Poster Series Process Documentation
Task: Create a series of three posters that visually introduce three different arts events, which are part of a single arts festival.
Sketches
In my sketches, I played with using different iconic New York symbols such as the subway system, Empire State Building, and street signs. From the sample posters we looked at in class, I really liked the idea of using continuity through the three posters to make them belong together and experimented with this in my sketches. I knew I wouldn’t be able to draw very detailed illustrations, so I tried to think about how I could abstract each event in a single icon or picture. It was a little difficult thinking about what kind of picture I could use to best represent each event.
Digital Iterations
In the draft I used for the interim critique, I digitized my first sketch, in which I had drawn inspiration from Jay Z’s website, HONY’s Facebook page, and Teresita Fernandez’s Drawn Waters sculpture (see pictures). I used the grid from Jay Z’s website and carried it across all three posters for more similar themes.
Some of the feedback I received during the interim critique included:
- People liked the logo for Empire Arts Festival
- People didn’t like the use of a Facebook profile on the second poster- there were too many elements competing one another
- People liked the use of the square grid across all three, but since it was used so similarly in the Jay Z and Teresita Fernandez poster, the HONY poster felt out of place
- The grid of the bottom section of each poster containing the logo, ticket information and paragraph, was not consistent
- People liked the fonts I had chosen
- People didn’t understand that I had modeled the first poster after Jay Z’s website and that the last poster was supposed to resemble Teresita Fernandez’s work
After the interim critique, I decided to try other ideas and not use the square grid or the Facebook profile at all. I decided to keep the fonts that I had used and the logo, since these elements had received positive feedback.
I next tried to experiment with the idea of using the subway in my posters, which had originally been in one of my sketches. However, I still felt like there was too much going on in my posters and I wanted to experiment with more negative space. Some feedback I received on this poster was that the use of the icons on the subway trains was nice because it shows viewers what the event is going to be about, although the one used for Teresita Fernandez’s event was unclear. It was supposed to represent the waves in her sculptures. In addition, these posters were not very telling about what kind of event each of these were supposed to be. In my next idea, I used supporting text to make this more clear.
Next, I tried to experiment with the New York skyline, which is iconic and allows me to use more negative space in my posters while maintaining continuity. I then incorporated icons for each, since that had received positive feedback in my last poster, and changed up the icon I used for Teresita Fernandez.
During the interim critique, I liked how many students chose to use a single color for each poster- it differentiated the posters even though the elements themselves were placed similarly. I tried doing that in mine, using colors from the New York subway. That’s also why I opted to keep the icons placed in colored circles, because I wanted it to be reminiscent of subway train logos.
But after I added the rest of the information, I still felt like each poster had a lot going on and the hierarchy was not very great. I experimented with the placing of the location/time information and the ticket information. Below is one idea that I thought displayed good hierarchy because the information was laid out in a top down approach, with the most important pieces coming first. I also received feedback that the date/location information was competing with the title/artist because the font I had chosen for the title was so light compared to the font for the rest of the information. In the below poster, I chose to make the title/artist font heavier, which further improved hierarchy.
I received some feedback from friends that the use of subway themes wasn’t very clear and didn’t make much sense, so I got rid of the subway circles and tried to see what else I could change about the icons. Above, I changed up the color scheme to match the colors found on a New York map.
I also experimented with changing the background color and darkening the colors of the icons, but I felt like the black and white reinforced an urban themed festival better, as it gave the posters a more simple, sophisticated feel.
I liked the use of the darker subway colors (instead of the lighter colors from the New York map) in the icons, so I kept those and made the outline of each icon white.
Next, I experimented with inverting the colors of the bottom half of the poster, but I thought that this would make the bottom compete with the top, which actually contains the more important information. I think I could’ve experimented with this idea more, by changing the color of the top instead of the bottom. However, I think keeping the skyline as an outline ultimately helped because it kept it from taking too much attention away from the rest of the poster.
I added more color to my posters by changing the color of the event titles. I received feedback that the icon in my last poster looked like grass and was confusing, so I changed the color of that poster to red. The icon is supposed to resemble Teresita Fernandez’s sculpture named Fire. I also made all the ticket information right aligned, to make it more uniform across the three posters.
In my posters above, I still felt that there were still elements that were competing with each other, since a lot of things were in black and white, with similar weights. I tried to reduce the amount of white in my posters by making the supporting text and skyline gray. I think this helps a lot because when I glance at each poster, I definitely see the title, artist and icon first. I also took out all the strokes in my icons, which received a lot of positive feedback.
Finally, I chose to add a bit more color to my posters by making the skyline colored as well.
During the final critique, people seemed to like the use of the skyline much more than the previous use of square grids during the interim critique. There were mixed feelings about my choices for the three icons in the posters. Some people liked it because it sent a very clear message about the event when you first look at the poster, but someone also commented on the fact that the icons for the first two posters were not extremely indicative of the artists they were supposed to represent. I thought that this was a good point, since a microphone can represent any concert and a camera can represent any photo gallery. It would’ve been more interesting if I had chosen to use illustrations that were more specific to Jay Z’s music and HONY’s photography, which is what I had difficulties coming up with during the making of these posters. I could’ve also tried to abstract these events more through the use of different icons. Overall, however, I am pretty satisfied with my final poster series because they have good hierarchy, follow the 50' 5' 5" rule, and fit together as a series.
