by: Emily Moseley
For my remix and adaptation project, I really want to incorporate some element of drawn art or graphic design into Hamilton. When I listen to the songs and hear the different genres of music, I can picture what style a graphic for the song could be in or what font would represent each character the best. I would like to take three of the characters in the show and give them a graphic that I feel would best represent their impact on history and role in Hamilton. I chose to highlight only three just due to the time constraints on this project. I am not dead-set on any three people just yet; however, I’d like to share some of the ideas I had for the men and women of Hamilton and what songs would inspire their artwork.
Alexander Hamilton – abrasive strokes (to show his sharp tongue and to represent how fast he raps in the musical), deep red background (pain, blood, and sacrifice), script fonts (for all that he wrote), lots of movement in the picture (to represent his abrupt life changes)
songs: Alexander Hamilton, My Shot, Say No to This, The Room Where It Happens, Hurricane
Aaron Burr – minimalist style (shows his lack of willingness to commit), blue color scheme (to contrast that of Hamilton’s)
songs: Wait for It, The World Was Wide Enough, Your Obedient Servant
Eliza – tough, flowery but not too delicate (to show her warm heart), more script (to show her relationship with Hamilton through letters), Alexander Hamilton in background somewhere, eight children included somehow (to give more historical accuracy), don’t include Hamilton in all of it because she had a long, accomplished life after his death.
songs: Burn; Best of Wives and Best of Women; It’s Quiet Uptown; Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story
Angelica – stone wall tough, bold fonts, traveling, movement, darker colors
songs: Satisfied, Take a Break, Non-Stop, The Reynolds Pamphlet, It’s Quiet Uptown
Washington – something calm, warm colors (to represent his steadiness in opinion and plan for the country), if any other people included in his graphic make them smaller (to represent his authoritative figure to every other Founding Father)
songs: Stay Alive, One Last Time, History Has Its Eyes on You
King George – abstract (to keep the tone light just like the musical), British flag colors and pattern (to show he was not apart of the action in the states), very skinny and upright fonts to show his properness (something like Times New Roman because it seems so uptight), a smirk if his face is included
songs: You’ll Be Back, What Comes Next, I Know Him
Maria Reynolds – (maybe include a side-by-side of this and Eliza’s graphic to show the contrast of how Hamilton’s life was between the two and how Maria impacted Eliza’s life so much), I don’t think I’ll do a free-standing one for Maria Reynolds otherwise.
songs: The Reynold’s Pamphlet
Thomas Jefferson – knowledgeable (serif font of some kind – looks more scholarly), incorporate his hair somehow (of the original actor), include splashes of lighter color (shows how he could tease Hamilton), incorporate the French flag and travel somehow to represent him being away for a lot of events
songs: What’d I Miss, Cabinet Battle #2, The Election of 1800
As an additional graphic, I’d also like to create an official scroll of sorts for the “Ten Duel Commandments” as they are described in the musical Hamilton. I think this would be a quicker task, though still tangential to the vision of this adaptation project. It would be as if this paper were posted in the streets of New Jersey where Hamilton and Burr had planned for their duel to take place.
Overall, I would like to see this project to investigate each character a little deeper and try to capture their personality in a physical piece of art. I foresee painting these graphics after sketching drafts and getting them peer-reviewed. This way, I can make sure that at least some of my classmates had the same thoughts or impressions from the characters as I did. My goal is to give the characters another dimension: one that they had all along, but one that may not have been addressed in depth in the actual musical Hamilton.