Poster | Marte

Design Strategy: I’m always around children and a lot of the ideas I come up with sometimes reflect that in the use of colors, and in the use of images. Sometimes I think I’m a big girl myself. My idea was to create a poster about a blood drive, and after seeing the words I thought it would be interesting to take that literally and just draw it. I haven’t seen a poster about donating blood with the image I had in mind so I thought, why not give it a try? I did and it actually became a little more complicated than what I thought. My poster was intended towards college students.

1- because that’s where I am and 2- I thought I should make it fun since some people are really anxious and scared of needles, and the poster won’t bring them fear, instead it’ll be something nice and thoughtful to do. I don’t think I accomplished what I really wanted to, I wanted a more detailed car, however, because of my limitations of Illustrator I had to make it simple and work with what I could. I used primary colors; they are very bright and draw your attention immediately so it’ll be hard to miss the poster and that’s the purpose.

Choice of typeface: Since my poster is very fun-like and laid back I wanted a typeface the same way. I chose Bruno, bold, because it looks like a handwritten typeface, and that’s what I wanted. It makes it simple, playful and easy to the eye.

Visuals: I used Illustrator for my project even though it was a little challenging since I’m just learning it. I used the pen tool to trace my car and blood drop. I also used the paintbrush to add some funky details like the cloud and the bubble surrounding the big message. I used a blue pantone for the sky, I wanted a pastel color but I used a bright green for the grass as a contrast (CYMK). In general I’m pleased with the end result. It’s a very simple poster but in my opinion it carries the message efficiently and in a fun way too. And also won’t be too expensive to make.

Project 2: Poster | Wong

The Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County is having a small event to celebrate the NEA’s Read Across America campaign. This particular event is focused towards young children, between birth and elementary school. I wanted to do something that would show that reading was fun for kids, involve Dr. Seuss in the poster somehow (since the event is on his birthday), and still portray the event without having to write down “Read Across America” since the NEA logo says it.

I decided to use red, white and black for the poster because those are the colors of the Cat in the Hat, Seuss’ most famous character. Since I couldn’t really use the hat anywhere in the poster because it’s so recognizable and would thus be in violation of a copywriter law, I decided to try and imitate the cat’s bow – but not make it so detailed so it could also look like an ordinary bow, and therefore not violate any laws. This would hopefully attract young children and/or their parents. Then I wanted to portray reading across America without actually having to say it. So, making the United States into a book seemed like the best and simplest solution. I like having simple posters because I tend to not pay attention to busy posters. Simple and clean posters are easier to understand, especially for students and for parents of hyperactive young children. So, I decided to keep it simple and just have a USA-shaped book, instead of my original idea of having a child’s head thinking of other people reading books across the world. This way, there is a lot of white space, and the poster seems clean.

I chose the typeface Apple Casual because although it seems a bit decorative, it also looks like an elementary school student’s handwriting, and thus is kid-friendly. I wish there was some way I could make the font seem like it was written with crayons so it would seem even more kid-friendly, but I didn’t want to actually write out the font myself. The headline is based on Dr. Seuss’ book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” so that I would have another Seuss reference, and then I have the event information next to the USA book. On the bottom are the organization’s logos – one for the organization holding the event and the other for the organization who created the nationwide event.

Poster Project | Neufang

I made a poster to promote a local concert/contest for local bands from local companies in support of the Red Cross; it’s called Rockin’ the Red Cross. I began to try to index images that connote “rockin’” I immediately thought of people in a crowd, bands on stage, and various instruments. I had many ideas, but unfortunately I was slightly limited in my knowledge of the technology.

I opted for a simple image of a man playing an electric guitar. I found a picture of a man rocking out with his inner elbow showing, so I could add a bandage as if he gave blood. Then I used the pen tool and solid fill to make my image.

Fortunately, keeping it simple has the advantage of not overwhelming the poster too. In fact I had to tone it down a couple of times. I used a subtle red bandage on the man’s arm, another innuendo to the Red Cross, and a reminder to donate blood. The image is meant to draw the attention of music fans, so I wanted the image to be quite large.

