Behind the scenes- Step by Step

To really show my process, I made sure to take photos and screenshots along the way.

CROPPING AND COMBINING:

This is one of the first photos I took inside the mirrored balloon room at SUMMIT One Vanderbilt. I went for a slow shutter speed to pull in as much light as possible and exaggerate the glowing green reflections.

Later the lighting in the room shifted to blue. I captured this close-up because the sparkle effect looked exactly like The Weeknd’s “House of Balloons"aesthetic.

These two images became the base textures for my final poster.

Here’s a screenshot from Photoshop while I was building the composite. You can see how I stacked the two different coloured balloon layers with different blending modes (Overlay and Soft Light) to get depth.

ELEMENT ADDING: My next step was to search on Pinterest for the appropriate picture of The Weeknd which would match the style and aesthetic of this background. Once I found the perfect one, the one in the right photo, I went straight to the Photoroom App and cut the original background and added it to the one I had just created.

This action was pretty fast as the app allows me to do it in just few clicks and small changes, such as making the imported picture translucent to offer a unique and eye-catching characteristic.

EDITING: This was followed by opening Lightroom and adjusting a few details:

• White balance to make the highlights cooler.

• Shadows lifted to show more details inside the balloons.

• Vibrance boosted to make the blues and greens pop.

TYPOGRAPHY: Now that the poster is ready I was headed to the next and final step, adding typography. For the typography I used Canva and I chose a bold, condensed sans-serif (Bebas Neue) for “THE WEEKND” because it has the clean, blocky look of real tour posters and instantly grabs attention from distance. Meanwhile the city names sit in a lighter sans-serif to make them feel secondary. The tour title “THE HOUSE OF BALLOONS TOUR” is set in an elegant serif (Cinzel Decorative) to echo the dreamy, cinematic vibe of the balloon room and contrast with the hard edges of the headline.

I used pure white for all the text because it cuts through the dark, saturated blues and greens of the background, creating maximum legibility and a sense of spotlighting, almost like the glowing signage you see at venues; it also unifies the different fonts so the layout feels cohesive and professional.

MORE ELEMENTS:  I also added a live action button, a globe illustration and a "Xo" sticker (The Weeknd's signature) to make the poster come to life; as well as adding fading clouds at the bottom of the page to give the idea of floating as the name of the album suggests. Furthermore, I thought that using a subtle drop shadow on “2025” to make it stand out against the bright background was a great idea and it came out really nice.

FINAL: At last, I downloaded the final product on my computer and prepared for exporting it on my following blog page.