[FHNW] Week 2: Poster Design
This week, we are working on a poster design project with Leander Einsenmann. The purpose of the poster is to promote a fictional book exhibition called “Life Size” for Eric Tabuchi.
The details of the event are as such: “Life Size” // Eric Tabuchi // Design Museum Basel // Freilagerplatz 1 // 23.09.-18.12.2016.
| 6.28 |
A little background on Tabuchi’s work: In his collection of photographs entitled “Life Size,” Eric Tabuchi gathered and deliberately arranged a series of photographs that capture the human being in various sizes while being contrasted with different objects (namely scenes of architecture and nature). In other words, Tabuchi plays with scale of the human, of the human in relation to objects, and the human in relation to the size of the book.
A very interesting aspect of this work is that he did not personally take any of the photographs — if you flip to the colophon, beneath the title of the book, you can see a small line of text: “A Google Search” (which I’d delightfully stumbled upon).
Because I found this element of the book so interesting, I really want to capture it in my poster concept.
Initially, I thought about using the special effects that can be achieved by the screen printing process — layering. I wasn’t entirely sure how it would be executed, but considering the various sizes of the humans, I wanted to make the various sizes out of different colours taken from the Google logo.
After talking to Leander, I realized that I need to refine my message. What am I trying to convey with the poster? In addition, it would be best to include the most obvious characteristic of the book — the play in “size” of “Life Size” (as shown below).
I continued to work on the different possibilities of laying out my idea, as shown below. I suddenly had a eureka moment, realizing that using Google’s typeface / visual language might be a possible idea.
| 6.29 |
As for today, I will be drafting the two layers of posters. The bottom layer will be the humans increasing in scale (almost like a metaphor for evolution), and the top layer will be a Google search bar.
The idea is that people would be able to flip open the Google search bar, hence get a glimpse of what the exhibition would be like.
The reality of the situation is that we will have today and half of tomorrow to complete the poster, and that’s really it. Therefore, I’m going to narrow down the scope of the poster to something manageable.
I played with the form of the poster a little bit — my plan is to make it interactive. Below are a few ideas:
1.
2.
3.
The issue with the current design is that the open flap will definitely be ripped off as a real poster. It’s bound to be destroyed by someone. Therefore, considering the poster without the flap…it would be misleading for a Google advertisement.
Therefore, Leander recommended looking into “suggesting” the impression of Google by implementing the type instead of including the actual words. Below, I dissected the imagery of the Google search page and used it to make a few iterations of the title / the artist’s name.
I’m also looking into different Google Doodles of famous people / events:
Related to film/photography:
Current sketch:
To-do List:
- attempt making Google’s logo a Doodle logo — in other words, the poster wouldn’t have to be interactive to convey the message
- make the second image / poster (layer below current) with varying sizes of people
Boom also suggested that I try manipulating the ratios of the drop down search bar. That might be interesting — it might also be more manageable considering the
| 6.30 |
Today I want to work a little bit with printing out the different photos in Life Size and play around with collaging. I cut out the window in the actual poster to visualize the size of the collage I’ll be making.
You can see the collage I put together above. However, two issues I encountered with this were that 1. The horizontal increase in scale is not emphasized — in other words, the “evolution” of the humans sizes should be expressed in a horizontally longer collage — and 2. The window becomes a white space with no purpose after being flipped open (as shown below).
Additionally, I also realized the “e” of my logotype could be replaced with the Google “e”, to further mimic authenticity. Raveena also suggested adding an active curser (as if I’m typing into the search engine on the search bar, so the interface looks like it’s been activated.
Below, you can see that I fixed the “e” and swapped it out with the Google “e”, and also simulated the actual print of the poster, with the window / flap being a double-sided collage of the images Tabuchi used to demonstrate the increasing scale of humans.
The most frustrating part about this process is that while I really like the concept, it’s hard to make it happen when I’ve only got a day left. Especially when I’m lacking in practical ability to make it happen…
Right now I’ve got a few options.
- Print a booklet with the double-sided laser printer and glue onto the actual poster (which would defeat the point of the “window”, as there would no longer be a cut out window.)
- Do the same thing, except also cut out the window (just for the sake of keeping the same concept).
- Print double-sided on the inkjet printer, then add a backing for the window of the large scale humans.