I wanted to keep the colors to a minimum, using only red to draw attention that this is not only a concert, but also a benefit for the Red Cross. This also has the advantage of cutting printing costs, since either the Red Cross (who has more important things to spend their money on) or myself (who is living on part-time wages) can print at a lower cost.

The headline is in Motter Corpus, which reminds of 70s radio station logos, and other content is in Onyx MT, which if I’m not mistaken is the Marbloro typeface, or at least very similar. It is unfortunate that I would equate cigarettes to rock stars, but it seemed appropriate for the poster.

Poster Project

My poster is for the non-for-profit event, Greeks vs. Cancer. My fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, puts on the event and the demographic for this event are all students at Syracuse University and fraternity/sorority members. Any student at Syracuse University is allowed to participate in the event, but the majority of participants tend to be fraternity and sorority members.

At first I envisioned creating a basketball hoop out of the words Greeks versus Cancer including the date of the event, however after I attempted to do this the result was not what I had hoped. I then thought that creating a scoreboard containing the information for the event because it was creative and original. I wanted to keep the project relatively simple because my previous attempts with the pen tool were a failure. I believe I accomplished my goal of creating a poster for this event that was completely different from former posters for this same event and keeping it simple and clean.

I chose the typeface Lithos Pro Regular to use throughout the poster because the typeface appears to fit the “Greek” style. The sizes vary throughout the poster to emphasize specific things I want the viewers to pay more attention to. I chose the colors, purple (C= 69%, M= 100%, Y=0%, K=25.9%), black, and white because those are the color of my fraternity.

The visual I was trying to create was a basketball scoreboard. All of the boxes on my poster represent different things that would be seen on a real basketball scoreboard including, the home and away team, time, fouls, scores, possession arrows and a few others. I also drew to basketballs using tools on InDesign to help fill up dead space and to further emphasize that the event is a basketball tournament.

Claire McFarland
Rationale
Project 2: Poster Design

Design Strategy and Client Information | During the creation of this poster project, it was important to define a clear outline of the strategy for its layout and functionality. The not-for-profit organization that is showcased in this poster project is the Wild Ones Association. The event that this group is hosting is the Wild Ones plant sale, and their target demographic are middle-aged men and women who can afford wild plants and would choose to decorate their homes with such. There were many project limitations, as this not-for-profit is a smaller centrally located company that cannot afford a wide variety of colors and an elaborate poster. I designated two specific tones for this poster; orange and green. There are many variations of the green color, as I changed the shade and gradient width for the different strokes on the ‘child’ or ‘wild plant.’

Typeface | I chose to use VAG rounded 60 point for the top text, VAG rounded 16 point for the event details, and I drew the ‘Wild Ones’ logo with the paintbrush tool, as it captured the wild sense of the organization. These fonts helped make the poster design unique, legible and eye catching. VAG rounded, being a sans serif font, had a clean and modern look to it, which was congruent with the poster design itself. The Menlo typeface helped attract attention to the organization’s title and created visual appeal to stand out from the rest of the text. The only text that had all uppercased letters was the ‘Wild Ones’ title, to draw attention to the organization’s name and create a lasting image for the reader.

Visuals | It was extremely difficult to choose a specific visual for this project. I appreciated the creative process of brainstorming and sketching a minimum of five thumb nails to help formulate a plan of design for the poster, however having a variety of creative options made it difficult to choose. I thought that it was important to line the text up with the visual images on the right, so the text drew the eye to the drawings. The tools that were extremely helpful in this project were the pen tool and the curve, line and circle tools. It took a surprising amount of effort to incorporate a variety of stroke widths and shades of green to have the plant (child) come together, and then creating the mother and father, their hands, feet and hair as well as altering the stroke width for their pupils, bodies, lips and faces were much more time consuming than expected. This attention to detail, however, made the overall visual flow and stand out. What made the ultimate visual stand out from the rest was its clarity, simplicity, humor and space plan. The image was clear and defined because of its simple lines and clear margins. I also created a new green for the background in the right and left text boxes. The color gradients for these are C= 37 M=0 Y=59 and K=4. The orange also made the poster pop and the use of white space helped emphasize the images present on the page. Also, it was important to use the two-thirds rule for the space layout. This meant not to cut the image directly in half and divide the page evenly, but rather allow the drawing to dominate the poster space. I also placed the text on the upper left hand side since the eye tends to travel from top left to lower right. This encouraged the reader to be attracted by the bold and simple text and then pair that with the similarly themed visuals.

