Passion Project: Posters for Jim Croce

Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels) by Jim Croce 1972

Ever since my first listen, I have loved Operator - an honest and deeply moving portrayal of heartbreak. Jim Croce perfectly captures the emotional denial of pretending you’re okay when you’re really not.

For my self-driven project, I wanted to take that emotion and translate it into something visual—a poster that might exist if Operator were released today.

At the center of the design, is a solitary telephone. It symbolizes the one-sidedness of the call - a message to the operator that may never find its intended listener.

Jim Croce’s line “that’s not the way it feels” drifts like static into empty space, like his words are disappearing, unheard and unanswered.

In this project, I tried to capture emotional vulnerability - unresolved pain and realizing you might be talking to no one at all.

Operator “in the wild”

Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce 1972

A Jim Croce classic, Time in a Bottle, beautifully conveys images of love intertwined with the fragile nature of time. Jim Croce paints a beautiful image of a world where he could preserve moments - just to spend eternity with the one he loves.

One lyric that resonates deeply with me is: “I've looked around enough to know, that you're the one I want to go through time with.”

Much like my approach with Operator, I wanted to create a modern take on this song through a poster. In the design, a clock is shown forcing its way into a bottle, representing that impossible struggle to contain time while it inevitably slips past us.

In this project, I wanted to express the feeling of wishing we could slow time down when we're with the ones we love.

Time in a Bottle “in the wild”