Live, Laugh, LoTR

Three tongue-in-cheek takes on Live Laugh Love for true nerds.

Illustration | Hand-Lettering | Layout

Roles: Illustrator | Lettering Artist | Visual Designer

Tools: ProCreate | Illustrator | Adobe Fresco | Screen Printing

Timeframe: 4 months (March – June 2023)

Why do LotR fans need another poster?

Lord of the Rings (LotR) fans who grew up with the movies are aging. LotR fan art skews high fantasy, featuring vibrant colors, high-drama action, and actors’ faces. What might it look like if it were made to hang in a more sophisticated milieu? Live, Laugh, LotR is the witty Live, Laugh, Love of LotR fan-art that stokes nostalgia and glee.

The Grid

I designed based on a manuscript grid and the Golden Section to refer to the religious subtext. I used elements of the grid from Jamie Stark’s Dune (2020) poster as inspiration.

Illustrations

Based on key characters, places, and plot points, I drew custom illustrations with an iPad for a hand-touched feel in Fresco to save time by drawing in vectors, importing into Illustrator where the varying stroke widths were scaled to fit into the grid.

Hand Lettering

I hand-lettered the posters based on Ringbearer by Monotype, adding flourishes based on Tolkien’s Tengwar script. This blended the lettering into the illustration style seamlessly.

Limited Edition Screenprints

My colleague Kerstin Graudins helped me screen print a limited edition of posters for display in our portfolio show. I printed these on a register with multiple colors for a saturated result. The posters glow in the dark, just like mithril. If you know, you know!