Conceptually, the 3rd option may be the best. However, practically, option 1 would for sure be the easiest. Hansier, the tech guy, described to me that in real life, the booklet would be the more feasible approach. In fact, the most practical situation is usually the one that becomes implemented.
A good lesson for today: explore your equipment and evaluate your ability before pursuing an ambitious idea; sometimes, it’s just not possible.
On the other hand, I’m pretty happy with my progress in the project so far. I’d realized very late into the project that if I really want to continue double-sided printing, I can’t double the size of the flap — it’s bigger than an A3 paper, which is what the biggest possible double-sided printer can handle. Therefore, I decided to scale everything up by only 70%…meaning that I had to readjust the real size Google search bar on the A3 format poster I was making. So much unnecessary hassle for myself!!
But. I’m very happy I did this. It’s been a very meaningful learning process. Below is the actual size of the search bar I printed on A3, on the actual size of the A1 poster.
Still stuck on format…Below, I tried figuring out ways I could print the poster on two separate sheets which would be the most manageable way to make the two layers work. It’s 12AM and my head’s getting a little fuzzy…
…Aha! Boom suggested that I print it as the second way. I would be able to achieve the layering effect by printing out the entire Google search page as the poster, then manually feeding paper and printing on the backside of the A1 poster for the flap. Lastly, the window would automatically be formed when I cut the search bar shape out from the poster, and I will just need to add a second layer for the backing (and also the second half of the scaled human beings). This can all be achieved without too much concern about inaccuracy of manual feed / duplex printing by making sure that the scaled human images bleed over the border of the search bar shape on the poster. It’s actually a very simple concept…why hadn’t I thought about it earlier?
But that’s okay. Grateful for smart friends. Who still help you think even when it’s 12AM.
Now, as for tomorrow, I need to…
- Color check (check printing studio)
- Figure out how to do manual feed print on inkjet printer / talk to Hansier (print which side of poster on good printing side?)
- Mount
- Shower, and look good to talk pictures!
Alright, checking out for the night!
| 7.1 |
Our critique is at 2PM today, and I’m in studio already at 7:30AM; I think there should be ample time to get this printed in time. Given that I figure out how to correctly print this out, that is. The problem is that there’s no one coming into studio until 8:30AM. I don’t know how to use the plotter.
~ meanwhile, Lucy spends a considerable amount of time trying to figure out the way she wants to print things, and the formatting… ~
When Hansier (our incredible tech guy) arrived, I grabbed him immediately and asked him how to print my poster. He said that printing should be “easy” (although that I should export my files using InDesign because it’s a lot easier to export and also handles large files better). But the possible issue here is something quite out of our control…It’s hard to say whether the plotter will handle my formatting correctly, as I need to manually print the poster double-sided. A lot of what happens in the printer is automatically adjusted, and that’s very much dependent on the accuracy of the technology.
…
In the end, my poster still didn’t print correctly. I have a ton of misprints, and really learned the hard way not to trust technology. It’s still better to work on things manually if possible. It’s also helpful to listen to people of experience, as Hansier had actually proposed many other options that would’ve been more fitting for my time frame, even though the result would’ve been less desirable than I’d intended.
Huang, a friend, suggested that next time, I should examine the technology I have available, and whether my idea is actually feasible. He’s absolutely right. No matter how brilliant an idea is, if it’s not manageable within the constraints / time frame, it won’t work.
Below, I explain to my colleagues the concept of my poster, as well as the poster cover in actual size (which I was grateful that it printed quite nicely).
I’m still going to bring the files back to Carnegie Mellon though, and then reprint the poster again. I have a hard time accepting defeat, especially by technology.
Poster feedback from the class:
- the interactive concept is interesting, witty
- the treatment of subtle image of Tabuchi is nice
- interesting if the tab that could get eventually ripped off includes event details — also serving as a flyer
- “Lifesize” =/= “Life Size”
- “is it correct to emphasize this aspect (Google search) of the book?” — Leander
- appears more like an art installation than an informative poster
Takeaways from this project:
- examine your technology / skills and determine what’s appropriate given the constraints
- listen to experiences
- consider your message — I struggled a lot at the beginning with determining and refining a single powerful message in the poster
All in all, I had a wonderful experience with this group of extremely talented designers, and learned a lot about the designing and thinking process involved in creating a poster.
