To the Sea: Anatomy of a winning Jack Johnson poster contest design

By Sean David Robinson

What makes a winning entry? A skilled and intricately detailed illustration? The gross application of an army of Photoshop filters?

Somewhere in between these extremes lies the winning entry for our Jack Johnson – To The Sea poster design contest. Interestingly, I think its success had less to do with the talented hand of the designer, and more to do with his understanding of visual metaphor in the context of the music the poster promotes. Without a seashore, ocean or surfboard in sight, our winner took home the prize by leaving behind obvious and generic elements for something fresh, playful, memorable, strangely melancholy and totally in tune with Johnson’s musical vibe.

The music of Jack Johnson is whimsical but melancholy. His frolicking compositions evoke the spirit of the beach-party singalong, while his lyrics, though not necessarily dark, are rooted in passionate brooding over love lost and broken lines of communication. In turn, tydeboom’s winning poster design visually integrates the contradictory elements of mournfulness and cheer. It does so through the careful selection of detail and juxtaposition of contrasting elements.

The initial focus of the poster is on the composition as a whole: a man pedaling his bicycle seaward, seemingly to surf, to dance to music from the gramophone in tow (look how the design echoes the logo for Johnson’s label, Brushfire– smart move! Tydeboom did his research.), or perhaps to have a nonchalant conversation with his surprisingly docile seabird friend.

As our focus narrows to the finer points of detail, however, we discover an element of sadness in the scene. The man bicycling in search of seaside frivolity is burdened by a deeper sorrow, the kind we might feel in a great weeping willow tree alone atop a hill.

The details which allow us to draw this conclusion about our friend the bicycler are subtle but unmistakable. The body of this man is slump-shouldered and drooping, his slack arms just tentatively holding the handlebars, as though the bicycle is piloting him, and not vice versa.

The placement of his feet upon the pedals gives us another indication of a lack of definite action from this man. His left foot rests gently on the foreground pedal, toes uncurled, giving the impression of a man who is not so much pedaling his bike, but rather coasting a long way down a gentle slope.

But the most striking and impressive detail is the one visible eye. Created with circle and a single line, slightly curved downward and barely diagonal, this eye is a mournful one. The way this works is twofold. An eye with an outline and clearly defined parts – iris, pupil, etc. – carries more emotional weight, more of the life we see in the eyes of our loved ones, even, than an eye created from such simple lines.

Conversely, the single line used to convey the drooping eyelid lets us imbue any more or less mournful attitude upon the man that we choose. We can see him as simply tired, horribly depressed or any emotion between, but we cannot believe he is anything close to excited.

So congratulations to the big winner, as his victory is certainly well-deserved. I look forward to seeing more designs of this caliber, especially in the use of metaphor to convey layers of meaning.

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Sean David Robinson, formerly of the Asheville Citizen-Times, is an author and freelance web and graphic designer. He is also a native North Carolinian, and would appreciate it if you wouldn’t hold that against him.