I’m Henry Neff, I’m a multimedia artist and I had the great pleasure of designing the poster for this year’s performance, The Music Man!
YATS has been a huge part of my life since I was twelve when I joined the cast of Annie Jr., the very first musical YATS ever put on. From the very beginning I loved the culture of passionate individuals working together to put on a great show in a fun and creative environment. Since then, I have performed in 10 shows and volunteered backstage in 2 more, and I’m thrilled that I’m able to keep participating in ways such as designing the poster for this upcoming show.
I particularly enjoyed the challenge of creating a poster design for this year’s show; The Music Man has very fun energy that really shows off its cheery mid-20th century musical atmosphere, so I wanted to capture that with an appropriate art style. I had a lot of fun looking through old posters from the 60s and copying the use of big, flat, clean shapes and simple, doodled details in my own design. I also enjoyed imitating the flowy style of lettering on these old posters, which gives a unique hand-drawn quality to the design that I really appreciate.
I’ve always been extremely passionate about visual art and design and I am constantly keeping myself busy with a variety of creative projects from animated short films to video games that I love to share on the internet. Most recently, I have been making short, silly animations and mini tutorials for some of the things I like to create that I’ve been sharing on my social media while I work on larger projects.
My career has let me to the field of visual communication, where I put my skills to work in creating graphic designs, animations, illustrations and more for all sorts of occasions. Right now, I’m returning from Burundi where I have been volunteering this past year as a communications assistant with a number of local NGOs, and I’m looking forward to more opportunities that I can bring my creative skills to.
The links to my portfolio website as well as to all my socials where I share my projects are available on my website, check me out!