The Three Donkeys is a music venue in Pigalle which was created in the late 1940s by Jacques Canetti, to fill the absence of Parisian venues where young artists, mostly unknown, could easily perform in front of an audience. This is a poster that is publicising a programme of special events specially tailored for the kids that is happening between 21st Oct and 01 Nov.

This is all  very nice but my reason to upload this poster is because I am a Designer geek/nerd/bore – whatever you want to call it. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a prime example of 2 colour overprinting.

Overprinting is where -funnily enough- one colour is printed over another, resulting in a 3rd colour! In this case Cyan is overprinted on Magenta which results in blue. Normally this effect is not seen as the colour behind the overlapping ink is ‘knocked-out’. This is a neat trick because it does two things.
1. It keeps costs down (We’re talking traditional lithographic printing here, not Digital) as only two plates are used. In this case, the Cyan and Magenta of  the 4 CMYK plates. (Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black)
2. It results in a vibrant image brimming with energy and visual movement.
A similar effect could be made combining the other plates. ie Yellow/Cyan or  Yellow/Magenta.

These posters are currently all over Paris. Paid for by the Mayor as they helped fund the renovation of the venue.
Find out more about the venue here Les Trois Baudets

That is all for today. There is only so much geekdom one can stomach in a day. ;-)