Project Four: Poster Series
Festival: Documenting Today
Below are the 6 sketches I did for possible poster series ideas.
Especially in the first two, for A Beautiful Planet, I tried to experiment with different elements that could be uniform across all 3 posters to tie them together.
For Under the Gun, I experimented with a play on words, having the meat of the poster physically under the guns.
For Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, I drew inspiration from circuit and network imagery.
Next, I developed 3 color palettes. Below are 3 potential ones I picked.
All three involve blue and green because I think that blue and green could really strengthen A Beautiful Planet, and green would really play to the “digital” aspect of Lo and Behold. As for the red and purple, I thought they may be able to strengthen Under the Gun, but also be work well for A Beautiful Planet and Under the Gun as well.
For my first digital iterations, I decided to focus on the concept from my first sketch, using a camera viewfinder to frame the poster.
I first started working on the planet imagery for A Beautiful Planet, using the pen tool to trace out Earth.
I then added the text of the festival name and documentary title:
Next, I focused on the gun imagery for Under the Gun, tracing a standard hand gun with the pen tool. I also added a blue star “bullet” in order to communicate the idea of gun violence in America.
At this point, I asked for feedback from Julia. Some of her advice included turning the viewfinder into more of a logo for the festival, or turning the posters vertical and having the viewfinder smaller in the middle. She also suggested having a more monochrome color scheme with high contrast.
I started experimenting with Julia’s advice, particularly the vertical posters with a smaller viewfinder.
Maintaining the color scheme, I added red, white, and blue backgrounds.
I then realized that I was showing the whole Earth in this version of the series, as opposed to just a part in the previous version. So, I used the pen tool to complete a rough outline of North and South America.
Next, I experimented with the backgrounds. The red, white, and blue background communicated too strongly of an American theme to me, given that the A Beautiful Planet and Lo and Behold focus on a global scope.
I also added the red dot in the upper right corner of the viewfinder — I felt that this helped communicate film, as opposed to photography.
Next, I experimented with different grids and placement. I felt that the colors and viewfinder image were consistent enough that I could break the pattern a bit in the layout of the poster.
I still wanted to try to keep the subtle play on words, with having the body of the poster under the gun image. So, I placed the gun at the top of the page and then experimented with the placement of the Earth and iPhone.
Next, I started focusing on the actual text of the poster. In choosing my fonts, I looked into typefaces commonly used in documentaries and found these links:
However, I decided I wanted to pick fonts that fit the themes of the specific documentaries I had picked. I felt that there wasn’t a particular font that really strongly communicated “documentary,” so I decided to focus on communicating the tone of my specific films.
Overall, I liked fonts such as Arial Black, DIN Condensed Bold, Impact. I preferred sans serif to serifs, with a very clean, simple look. To me, documentaries are very serious. In addition, as much as they may focus on complicated and messy issues like gun control, climate change, or our dependence on technology, they organize this information to ultimately communicate a clear, simple message. So, this is what I was trying to reflect in my poster and typeface choices.
Below are some of the fonts I experimented with and compared:
After looking at a few typefaces, I decided to try Impact for the titles.
I also settled on a placement of the images. Again, I kept the gun at the top of the page. As for the Earth, I decided to center it. I liked the way this mirrored the topic of the film — it puts things into perspective by viewing our planet in the abyss of space. As for the iPhone, I placed it at the bottom to balance out the series as a whole.
Next, I started working on a logo for the festival. I drew from the same imagery of the viewfinder again, curious how it would look with the larger viewfinder on the poster. I felt like it could go either way — the repeated imagery would either strengthen my poster and the communication of a film event, or it would be distractingly repetitive.
As another option, I drew inspiration from my second sketch, having the logo feature a clapperboard. I thought this imagery also strongly communicated film.
After creating the logos, I placed them on the actual posters.
In doing so, I realized I liked the viewfinder logo better. I found the black and white stripes on the clapperboard a bit too distracting, since I wanted the main focus of the poster to really be the images.
So, I experimented with the placement of the logo a bit more:
Next, I started working on the body text of the posters. Since the project guidelines specified we could only use 2 typefaces, I decided to use Helvetica for the titles (switching from Impact for a thinner look) and Avenir for the body text. My main goal for the body text was for it to be legible, keeping with the simple, neat, and clear theme.
