Communications Studio Project 2: Poster Design
The Lecture
The show that I went to see for this project was part of a lecture series, Words and Pictures. The specific author I went to see was Grace Lin, an Asian American novelist that creates children’s books catering to the Asian American community. I greatly appreciate the books that Lin is creating. I think Grace Lin is filling a space that she identified to be empty in her own childhood, in a unique style that I greatly appreciated. The lecture was catered towards children. The feeling that I got in the space was warm, and meant for children. She greatly uses her own life for inspiration when creating content.
Visual Hierarchy 1
With the first exercise that we conducted with this project, we explored the different manners to create visual hierarchy on the page. The first exercise we explored involved changing the stroke weights of the type in order to bring attention to certain phrases. Something that we noticed was that with more contrast, the text that was bolded would stand out more, calling more attention to it.
The second exercise dealt with line spacing and proximity. This worked to create groups in the content. Things that were spaced closer to one another on the page would form groups.
The indentation exercises helped create space on the page. It was interesting to think about the manner in which the text created white space and balancing the lengths of the text lines.
Working with Color
When working with the color of the pages, we wanted to determine a color palette that fits the mood of the lecture. The main words that my lecture group was able to pin point with our lecture were
- Nostalgic
- Warm
- Comforting
- Cute
- Dreams
The lecture was catered towards children, so I wanted to create a color palette that would help convey this. The first exercise that we did finding colors within the magazine really helped me narrow in on the type of color that I was going for. I was mostly creating slight variations on the primary colors.
I then took the pictures into Illustrator and created some more palettes using the color manipulation tool that Andrew showed us. I created color explorations choosing one color from each row, creating different combinations that seemed to create a balance.
I then started to apply these palettes to the proximity exercise I completed in the first exercise.
It was interesting to see the manner in which certain colors when overlaid on top of other colors stood out significantly more than others. Some palettes that worked well separated struggled to work together when placed on top of each other which was interesting.
Working with Scale
With this set of posters, I worked on creating a visual hierarchy through the scale of my type and the placement of the elements on the page. Being able to group and reorder the content in the blocks of the authors was helpful to create the hierarchy that I wanted to create. I decided to prioritize the name of the author and the date that they are arriving because the authors are who will bring in the kids and their parents. The name of the lecture does not exactly relate to the content in the lecture, as I realized in Grace Lin’s lecture.
Next Iterations: Scale + Location
Based on the feedback that we received, I realized I needed to push the bounds of the poster a little more, play more with scale and colors. I know the audience that I am working with this set of posters: children and parents, which means that I can create a poster that caters to them more. I decided to emphasize the title of the lecture series more: Words and Pictures, over Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures.
Next Iterations: Color + Imagery
I was inspired by what was said in class of using different blocks of color and changing their placement, to create visual interest in the page. I like the color palette I have established but I do not feel as though it translated onto the posters that I made with those colors. I looked up shape based paintings and was inspired by the mid-century modern look of paintings, and their usage of shapes to create movement and visual interest on the page.
So using my color palette, I started creating different iterations of shape based images for the background of my poster.
I also played around with creating more organic shapes, to create some variation.
I then tried something a little more geometric, with harder edges and more shapes to create some more variation.
Draft 1 Posters
Expanding on One Draft
After critique from Mason and Sherry, I decided to expand on the final poster, as it had the strongest visual identity and the most room to play around with colors and shapes and layout.
Cleaning up the Image
Once I settled on colors, I played around with the placement of different elements and the way they laid on the page. I wanted to use the dark blue to navigate the user across the page still, but use more sections of geometric image to make the whole poster feel more cohesive.
Placing the Text
With this exercise I played around with the different scale exercises I made earlier and placed them into the grid that I made with the images, I realized through this process that I enjoyed the manner in which the text formed a box frame around the text, but I did not like the manner the image worked in the back. So I played around a little more with the scale of my type and the way it fit into my boxes of image. I also changed the micro hierarchy of the body text to highlight that name of the book more.
Final Poster