X Margin- 204.797 pt.| Y Margin- 382.525 pt.
W Margin- 373.729 pt.| H Margin- 609.322 pt.

Lecture | Jack Gernsheimer

I never imagined logo design to be such an intricate process until hearing Mr. Gernsheimer speak on behalf of his own creations. To have something as basic as a circle manifest into a company's identity is quite stunning. You would never of thought how much work is put behind that Pepsi Logo, or even something as simple as the Target bullseye. The designer, on the other hand works through countless sketches, conceptualizing and re conceptualizing before an ultimate identity is born. In his lecture, Mr. Gernsheimer spoke of ten key elements to a successful logo -- of those which include: distinction, relevance, versatility, and sophistication. As a beginning designer, I find those four elements very crucial in my own process of design. I ask myself every time I look at my sketches-- "How original is this idea"? "How far can it expand-- will it last in different mediums, with a diversity of audiences?" And lastly, how clean, and polished is it?" Although there are numerous of other important components to design, I find these very pertinent to me.

Looking back at the resume and poster projects (not so far in history, I know), I remember going through quite a few misfits before settling with my own idea. It is often hard to come up with something so raw and originally brilliant. I mean, look around. The 21st century has been inundated with various assortments of iconic images, deviant art, and other creative lavishings that fall in-between. Now, where does my work stand (or how can it, is the better question). After encountering many brick walls with this question, I realized that no one miraculously wakes up with an one of a kind idea. Originality is what you make it-- whether by looking at other great designs, piecing together what you know and what you learned, or simply expounding on the ideas of others, it in itself is a work in progress. The process, of course, is a long one that requires much patience not to mention willingness to accept whats already been found. In Mr. Gernsheimer's speech, we saw various logos that resonated works of previous designers and yet were very effective with or without it predecessor (the two German agencies with the dolphin icons, and "CN/ CNN"). Personally, I am quite fearful of "authenticity", I love it and hate it at the same time. I want my work to be untraceable and uniquely overt but then again who doesn't?!

Other areas of struggles I find myself having is the ability to be flexible in my designs. Can I produce something that appeals to not only a niche, but a variety of audiences at multiple mediums? Sometimes, I even have to ask myself-- who is the audience I'm making this design for. Often times I get carried away at the sole purpose of designing, I forget to think about the relevancy to whatever it is I am doing. Mr. Gernsheimer showed multiple layouts of his logos, some of which the client's opinion favored over his own. Many of his earlier sketches changed over time as he revisited the company's ultimate proposal (what they do and who they are targeting). I understand right now, my work is limited to specific groups (professors, peers, classmates) for critique, however I believe for something to suffice, it needs to appeal to not only a university-bound setting, where everyone has (hopefully) been trained to appreciate good design, but to multiple venues outside of the Newhouse community. I believe the only way to make that happen is to be involved in projects outside the academic setting and have my work seen by the everyday layman so to speak. With that said, does anyone need a designer? :)

Week Five- Simplicity & Figure Ground

When thinking of gestalt this image of this movie poster for "choke" instantly popped into my head. I have actually never seen the movie, but I do remember the poster from when it was being advertised. I had read the book so I do know the story behind the poster and think it was a very clever and simple way of expressing the concept of the movie. It is the story of a con man who also happens to be a nymphomaniac. He cons people by pretending to choke on his food while eating at a restaurant and waits for someone to step up and play hero and save his life. This person then feels responsible for his life and sends him money in the mail. He does this several times a week and receives money from hundreds of people. It doesn't really make sense. But fortunately the poster does... In reality he is choking on his food but really what's "choking" him is his addiction to sex. This is cleverly shown by him devouring a woman. It is an eye catching silhouette with an attention grabbing color. A very memorable poster.