I also experimented with the grid of my poster, looking for ways to align the body text with different elements:
After settling on the alignment with the viewfinder shown in the right image above, I added the event information. I kept it simple, making my lines short and centered. Wondering if the poster was starting to look too text heavy, I also experimented with the placement of the director’s name, shown on the right below.
Next, I returned to the idea of the red dot in the viewfinder, usually indicating a camera is filming. I felt that the red gun and red dot were a bit distracting, so I compared the two versions below:
Overall, I felt that the red dot strengthened the communication of my poster more than the red gun. While I liked how the red gun communicated gun violence very clearly, I felt the stark black and white contrast still communicated the gravity of the issue fairly strongly. In addition, I felt the red dot across all three posters strengthened the series.
Below are the three posters I brought to class for our interim critique:
Here are my posters on the board at the critique, with anonymous feedback on post it notes:
I got a lot of positive feedback on the viewfinder concept and overall hierarchy. Some of the suggestions were to make the “Documenting Today” logo more visible, use a more varied, eye-catching, and contrasting color palette, and to make the event information higher in the hierarchy.
In the class discussion portion of the critique, my classmates mentioned moving the logo around or having it in the same position on all three, adding blue to Under the Gun, and making it more clear that the posters are for an event (making the event information more prominent).
Taking into account these suggestions, I first played around with the color scheme. In trying to make the posters a bit brighter and increase contrast, I chose a lighter blue for the first and third posters. In addition, after seeing the posters printed out, I decided to remove the middle rectangle in the viewfinder. I felt that it was unnecessary to communicate “film,” and was even a bit distracting in the way that it covered the image.
Next, I decided to take a little break from my current poster and experiment with some of the other concepts from my sketches. I decided to work with the film strip idea from my second sketch, tracing a strip across all three posters using the pen tool.
Overall, I liked the continuity across all three posters. However, it was a bit challenging to get the curvature of the strip just right. In addition, I was unsure of what exactly to place in the film sections.
I felt it would make the most sense to have the documentary imagery in the film strips, but would be hard to show in the small sections.
Below, I tried highlighting the event information in the strip:
I also decided to play with the concepts from my 3rd and 4th sketches for Under the Gun, using a play on words. I realized I could do a similar play on A Beautiful Planet, but struggled to find a way to tie Lo and Behold into the theme.
At this point, I asked Kaylee for feedback. After these additional digital iterations, I still liked the original viewfinder concept the best, and asked if there was anything worth pursuing in my other two concepts. Kaylee confirmed she liked the viewfinder the best, so I returned my attention to that series.
Kaylee suggested creating a stronger alignment of the logo to the poster’s grid, possibly aligning it with the edge of the viewfinders. She also said she liked the original color combination, with the dark blue better conveying the seriousness of documentaries; I just had to make sure there was enough contrast between the blue and black. Kaylee also suggested adding something like “Showing…” to the posters to clearly communicate that the event was a film showing.
Next, I asked Julia for some feedback as well. She suggested I play around with the formatting of the date, as all of the information in “Friday, December 4th” isn’t necessary. The same information can be communicated using “Dec. 4th” or “12/4.” In addition, she suggested moving the information to the bottom left corner, helping to separate it from the rest of the poster and prioritize it more in the hierarchy. Her overall suggestion was to focus on communicating that the poster is for an event.
In following Julia’s advice, I reformatted the event information and moved it to a corner.
I played around with a few different variations of adjusting the hierarchy within the information:
I also played around with the alignment of the text:
Next, I added “Showing…” to the posters, per Kaylee’s suggestion, experimenting with a few different versions:
Settling on having it centered, I then debated adding the ellipses or not:
Ultimately, I decided to have the ellipsis, as I thought it showed a clearer relationship between “Showing” and the documentary title.
Next, I decided to strengthen the grid of the posters, ensuring that the margins of the information and logo were the same for all three:
I asked for Kaylee and Julia’s feedback again, and they suggested tinkering with the information and logo a bit more. Some of their suggestions included possibly having a colored strip at the bottom to separate the information, revert the information back to centered alignment, and/or having the information top and baseline align with the top and bottom of the logo.
