Michael Blaustein:
2025 "Taste Me" Tour

key art & global rollout

Task

Design the key art and visual rollout for Michael Blaustein’s 2025 “Taste Me” tour. The direction was fairly open. The only real note was to keep it playful and work with the images provided. The main deliverable was a 4x5 poster that would anchor the campaign, along with a full set of social and banner adaptations.

Challenge

The tone came together naturally. The real challenge was the dates. There were a lot of them. Enough to easily turn the bottom half into a dense wall of text that would overpower the image and kill the energy of the composition. Fitting that much information while keeping the poster alive was the balancing act.

Scaling it across formats added another layer. What works in a tall 4x5 does not automatically translate to horizontal banners or tight social crops. Each version had to be adjusted without losing the identity of the original.

Insight

Instead of stacking the dates into one perfectly aligned block, I chose to break the structure and alternate sections left and right. It created movement and preserved negative space.

Type played a big role in making that possible. Finding the right font was critical. It had to stretch naturally across formats without feeling distorted, so I worked with an extended variable typeface that could adapt from tall 4x5 compositions to wide banners while maintaining consistency.

It does sacrifice a bit of traditional legibility, but that tension felt appropriate. Blaustein’s comedy is not clean or symmetrical, so the layout did not need to be either. The slight chaos became part of the language.

Outcome

The final poster holds its energy while carrying the full tour schedule, and the system translated cleanly across social placements and banners. We also explored alternate directions for the main 4x5. Choosing between them was not immediate and involved a fair bit of back and forth, which is usually a good sign. More than one concept felt strong enough to lead the campaign.

Alternate Concepts

Alongside the selected direction, we explored a few structurally different concepts for the main 4x5 poster. Each approach kept the playful tone but shifted the hierarchy, typography, and overall composition. Choosing between them was not immediate. A couple of directions were heavily considered before a final decision was made.

Color Explorations

One of the near-final concepts was pushed further through a series of color studies. Although the structure remained consistent, subtle shifts in palette changed the energy of the piece entirely. Exploring these variations helped test how flexible the concept could be and how far the tone could stretch while still feeling cohesive.

Although this direction was not selected, exploring these variations helped clarify what ultimately felt right for the tour.

Learn more about Michael Blaustein