Artists Explains How He Dreamed Up 'Midsummer' Poster Design

A resident of Slidell for the past 34 years, Glenn Dieterich is a self-trained artist. A graduate of Loyola University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications, his career began in the art department of WWL-TV eventually leading to the position of television director for 22 years.

Currently a graphic designer for Sign Light, Inc., Glenn is the poster artist for A Midsummer Night's Dream and was the poster artist for Slidell Little Theatre’s Duck Hunter Shoots Angel and The B.F.G. (Big Friendly Giant).

Here, Glenn describes the process that went into creating the poster for "Midsummer," beginning with the conceptual sketch.

#1 The poster concept (above) begins with the thumbnail sketch. This one was going to be difficult because if I included all of the characters in the play, the poster would probably be about four feet long. I decided to narrow it down to Bottom and Titania because they are probably the most recognizable. In one of the early thumbnails, I thought about including Oberon and Puck, but there was just too much clutter.

Final pencil drawing of Titania 

Final pencil drawing of Bottom

Original sketches went surprisingly fast. They were based on the work of Joseph Noel Paton. I particularly like his approach to color, light and form. At this point I'm certain that Bottom and Titania will occupy the poster. In one of the early compositions I added some flying fairies, but scaled that down to three illuminated globes over Titania's head.

The six stages of Titania.

A cutout of Bottom and Titania extracted from the
final poster design for illustrative purposes.

Final poster design.

Previous poster designs by Glenn for SLT