First, I tackled the last suggestion, giving the information and logo the same height:
Next, I added the colored strip, experimenting with different color combinations:
For A Beautiful Planet, I felt that rectangle could only be black. A white one obviously wouldn’t have any contrast, and a blue one would group the Earth image and rectangle together, which is counterproductive since I wanted to separate the information from the poster.
For Under the Gun, I contemplated a white or blue rectangle. I felt that the blue would help strengthen the poster’s presence in the series, however I felt that the contrast wasn’t quite high enough for the rectangle to draw the amount of attention I wanted it to. In addition, I liked the starkness of having the whole poster in black and white, as I felt it communicated the seriousness of gun violence and control.
For Lo and Behold, I debated between black and white rectangles. I ended up choosing black, as I felt the white popped a bit too much and competed with the white text, viewfinder, and iPhone screen.
Below are the posters with the colored rectangles I chose:
Next, I experimented with having the information centered again. This time, I moved the logo around a bit as well, in order to balance out the centered information.
I had particular trouble with Lo and Behold, as I felt the logo fit best at the top, but was unsure of where to put the information.
At this point, I did a test print and asked about 8 people for their opinions on the two sets below:
Of the 8 people, 6 said they preferred the version with the rectangles at the bottom and 2 preferred the centered version. The general feedback that I got was that although the centered posters may look a bit cleaner, the rectangle help clearly distinguish the important information, which is ultimately more beneficial.
Below are test prints of both versions, from far, middle, and close distances (trying to test the 50–5–5 rule):
Ultimately, I decided to use the rectangle versions, and started putting the finishing touches on them.
After seeing the test prints, I felt that the rectangles were a bit too short relative to the entire poster. So, I increased their height, as well as increasing the logo and information font size.
In addition, I made sure that the spacing between “Showing…”, the title, and the director were standardized across all three posters.
Next, I lightened the blue color a bit, noticing that the contrast was still somewhat low in my test prints.
In addition, I played around with the grid across the entire series. I wanted to have as continuous of a grid as possible, just to strengthen the series as a whole. However, I also had to keep in mind how each individual poster looked and be mindful of each’s spacing and layout.
Ultimately, I ended up with the following 3 posters:
Just to be sure, I did a second test print:
This time, the rectangles seemed a bit too tall, so I shortened them down to 2.75 inches. In addition, I lightened the blue even more, hoping to get as much contrast as possible while keeping the muted blue.
Wondering if the black rectangle contrasted a bit too much, I did a last experiment with a blue rectangle for A Beautiful Planet:
Confirming my earlier suspicion that this would cause the viewer to group together the rectangle and Earth, I reverted it back to black.
Below are the final posters I printed:
After printing, I trimmed the posters down in order to get full bleed:
At the critique, the feedback was overall pretty positive. My classmates said that the “Showing…” and viewfinder helped communicate that the event was a documentary showing, as well as the logo and event title of “Documenting Today.” One classmate also mentioned that they traveled through the entire poster before reaching the event information, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it may be more necessary in the case of a documentary; the viewer will likely want to learn a bit more about the film before wanting to figure out how to go see it.
In terms of critiques, some of my classmates wished there was more hierarchy in the event information. I definitely agree with this comment, and wish I had paid a bit more attention to it. Another classmate said that the visual weight of the description paragraphs competed with the rectangle and event information. I can definitely see where they were coming from, although I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. I think it could be slightly helped by increasing the hierarchy of the event information with increased font size or varied emphasis to make the information look less like a chunk of text. Another critique was that the middle poster didn’t have any blue in it, connecting it a little less to the other two. I agree that it decreases the strength of its relationship to the series, but overall, I like the effect of the stark black and white and felt my attempts to incorporate the blue into the poster just weren’t successful. I also think there were enough elements in common for the poster to still clearly be a part of the series.
Overall, I think the posters turned out pretty well. There were definitely some smaller details I could have paid better attention to, but overall I like how they function as a series and how they communicate “documentary showing” with simple themes and imagery.