Poster Project | Pruitt

Design Strategy and Client Information:

Habitat for Humanity in Mobile, AL is having an Interfaith Build where different religious organizations come together and sponsor a house. I knew that they could print color, because I have seen posters of theirs before, but because they are a non-profit organization, I didn’t want to include too much color. The woman in charge sent me an information packet on the project, and I tried to make the poster resemble the packet in color and general feel. The packet used the colors red, blue, green, and yellow, and featured hands in a circle. I used that as a guide and went from there.

Choice of Typefaces:

For the headline, I used Aachen Bold because I liked the simple bold serif look. I felt that it grabbed attention, but didn’t take away from the graphic below. For the smaller subheadline, I used Helvetica Bold because I thought that is simple and it popped on the roof of the house. Finally, for the contact information, I used Arial because I felt that it matched the rest of the poster and didn’t distract from the rest of the poster.

I used basic red, blue, green, and yellow for the hands because those were the colors that were used in the information packet. For the house, I used a blue that I had seen on a house before and I made a black roof, because I felt that many roofs were black. I put the headline and contact information in black because I felt that the simplicity worked well with the rest of the poster. I put the subhead in red because I wanted it to pop against the roof.

Davis | Poster

Design Strategy
I wanted to design a poster that attracted attention and stood out. The colors needed to be bright and cheerful, emphasizing that this was an outdoor event on a spring day. The two main colors, green and blue, signify grass and sky respectively. Realistically, this organization probably could not afford printing 11x17 posters. 8.5x11 posters would certainly be more cost effective. But, for maximum effectiveness, color (as opposed to grayscale) is a must.

Choices of Typefaces
The headline font, League Gothic, is a free, open-source font that I found online. It is a very tall font, allowing for a good deal of text on one line. League Gothic is also fairly modern, yet surprisingly approachable. I find the lowercase letters in League Gothic to be rather ugly, so I chose to set it in all caps. The body copy is set in Univers, a ubiquitous sans serif font. Univers is legible and simple. I could have easily gone with a more light-hearted font (this is, after all, a gathering in a park) but I decided against it; a more simple font appeals to a larger demographic.

Visuals
The visual I chose is a doghouse (repeated three times). Doghouses are easily recognizable, making them a great choice for a visual. Also, what appealed to me was their symmetry. I offset that symmetry but varying the size of the houses. The visual is fairly simple, and I created it by combining a square and a triangle in Illustrator. The doorway was made by combining a circle with a rectangle.

The colors are as follows. Three variations of purple: 56,100,10,1 / 90,100,11,3 / 75, 100, 11, 2. Blue: 76, 16, 9, 0. Green: 54, 0, 71, 0. I picked vibrant hues of blue and green (once again emphasizing spring). The rich purples act as a nice contrast.

Poster Project Rationale | Wettje

Design Strategy:

For my not-for-profit organization, I chose Habitat for Humanity because I am taking part in their Alternative Spring Break program. Currently, Habitat and everyone involved on the trip is trying to raise money to help fund the trips to the various locations. The burden of fundraising has fallen on the participants in whatever way they felt necessary and/or efficient. My idea to fundraise came in the form of a friend coming on the trip, who was able to get Wegmans to donate gift cards that can be raffled off, thus the idea for the event.

I went through a lot of different ideas involving raffle drums and raffle tickets but they weren’t iconic enough to stand out and be noticeable. So, I went back to what the root of Habitat for Humanity is; houses. That’s where the idea for smoke coming out of the chimney in the form of information came about for this poster. I felt it was an interesting way to present the important details. The poster follows the rule of thirds, with the title, information, and house each getting their own section.

