To Enhance Your Experience, Lets get some Fall Out Boy playing!

Project Brief

The prompt for this project was to select an artist and create a tour book for one that doesn’t already exist. Choosing to design for my favorite band, Fall Out Boy, the main goal was to visually represent their songs, emotions, and journey as a group through the spreads of this book.

Research

Being a long time fan of Fall Out Boy, I was familiar with their diverse style and how they don’t really stick to any specific genre. Most people associate Fall Out Boy with punk and being “emo”, but Patrick Stump once said that they just play what they feel. He himself would switch things up and write sad songs when he’s happy and happy songs when he’s sad. Although I mainly know them for their alternative rock, their latest album, Mania, was more pop. For this project, I had to figure out a way to combine their diverse styles together to create a story through their tour while also representing the group as a whole. I also looked into their close relationship with Brendon Urie, also known as Panic! At The Disco and wanted to include him into the book as well, since he if often featured in their songs and even went on tour with them.

Design Direction

Even though they jumped from different genres throughout the years, one thing that had always been special about Fall Out Boy was their powerful lyrics. Every time I listen to their songs, there’s always one or two lines in each song that really catches my attention because I feel like they were able to understand me more than I was able to understand myself. Because of this, I wanted this tour book to have a lot of emphasis on those specific lyrics, combining bits and pieces from each song to create an entire story for this book and for the band themselves. My idea was to make the book look like someone’s journal, where they just scribble in their most intrusive and beautiful thoughts, thinking that no one else will be able to see them. I believe that music is filled with feelings rather than songs and want to visually represent those feelings for others to relate to. Like Patrick Stump said, “I could write it better than you’ve ever felt it”.

Easter Eggs

What’s a tour book without any Easter Eggs? As I had mentioned above, I wanted to find a way to include Brendon Urie into this book as he is a close friend of Fall Out Boy’s and they both share similar fans. The dividers throughout the book include quotes from a parody that he made with them about how the band came together with the intention to make true Fall Out Boy fans laugh while flipping through the pages.

The Made in chicago tour

Originating in Chicago, the tour book focuses on where the band’s story really began. No matter how big they become, no matter where their next concert is, their hearts will always be with Chicago. Through the journal-like style and messy doodles, this book represents the thoughts of those who remain quiet, unable to find the words to explain their feelings to others because they don’t even understand it themselves. All they do is scribble into this book, keeping note of lyrics from various songs that somehow just speaks to them. Thanks to Chicago, we now have this amazing band called Fall Out Boy, the band whose music understands us better than we understand ourselves. When you have no one to turn to, just turn to music.