Case Study: Theater Logo: The Prince & The Pauper

One of my favorite clients is Children’s Stage Adventures run by Rob and Lorrie Gray. They’re based here in New Hampshire, and they travel throughout New England and Eastern Canada conducting one-week theater residencies. They coordinate with local schools, community groups, and summer camps.

In short, they give kids a taste of theater, and a chance to perform in a real live show. They’ve been making kids and parents happy for 20 years now, and it’s a pleasure to be associated with them.

They’ve asked me to create “logos” for a number of their shows. They use the term “logo” to mean: a single illustration that summarizes the story; one they can use on their website, on posters, for newspaper ads, and on merchandise (souvenir tee-shirts).

They asked me to create a logo for their latest production: an adaptation of Mark Twain‘s famous The Prince And The Pauper. There were quite a few steps involved, and I thought it would make a fun and informative case study.

Theater means costumes. They’re a big part of creating the right look for a show. So I started by doing some online searches.

I found some great stills from the 1937 Errol Flynn movie version.

I was also lucky enough to find some cast photos from other kids productions of the story.

Next comes the thinking part (ouch!) and the messy part: coming up with ideas and making little thumbnail sketches on scrap paper with a ball-point pen.

I try to give clients 3 or 4 ideas to start with and react to. They can then ask for changes, mix and match ideas, suggest something else entirely, whatever they want.

I knew from past experience that the logo needed to include the title, with “Children’s Stage Adventures” underneath.

One idea: two heads wearing a single crown.

The prince and the pauper giving each other a high-five, while various English court-related characters look on.

The two main characters studying their identical appearance in a mirror (which I stole from one of the 1937 movie stills), with the other characters peeking out from behind it.

The main characters propped up on a crossed sword and walking stick, with the other characters grouped below.

Rob and Lorrie liked #4.

The next step was trying out various fonts for the title.
(No need to experiment with fonts for “Children’s Stage Adventures,” which has always been Comic Sans MS Bold.)

Something a bit plainer.

A bit fancier again.

Bolder, easier to read, perhaps.

Rob sent me feedback in the form of several images he’d pulled off the internet. He wanted typefaces more along these lines:

I went through my collection of fonts and put together different combinations.

I thought this one had a King Arthur vibe.

This one is a little easier on the eyes.

Script combined with a semi-courtly font.

Rob and Lorrie decided on a combo that pulled from
two of the above ideas, and asked that “Children’s Stage Adventures” span the width of the drawing.

On further reflection, we condensed “Children’s Stage Adventures” slightly, and moved it up closer to the drawing.

Having finalized the type and text placement, it was time to refine the drawing.

Years ago, I used to do finals from scratch. And they always lost something. They’d look stiff, forced. And I’d be frustrated.

I finally figured out that my roughs (which tend to be fairly complete) had a certain energy, a spontaneity, because I do them quickly without worrying about every last detail. I lose that energy (and the art is poorer for it) when I try to recreate the rough from scratch.

What I do now (in most cases) is clean up the rough: I correct mistakes, redraw certain things, and try to retain as much energy and spontaneity as I can.

And that’s what I did here. If you study the drawing below, you’ll see that stray lines have been erased, the crown is different, the pauper’s cap is larger (more proportionate to his head), I redrew the pauper’s foot, the lines on the bishop’s mitre are more evenly spaced, the street urchin to the bishop’s right is hoisting himself up with his feet slightly off the ground, etc.

Which brings us to the funniest part of the assignment.

You may have noticed the pauper’s cap was rather smelly, with a couple of flies buzzing around it.

Rob and Lorrie weren’t sure they wanted that much “realism.” They asked to see the cap “with no smell and
bugs, and one with fewer,” so they could do a compare.

Which led to this amusing series of roughs:

One bug:

Two bugs:

And no smell, no bugs– which proved to be the winner:

There was one final tweak.

If you look closely at the sword and stick lines in the above drawing, you’ll see that they have contrasting weights: a heavier line, and a thinner line. Rob asked to see them with equal weights.

Here’s the thinner version:

And the thicker version:

Rob and Lorrie opted for lighter, equal weights. The experiment allowed me to correct something I’d missed:
the pauper’s arm was uneven.

Here’s the final: