Project 4 Documentation
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this project was to create a series of three posters that communicate an arts event of our choice. While each poster had to convey different information, all three posters still had to visually tie together.
This project dealt largely with hierarchy–as designers, we had to determine the ideal balance of form and functionality. Throughout the project, I noticed that I applied too much functionality to my poster series. For instance, my original design was largely literal, but after adjusting my font and design a little bit, I struck, in my eyes, the ideal combination of form and functionality.
INITIAL SKETCHES
Below are my initial sketches:
During the sketching process, I was not sure where to take the project. I was also uncertain how many designs I could actually think up for a poster. This is something I really struggled with at first–that is why some of my sketches may appear similar to each other. Over the course of the project, however, I came up with new designs and implemented them as I deemed fit.
In my Coldplay sketches, you can see a few common threads: a title at the top of the page, some sort of information in the middle, and more information at the bottom of the poster. In my first sketch, I merely included information. In my second sketch, I have brackets near the top of the page; I thought these brackets might be a great way to call someone’s attention to my poster. I later realized, however, that this was not effective. In my third Coldplay sketch, you see that I drew a couple of glasses. This sketch is probably closest to my final design, since my final design included ‘Spring Bliss’ at the very top, a design, and then ‘Coldplay,’ followed by all the necessary information at the bottom of the page. I also included a little glass drink on each poster in my series–this was inspired by my third sketch. (See my final design below.)
My Chainsmoker sketches were a little more creative than my Coldplay ones. Although the layout of the information is generally the same, the designs are a little different. I was unsure how I wanted to introduce the Chainsmokers in my design. I tried a cannon, an atomic cloud, and smoke rising above the word ‘Chainsmokers.’ In my final design above, you can see that I chose the atomic cloud idea–this resonated with me most and I think would do the best job at capturing an audience’s eye.
Looking back at my Wine & Cheese sketches now, I see that my first two sketches are quite crowded. The information is too crowded and compact. Because of this, I chose to pursue a more simplistic design for my Wine & Cheese poster (please see my final design once more above).
CHOOSING A COLOR PALETTE
After the sketching stage of the project, it was time to begin exploring various color palettes for my poster series.
Here is my first color palette design:
I thought the first three colors in this palette were great. Since my event, Spring Bliss, was scheduled to take place in the Spring, using warm, tropical colors seemed like a practical option.
Here is my second color palette design:
While the first three colors are also warm, they do not convey the tropical feel I want them too. These colors felt too formal and established.
Here is my third color palette design:
My third color palette was too green. While the colors are very spring-like, the possibility of having mere shades of green across all posters was unappealing to me.
Interestingly, for my final design I did not choose any of these color palettes. I ended up selecting cooler colors. The cool colors convey the ‘not yet summer’ feel of spring and integrated well with tropical vibe I wanted my posters to give. The final palette I chose is below:
DIGITAL ITERATIONS:
Below is my initial first poster:
To introduce Coldplay, I made my design an iceberg in water. You will notice that my first poster is extremely simplistic. I have my event title at the very top, a pen tool sketch, and the name of the artist in the middle of the page. At the very bottom of the poster I include all of the necessary information a potential customer may want, such as when the event is, where it is scheduled to take place, and where to purchase tickets.
I next wanted to create a logo for my poster series–one that I could include at the bottom of each of my posters to indicate that they are part of a larger series.
For my logo, I wanted something spring-like, so I chose an ice cold drink. My pen-tool sketch of it is below:
I thought the blue glass would blend in with my poster colors too much, so I ultimately chose a light grey/off white. This color stood out but remained subtle. I also moved the lime inside of the glass (see below).