Because this is a smaller, one hall event, I decided that extra color wouldn’t be too expensive and would make the poster more appealing to look at. However, if this event were to be expanded, then the blue background is easily swapped out for white and the poster still looks just as good.

Choice of Typefaces:

Because the words were going to get warped into the form of smoke, I wanted a very simple font to keep things readable. I came up with Myriad Pro. It’s a sans serif that has a very clean look and the counters stretched very well, lending to easy readability. I used both caps and lowercase because I wanted to keep everything about the text as simple as possible. If something in a dorm is hard to read, you have no chance of it getting attention drawn to it. That’s why I wanted a simple, iconic image and a simple, easy-to-read font for what I wanted to do to it.

Visuals:

I found a picture of a house with a chimney and traced it with the pen tool. The type is all warped with the envelope tool and rotated into place to create the image of smoke from the chimney. The grass under the house was made with the symbol sprayer tool. Like the design itself, making the images was a very simple process. The hardest part was getting a good idea on paper in the sketching stage. After that, everything fell into place. The blue in the background was meant to mirror the blue of the sky and I wanted a rustic feel to the house, so I chose an earthy red for it. The blue is C=100 and the red is C=16.86 M= 100 Y=100 K= 8.63.

Project Poster Rationale | Mao

For this project, I chose Partners In Health (PIH) as my non-for-profit organization. PIH is a organization based in Boston, and holds many projects throughout the nation to provide medical relief for poor communities. This month, PIH has worked closely with BBB , a residential dorm that holds approximately 700 students. My goal was to make a poster supporting their “7 Day Haiti Challenge” in a distinct way. Given my audience--mostly freshmen and sophomores students, I wanted to create something that stood out amongst all the rest of the flyers (that never get read). What challenged me the most was to find a novel way to express notions of “heart, relief, and crises” in an event that already has many visual associations. After brainstorming possible concepts I put together what looks like a EKG reading with a two-sided heart to represent the Haitian heartbeat (from healthy to static). This idea struck me after looking at pictures of earthquake graphs, which looked very similar to that of an EKG. The visual I used was originally a candid shot of my Nigerian friend, which after many photoshop attempts looks like a very animated Haitian. This was my second challenge-- to design an effective illustration that framed my idea.

Following the principles of photography, I divided my poster into blocks of thirds. I believe this created an effective gestalt not only visually, but also typographically. To capture my audience at first glance I decided to use a little combination of pathos and logos. In my middle section, the message “50,000 Hearts Stopped on January 12, 2010” not only tells statistics, but also pulls a bit at the heart. In addition, I put this area on top of a grid (which I captured from Illustrator) to represent the graph of an EKG. The font family I chose for my entire poster was Warnock Pro, a serif font that came in 32 different weights. I found its variations of light, semi-bolds, bolds, and italics very useful depending on what kind of information I wanted to convey. I used the bold face for my first heading at 65pts. I wanted this to have the immediate “stop-dead-in-your-tract” effect. The rest of the information is in either bold, semi-bold, or regular weight. The color I chose is a plum red (C-15, M-100, Y-90, K-10) to contrast the black and repeat the redness of my heart visual. I arranged the content according to its hierarchical importance, as well as relevant groupings. One of the struggles was to reduce my information to its key components. It was a little difficult to find a way to communicate a succinct message while maintaining its visual aesthetics. Overall, I believe my design is very clean, readable, and appropriate for audiences of all ages.

Project 2 Poster | Robinson

Design strategy and client information:

At my high school, National Art Honor Society members craft bowls on a potters wheel, paint them and sell them at their biannual Empty Bowls event. Proceeds are donated to a local soup kitchen. This poster would be displayed in all K-12 schools in the district. It should appeal not only to high school students (the majority of attendees) but also teachers and parents. I wanted the poster to be vibrant yet simplistic- not so trendy that it excludes the older demographic.

The school can afford to print between 30 and 40 of these posters in color, however I do not know if the elementary schools carry 11 x 17 paper. I tried to keep in mind that the poster would be scaled down to a traditional letter size. The event does not take place until late March, so I have time to revise the poster if NAHS members have any objections.

