INSIDE OUT: How BoomArtwork created stunning poster art to mark five years of Moulin Rouge! on Broadway

Words by Garrick Webster

It’s hard to believe that Baz Luhrmann’s movie Moulin Rouge! came out 23 years ago, and it seems like just yesterday that it was adapted for the stage. But no – Moulin Rouge! The Musical has been playing on Broadway for five years and to mark the anniversary in July 2024, the theatre company behind it ran a special summer campaign for the musical theatre faithful. To get the word out, fresh poster art was needed, and this called for the creative talents of BoomArtwork – AKA Eric van den Boom, an illustrator based in The Netherlands.

The project was pitched, developed and directed by Moulin Rouge!’s creative agency, RPM, in New York. Impressed with work in Eric’s portfolio, VP of Creative Operations Lisa Euker enquired about his availability via the IllustrationX Manhattan office, and he was sent the brief.

"It was amazing. It’s such a visually rich and vibrant show and I immediately had ideas popping up in my head for the campaign image,” says Eric. "They liked my portfolio and were wondering if I was available in March to work on this project for them. I was super busy working for other clients but luckily, I managed to reschedule things to make time for this job. When something like this comes in, you don't want to decline it because you don't have time!"

Dazzling energy

The brief was clear and straightforward – capture the vibrant energy of the show, highlighting the iconic red windmill and its dazzling characters. Eric, a fan of the film the first time around, rewatched it a couple of times, jumped onto YouTube to see video of the musical, and did further visual research online. Then out came the pencils and he began working on thumbnails for the composition.

"I really loved the sketching phase. I really was in the flow – when you sort of zone out and forget about time. I loved how quickly all the ideas started to become visual," says Eric. "I started by trying out all sorts of compositions and testing how I could change them from portrait to landscape. Finally, after exploring lots of ideas and compositions I selected three routes to present and refined them in Photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq."

The first route focused on the main character, Satine, with the action taking place around her face and hat. The second introduced the heart graphic – a key part of the stage set. The final route highlighted the famous Parisian windmill venue central to the story. For each route, Eric created art- and copy-forward versions, so there were six initial sketches in total.

The first two ideas

Fine tuning the imagery

"The team at RPM were super happy with all the designs but in the end the second route was chosen, with a couple of minor revisions. The type needed to be straighter, less curved and some elements needed to be bigger or smaller. When RPM was happy with the revised version they presented it to their client, Moulin Rouge!, for approval," says Eric.

Next, he moved to rendering the final artwork. The style is graphic, with strong line work, influenced by Art Nouveau – a movement popular in 1900, when the story itself is set. With its rich colours, there is a hint of stained-glass windows in the styling and for many theatre-lovers seeing Moulin Rouge! live is like a spiritual experience.

"Eric was amazing to work with," says Lisa Euker at RPM. "He acknowledged each round of notes, responded to all of my emails promptly and never missed a deadline. The whole process of the RPM team creative directing and Eric executing that vision felt like a very collaborative partnership."

The colour palettes and typography were defined in the Moulin Rouge! brand identity kit. Initially, Eric was going to create the type himself, but the decision was made to stay on-brand. With such a dominant red, one of the main challenges was balancing the colour palette, but Eric worked subtly with the greens, purples and a gentle blue backlight to bring the characters forward.

Contemporary poster art

In the final execution, Eric needed to provide portrait and landscape versions, each with and without words. "From early on, I thought about how I would change the composition from portrait to landscape and make both work," he explains. "I do a lot of artwork for festival posters, and nowadays it is normal to have lots of different compositions for posters, billboards, social media, banners, flags and so on. So, I was used to thinking that way. Traditional poster design has become really fluid, which is great fun."

The artwork was delivered as a Photoshop file, with everything organised and clearly labelled so that the RPM team could adapt the imagery for various media, and even add animation.