After creating a first draft of my Coldplay poster, I went on to the Chainsmokers poster. For the Chainsmokers, I wanted to create an atomic bomb illustration. Below is my pen tool sketch of the atomic bomb:
I also wanted my Chainsmokers poster to resemble my Coldplay poster in terms of layout. You can see this below:
I next went on to create my first iteration of my Wine & Cheese poster. Below I have included my pen tool sketch of my wine glass as well as the photo that I based my pen tool sketch of the cheese on:
Below you will find another iteration of my poster series:
Notice a few changes from my initial iteration. (1) I first expanded the ocean on the Coldplay poster all the way to the bottom of the page. This created a cleaner design and made my iceberg illustration much more clear. This was a necessary change, because after the first critique I realized that a handful of people were still uncertain what the white block in the middle of my poster was supposed to be. (2) I also changed the color of the word ‘presents’ in my Chainsmokers poster. While originally I had chosen the color red because of it’s association with fire, it was difficult to read, especially from a distance. (3) I have inserted my wine and cheese designs onto poster three. (4) I have changed the font of Coldplay. This was done to convey the excitement around a Coldplay concert and addressed one of the comments I received at the intermediate critique.
Below is one of the later iterations of my poster series:
Notice the changes I made here. (1) All the event names have now been changed to the font used on the Coldplay poster. By doing this, not only do these event names now stand out more, but they also bring more excitement to the event as a whole. (2) After making the bottom half of the Coldplay poster an ocean, it looked weird having one poster split into two colors and the other two posters only having one background color. I therefore decided to split each of my posters into two colors for the purposes of continuity and better grasping my audience’s attention. (3) I have also made the information at the bottom of each of all of my posters white. The black text from the previous iteration just didn’t pop enough.
My final iteration of my poster series is below:
I again made a few subtle changes. (1) In the previous iteration, I had decided to split each poster into two solid colors. While I was appealed to this idea, it then came to my attention that having two unique colors on each poster was not good for continuity. For instance, on the Chainsmokers poster, I had blue and green–well, these colors don’t really go together. Nor did green and brown on the Wine & Cheese poster. However, the Coldplay poster works great because it is light blue and dark blue. Thus, I decided to continue this pattern. So I changed my Chainsmokers poster so that way the colors are now light blue and dark blue, and my Wine & Cheese poster so that the colors are now light green and dark green. This was probably one of the best design suggestions I received and made during the entire project. The end result was a series of colorful posters that all tie-in nicely. (2) I moved the word ‘presents’ to the top of each poster, just underneath the title ‘Spring Bliss 2017.’ This was done to make my posters easier to read, and it also let me make all ‘presents’ the color white (whereas before the ‘presents’ in Coldplay was black, and the other two were white). (3) I made craftsmanship adjustments. I made sure that all illustrations were aligned across the page by using grid lines. I also made sure that the text, information and design at the bottom of each poster was aligned with that of the other posters’. I once again made this adjustment using grid lines. By aligning common entities across my posters, this added to the degree of connectivity and continuity in the series. (4) I finally learned the ‘center’ feature on Illustrator, so I went through each element on each poster to make sure it was aligned as I had intended.
Once more, here is my final piece:
REFLECTION:
Throughout this project, I learned a few things. (1) Simplicity is key. One of the reasons I believe my poster series functioned well was because of its simplicity. No single object was crowding out the other and all of the text was easy to read. (2) The details matter. Just when I thought I was done, I spent an additional day refining my poster. This involved things such as playing around with fonts, aligning pen-tool sketches and bodies of text across all posters, and fixing other small errors.
With that said, there are some comments I received during the second critique that I will be more careful of in the future. (1) My colors are primarily cool colors; however, I am advertising a spring event. The explicit cool colors contrasting with the implicit warmth of spring created some level of confusion for my audience. Thus, in the future I will be sure that my colors work better with the timing of my event. (2) I accidentally emboldened all of the ‘when’ information on my Wine & Cheese poster. You will notice that my other three posters only embolden the ‘when’ and none of the sequential information. This was an oversight on my end, so in the future it might not hurt to have one of my friends look at my posters to see if they notice any errors. (3) The glass of wine and the block of cheese in my Wine & Cheese poster are spaced pretty far apart. Originally, this was intentional, because before I had the word ‘presents,’ in between the glass of wine and the block of cheese. However, after I moved ‘presents’ to the top of the poster, I forgot to move the wine and the cheese closer together. This caused my poster to look a little awkward from a distance. This is another oversight on my end, and like I said before, to prevent little errors like this from occurring in the future, I will try to have one my peers look at my final design and see if they notice any obvious errors or flaws.
