Design Breakdown: My Thought Process Behind Our SZN4 Flyer
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH RON KAIN
Before I could even think about designing the flyer -
- I had to figure out who I wanted involved. We had already recorded Jae Camilo as our first guest for SZN4, and I genuinely love her music. So she was the first person I thought of for a live performance. I also knew I wanted my brother, DJ 2Hype, to control the music. I started drafting the flyer process around May 1st, but my early mockups had the wrong date May 13th instead of the real target: June 13th. Even among the chaos and over thinking of every other detail I still managed to overlook the most obvious bit of info.
Now, my birthday’s April 21st, and this year I didn’t throw a big celebration…
BUT in the back of my mind, I figured worst-case scenario, if I couldn’t draw enough people for the launch party, I’d pivot and guilt-trip heads by making it a “Ron Kain Bday Bash” too.
(If you’re wondering why some of the early versions say “Ron Kain Bday Celebration” that’s why.)
Fortunately, I didn’t have to go that route.
In the second batch of mock-up’s I was mainly playing with the placement thinking I was closer to the direction I was looking for.
Designing the flyer was harder than expected. I was chasing that raw, gritty, old-school NYC vibe of flyers I remember seeing growing up, but the internet is flooded with so much AI-generated noise. Haydee came through with a book called No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988–1999; it turned out to be a wild collection. It gave us just the reference we needed to land on the final design.
One of the direct inspirations for the flyer actually came from an old Copacabana promo. I thought it was dope because it featured a bunch of people that are being highlighted at the Copa for their event and I appreciated the cut out xerox approach to make it happen. That got me thinking what if I reversed engineered that “feeling” using photoshop and put everyone in a polaroid frame that included all (or at least most) of our past podcast guests?
I started playing around with that concept, but as the design evolved, it felt too busy for the main flyer. So instead, I pivoted and used that idea to create a video promo piece. I wanted something that could still honor everyone who’s helped us build this platform without overcrowding the visual for the event itself.
Here is the IG reel I ended up using it as.
Ultimately this was the final product after musical act, host, venue location and date were confirmed.
Then I wanted to give everyone their own individual flyer
While writing this I realized I actually had more versions that I didn’t bother saving but if you made it this far into this piece I want to thank you for going down the rabbit hole with me.
— Ron Kain