Branding and publicity design for Scotch 'n' Soda Theater's 2016 production of Murder Ballad, a one-act rock musical.

Murder Ballad's official branding has a retro, 8-bit vibe. We thought this would send mixed messages at a technical school like Carnegie Mellon. Our goal was to evoke the core themes of the musical: lust, passion, and ultimately muder. We were interested in using close-up shots of the human form to suggest passion — simultaneously and ambiguously violent and sexual.

we searched the internet for inspiration

two of the show's performers volunteered to pose for us

created by tiling and rotating photos from our shoot

We set out to rethink traditional social media marketing. In addition to Snapchat filters, we created the "Murderballadizer". This website turned the Facebook profile pictures of the cast and crew into provocative advertisements for the show.

the cast and crew used their facebook profiles to advertise

we purchased a Snapchat filter around the University Center theater

After much iteration and final budget and content approval from the board, we put our final designs into production.

identical except for the song lyric towards the top