ABOVE:

The Band: The Tallest Man on Earth

The Song: A Field of Birds

The Artist: Tad Carpenter

He says: "My inspiration for creating a poster for this song or any poster for that matter is simple. Try and achieve the same overall message and feel the musicians achieved through lyrics and notes with elements I use each day. Using elements like color, shape, form and typography are my ways of interrupting the band or song. A field of birds is a very inspiring, empowering and uplifting song. I wanted to maintain that overall feel to the poster. The song also has a bit of whimsy and needed to be fun and inviting overall.

Like any project I started with pencil sketches. Concepts playing off of the band name The Tallest Man Alive is where I started. Showing this larger than life figure draped in birds on a hill side.

The song talks about “a little bird found a thread hanging from my sleeve” and speaks several times of a "little girl" throughout the song. As you can see one of the birds has a thread in her mouth and the the little girl plays a prominent roll in the composition of the poster as she does in the song. Of course the birds as mentioned in the song are shown as a field of birds which seemed like an injustice if that was not addressed.

After the concept was chosen and pencil sketch was refined and tightened up I moved onto the computer to draft the final illustration. Color studies are done on the computer as well as off screen. Several elements on the poster are also drawn by hand and brought in system for final layout.

When finished and completed I feel the poster has the same whimsical, inspiring tone the song does. Now, if only we could all find our own field of birds :)"

Indie rock meets art