from, or because the lines I wanted to use would just be too big of a pattern. There was also the embarrassing moment in making the Mean Girls pattern where I forgot the hit by a bus aspect and spent several days searching for a third big graphic to use.

I'm still working through an ever growing list of musicals to add to this series. I've tried to pick popular musicals as well as some that we don't see as much of. Though in some cases, Billy Elliot and Kinky Boots, they were just ones that stumbled into my path while I was working on something else and I had an idea for.

While we aren't going to be creating a custom option for this style we are open to suggestions. Is there something you've been looking for or think would be cool in this style? Send us a message on the site or on Facebook or at taylorandcromwell@gmail.com and I'll move it to the top of my list. Hope everyone has as much fun with these ones as we did making them!

- Tina