Laura Lineberry shocked one of her graphic design classes with a rare opportunity.
Heath Fogg, a UA alumnus and lead guitarist for the three-time Grammy-nominated band Alabama Shakes, contacted Lineberry over the summer to design a poster for their upcoming tour stopping in Charleston, S.C., Cary, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 19, 20 and 21, respectively.
Lineberry, a professor in the department of art, said her class unanimously agreed to start working on individual designs three weeks before classes started. A week into class, the final submissions were sent to Alabama Shakes.
“This was just such a different and unique opportunity for the students,” Lineberry said.
After Fogg graduated from the University, Lineberry kept in contact with him because he worked heavily in graphic design and took three of her courses.
Lineberry said she even called Fogg by the name Pete backstage at an Alabama Shakes concert, keeping up a joke from the time she didn’t hear him properly on the first day of class.
“It was surreal to watch him on TV for the Grammys,” Lineberry said.
The class that took the challenge to design the poster, ART 414: Graphic Design, is a class that allows students to work with real clients of nonprofit companies in order to get job experience with digital graphics. Fogg reached out to Lineberry for a poster design because he said this was the kind of opportunity he would have loved when he attended the University.
The Alabama Shakes chose the poster design by Devin Huey, a senior majoring in advertising.
“Being able to design a poster for a band is a dream thing for me to be able to do,” Huey said.
Fogg gave the class what Lineberry referred to as “creative heaven,” giving little instruction on a design scheme. The only requirement was to list the dates and name of the band.
Lineberry said clients rarely give graphic designers this much freedom and this project gave them a perfect opportunity to show their individuality.
“Nobody did anything that was alike,” said Madison Leavelle, a senior majoring in digital media who participated in the competition.
Huey said after he came across a picture of lead singer Brittany Howard wearing a headdress at one of the concerts, he came up with the idea for an Indian chief.
“I wanted to create some sort of graphic that created images of the band without actually using pictures of the band members,” Huey said.
He used Adobe Illustrator to tie the rest of the visuals together and worked on the design at least five hours a week for a month.
Lineberry said as the class was previewing all the posters, sighs erupted through the room when they got to Huey’s. She said even though several other poster designs were close runners-up, the whole class agreed Huey’s was the best.
“It was better than some work that has been done for us by professional artists in the past,” Fogg said.
Fogg sent a personalized email to the class and is sending Huey a signed 18-by-24-inch poster of his design.
Huey said he’s a huge fan of almost all genres of music and would love to eventually work for an advertising agency for bands.
The Alabama Shakes will play in Tuscaloosa this winter for the Tuscaloosa Get Up Charity Show at the Bama Theatre on Dec. 19. Tickets are on sale now for $40.
