University project
A short project at the beginning of Stage 3 - the task was to create a visual identity for a music tour by an artist of my choice.
Despite being the most popular heavy metal band, none of Metallica's tours have had a cohesive visual identity. I created a concept for a new tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Black Album in 2021, based around nostalgia and recreating the energy of the 90s and the concert experience from that era. The look was inspired by memorabilia by Metallica and other bands from the years around the album's release.
The project involved making teasers for social media & traditional advertising, reminiscent of graphic materials from the 90s - the main teaser uses James Hetfield's recognizable silhouette, sparking people's curiosity without revealing much.
I used a typeface popular then, grunge textures and distressed edges to to create a more authentic look, added a halftone texture typical for many of Metallica's posters from that period, and incorporated blue and black as the main colors to create a colder look that suits the album's atmosphere ("Chill in the air cold as steel tonight..." - Of Wolf And Man). The way the blending mode of the texture layer interacts with the color also suggests dynamic music, distortion and electric guitar sound.
The other 2 teasers for social media are a sneak peek into the backstage setup for the concerts, and a close-up of a handwritten setlist.
The setlist was arranged by me after thinking about the order of the songs and taking into account how dynamic they are. I wanted to incorporate the authentic handwritten look but as the setlist has never been played before, I found a photo of a setlist written by Lars Ulrich and edited the order of the songs, and added his sketch of one of the drum set he used around these years.
A draft of potential setlist for the 1993 Nowhere Else To Roam tour, and a drum kit setup sketch by their drummer Lars Ulrich
Combined the first two photos into one, made a mockup and cropped a tiny part of it to use as a social media teaser for the tour.
Additional promotional materials include social media covers, billboards and posters, and I'll also be making tickets and backstage passes all following the same look.
The project also involved creating merchandise - due to time constraints, I chose not to explore a detailed illustrative approach, so I used James Hetfield's doodles and made a separate piece of apparel for each single on the album.
The ticket design is also loosely based on designs of old concert tickets from the 80s and 90s and follows the same cold, electric look of the tour.
I also created a concept for an immersive experience in certain places meant to promote the tour, allowing people to feel like they've gone back in time to relive Metallica's iconic concert in Russia in 1991.
The experience will be a black storage container that people will enter after putting on a VR set - they will see a 360-degree view of the concert from a position in one end of the stage close to the band members, and a surround sound system will allow them to hear the audience, the band members and the flying helicopters realistically from different sides. The floor of the box will be a platform that can recreate the vibration on stage when band members are walking around, and the air will move so one can feel like they really are standing on the outdoor stage in front of millions of people.
Over 200 pages of research and development led to this idea - here is just a small part of my inspiration and references.
Some photos, handwritten lyrics, memorabilia and other sources that served as inspiration for the final look.