Choice of typefaces:

Never before this project had I realized the severity of Arial Black. I think of it as being such a pedestrian font, but its sharp edges in the all caps letters are rather confrontational. It exaggerates the need for a movement- to combat hunger in our region.

Cooper Std. is ideal for this event because the rounded serifs make me think of the bowl shape. It’s fun and so rarely used that it could easily become recognized as “The Empty Bowls” font year after year.

Visuals:

I found pictures of a mitten and an oven mitt on Google Images and used the pen tool in Illustrator to trace the images. I also used the pen tool to draw the string and knot, and I used the line tool to draw the band in the mitten and the stitching on the oven mitt. The crystallize tool gave the mitten the image of being tattered, suggesting that it belongs to a homeless person. All the text was done in InDesign.

The visual works well with the slogan in a few ways. The mitts are tied together like a pair of boxing gloves, hence the “fighting” slogan. “Hands on” suggests that you literally wear these two articles on your hands, and that the NAHS made the bowls by hand.

The “kitchen appliance” shade of red is C=0, M=100, Y=100 and K=0. The visually contrasting “granny apple smith” green is R=58, G-236 and B=11. The brown mitten is C=35, M=60, Y=80 and K=11.

-Melia Robinson

Poster Project | Montesdeoca

***** MY ACTUAL POSTER CUTS OFF A FEW CENTIMETERS FROM HER RIGHT HAND, AND A FEW CENTIMETERS FROM THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB LOGO..... SO USE YOUR IMAGINATION :) *********

I used a model walking on the runway because I think that is symbolically the epitome of fashion. So what better then a model to use on a poster for a fashion show? I took an image of a model off of the internet and made her into a silhouette. When I did this I purposely made her legs thicker than she actually was as I wanted the idea of curves being beautify portrayed. Curves are also more valued and tend to be considered more beautiful in the Latino and Black cultures, which are the mass majority of those who are members of the Boys and Girls Club.

My original idea was to have the model become a silhouette and keep her shoes and dress. However it would have been very difficult to keep her shoes, so I only used her dress- which I am absolutely in love with. I did this through the handy work of photoshop. (As was the Boys and Girls symbol.)

The green color for the background was taken from the dress. I thought it complement the tan undertones of the dress very well. I also put special consideration into the shade of yellow that I used as lighting on the model. This color was also taken from her dress. I felt as if it was a very warm and inviting shade of yellow that complimented the green background very well.

One of the most difficult parts of this poster for me was playing with the spot light. At first I wanted it to be used to help me make a foe stage that the model was walking on. Then I wanted it to contour the curvature of the models hips. Finally after receiving a critique from Prof. Taylor I decided that I wanted to make it into an actual spot light. I felt visually that it was important that it still followed the models hip, so it is placed at an angle which allows it to do so.

The phrase “WALK THIS WAY” , which not only has verbal ties, it also literally means walk this way ( Paul helped me with it) is angled in a manner that makes a “V” when it intersects with the lighting. I felt like the bottom of this “V” was an appropriate place to put the information for the event as it was where the visual aspects of your eye dragged you to.

I centered the information for the event within its text box which, I think, helped it play off of both verticals, from the phrase and the light.

The font for “WALK THIS WAY” is Futura medium. It’s thick San-serif letters are similar to the limbs of the model that they demand almost as much attention as they do. This aided in making a visual equilibrium. I used the event info to keep a sense of consistency throughout the poster.

I placed the symbol for the boys and girls club on the bottom left corner as that is where the lighting leaves your eye. Although all of the writing is on the same side I believe it helps to visually even out the poster .

Project 2 | Tocci

Relay for Life targets virtually everyone, from young children to the elderly, because it raises money for all types of cancer and almost everyone has been affected by cancer. Therefore, I wanted a design that could appeal to all ages and get the message and event information across succinctly and clearly. I wanted readable text and one main visual image to get the point across. My initial design featured people with cancer ribbons as bodies, but I felt that the image was boring and routine. I feel that the final image is more powerful and eye-catching.

