I was commisoned to create a series of posters for the VNV Nation TRANSNATIONAL world Tour 2013-2014. it was a great collaborative process with band's frontman Ronan Harris he gave me a lot of feedback and direction to what the album and the tour represent, but he also give me a lot of freedom to incorporate as many of my own ideas as possible.
The main idea of TRANSNATIONAL is to transcend countries reaching as many people as possible all united by music so one of the idea was to use one of the first transnational modern era transportation devices: A train.
Poster A
A second Poster was created inspired on the World's Fair,
this one is focused on the unity of the world.
Poster B
Some of the inspiration came from Cassandre´s posters, this art deco pieces were a great source of ideas and style.
(LEFT) A quick thumbnail sketch for the World's fair concept. (CENTER) an early rough study of The train in motion.
(RIGHT) a more complete sketch using graphite and charcoal pencil.
Here are some previews with more dramatic shadows and contrast as well as title tests.
I then traced the shapes on the computer in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop helped me to add the textures and finishing touches.
Finally after the last details of the artwork we moved into typography, I tried a different layout for the text but I wanted to keep it simple using only one or two fonts that are readable yet eye-catching.
A limited edition of the poster was sold exclusively at the TRANSNATIONAL concerts.