A Summer of Ink 🤘

A look back at our summer poster challenge

After moving to a different floor this past summer, the Twitter Design studio felt a little sparse. In an effort to brighten some walls and liven up our working space, a few of us got to thinking how we could make our creative mark. After brainstorming some ideas — stickers and murals! — we settled on some good ol’ fashioned posters to make our shared workspace feel a bit more like home.

And, boom: The studio played host to an eight-week poster challenge. Spanning Design, Research, and Twitter’s Creative Studio, we hosted four different challenges that culminated in a showcase every other Friday. We kept themes simple and gave silly titles to everyone who participated in order to create a low-stress, high-fun event open to all. Each challenge rewarded three participants with a themed prize, determined by a guest judge from the leadership team.

Here were the themes for our inaugural poster challenge:

• Tweets!– Visually represent your favorite Tweet
• Portraiture– Recreate yourself, an idol, or a colleague through illustration, photography, or any way you like
• Core Values– Take the Twitter core values to the #NextLevel
• Community– Represent a hashtag, cause, non-profit, or whatever you’re a part of

The challenge was a rousing success! It also allowed us to work beside talented, creative folks that we don’t always see in our day jobs. We spotlight a few below:

Ingrid Bremner in front of her kitty quinceañera poster for the Tweets challenge.

Ingrid Bremner– Designer, Twitter Creative Studio

What first got you interested in visual design?
When I was a little I was obsessed with the album art in my parents’ record collection, especially Axis Bold as Love and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I hoped to do that for a living one day. I still hope to.

What was your inspiration for your posters?
The decision to create these posters with the Risograph influenced the choice of subject matter. For the Tweet challenge, I wanted to celebrate the delightful absurdity of @phranqueigh. For the portrait challenge, I wanted to pay tribute to the wonderfully wild and vibrant Yayoi Kusama.

How would you describe the style of your work?
I would describe the style of these posters as bold and playful.

How did you settle on a color palette?
The Risograph pretty much decided the color palette for me — it produces such lively yellows and pinks and reds.

Josh Wilburne in front of his poster of Humphrey, his pug, for the portrait challenge.

Josh Wilburne– Product Designer, Tweets

What first got you interested into visual design?
I used to be really into punk and zines when I was younger. I wanted to design album covers and magazines, so I went to college for graphic design. I did that for a few years before getting into more digital work, and eventually into UX and product design. But really the old album covers, show flyers, and punk zines were my first intro into the concept of graphic design.

What was your inspiration for the portrait challenge?
I love my dog, and I wanted a way to visually represent him. I also like gradients and this general “nouveau Memphis” design trends that are happening lately, so I just looked at lots of posters and got some ideas.

How would you describe the style of your work?
I think I get lost in inspiration from all over the design blogosphere. I try and see trends happening in modern design, as well as some of my more favorite classic designers (Josef Müller-Brockmann, Barbara Kruger, Jan Tschichold, to name a few). Like most designers, I feel like you just kinda absorb lots of things and then eventually try and execute some sort of amalgamation until it feels right.

Any highlights or fun moments from the challenge you want to call out?
When Biz hand drew the portrait of himself and Jack! Also getting everyone together to just create something for the sake of creation was a great way to break up your day-to-day work and stretch your creative muscles.

Mackenzie Crist sits in front of her Catholic-nun inspired series.

Mackenzie Crist– Designer, Twitter Creative Studio

What first got you interested into visual design?
It’s hard to say! I think I’ve always been pretty interested in visual design, whether or not I could articulate it. I remember when I discovered Word Art (from Microsoft Word) in elementary school, and I think I was hooked on typography ever since.

What was your inspiration for the portrait challenge?
My inspiration for the portrait challenge was the magnificent nuns from my Catholic, all-girls high school (shoutout to Holy Names Academy!). They were remarkably intelligent and interesting women, who were also hilarious and witty.

How would you describe the style of your work?
I love typography, so I try to incorporate lettering in my work whenever possible. I also enjoy geometry, crisp lines, and precise alignment of objects.

How did you settle on a color palette?
For the nuns, I went with the brightest colors we had. I love the neon pink and how it overprints with the blue and yellow. I wanted to use color to boost the energy of the posters.

What did you learn from participating in the poster challenge?
Most importantly, I learned how to use — and proceeded to fall in love with — the Risograph. Part of the fun of the poster challenge was learning to expect imperfections that would result during the printing process. Typically, I’m pretty meticulous with my design, but the Risograph doesn’t always allow for such precision. I began approaching the design process differently so that any “mistakes” made during printing (such as misalignment or overprinting) would enhance the poster.

The author shamelessly poses with his own poster.

Thanks to all who participated, the folks who helped organize such a large cross-functional festivity, and our resident photographer: Josh Wilburne, Adi Wise, and Jeremy Reiss.