Since my conceptual headline, “Run for Your Life,” has a serious connotation, I wanted a fun typeface with personality for contrast. Cancer and cancer research are life-or-death matters, but Relay for Life is generally a ton of fun for participants, so I wanted to depict that contrast in my poster. I chose the Hobo Standard typeface because of its retro, laid-back feel.

To create my image, I scanned a photo of my friend’s boyfriend taken while he was running in a 400x800 relay. I then took a photo of my friend’s arm and cropped and filled the images with black to create silhouettes. To create the ribbon, I scanned a ribbon and resized the image. I used these images because I liked the strength and flow I felt they conveyed. I think the image connotes forward progress and unity. I placed the ribbon in midair in between the runner and the arm because I felt that the visual of the ribbon passing between people sends a stronger message than one person owning the ribbon in his hand and passing it off.

I used black text and black silhouettes to create gestalt within the poster. The pink ribbon provides a burst of color among black to liven up the poster and make it more visually appealing. The purple Relay for Life logo allows for instant recognition, as it is a logo most people are familiar with, and makes the logo pop a bit more than if it matched the text and silhouettes.

Project 2: Poster Design | Lang

Design Strategy and client information:
For my non-profit event, I decided to use an event that my sorority Pi Beta Phi participates in with the non-profit organization First Book. This event is geared towards little kids in need to provide free new books for them in order to promote literacy. The poster design that I created was geared towards teenagers and college students in an effort to get them to think back to their childhood. It is not too childish and not too adult like. By using the puzzle pieces I was hoping that it would sort of bring the audience back to their childhood and encourage them to work with children and read to them. I really liked the puzzle idea and didn’t know what other visual idea to use. So I had the pieces spell out “literacy” and also included some scattered pieces as if you actually were making a puzzle. The color I used was spot color and I think that it could work in terms of price wise. Some parameters that I had was that I didn’t want the basic images that come to mind when you think of literacy and reading such as a child reading a book or ABC blocks, so I tried to think of something that children played with. I thought that puzzles were something that kids played with as well as adults, so it would be a good mixture to combine both elements.
Choice of typefaces:
For the word literacy, I used the typeface Spumoni LP Std Regular and for the phrase in the middle and the event information, I chose the font market felt wide. I really liked these fonts because they seemed very kid friendly and fun to use. I also felt that they were both easy to read and that it would give off the feeling that reading to kids can be fun. The intended demographic would find this typeface easy to comprehend.
Visuals:
The images for my poster are puzzle pieces. I found a puzzle vector and cropped out the section I wanted to use and then ungrouped all the pieces. I used Adobe Illustrator to change the image. I also created the lines for the background. I used dotted lines and solid lines to created a paper background like the type of paper little kids used when they first learn how to write. I really like the idea of using this type of paper because it really reminded me of my childhood and it goes along with the theme of literacy with reading and writing. The type of color I used was Pantone: Green – Pantone 9524 C, Yellow – Pantone 107 C, Blue – Pantone blue 0821 C, and Purple – 7439 M. The color I used was for the puzzle pieces to make it look more realistic that not all pieces are the same.

Project 2: Poster|Shaer

Design Strategy and Client Information:

The Demographics for Go Red For Women is females throughout their lifespan. It is never too early to care for your body and be heart conscious. I chose to draw the silhouette that I did because Go Red For Women targets all women, promotes healthy living, being strong and taking control. The fact that my figure is all black, simplistic, fit, and in a power stance allows me to encompass all of the traits that The American Heart Association promotes. I wanted women to look at this poster and see a female that could relate to anyone, psychologically allow them to superimpose themselves in the image, and be an icon of the event. I also thought that the design concept could be converted and manipulated onto apparel, accessories, and maybe even a Barbie doll. I chose the color scheme that I did because it compliments the colors in the logo and is low budget. As a side note, the break in the girl’s heart is an EKG line. I selected the phrase on my poster because it was age neutral, and the majority of the population is engrossed in the idea of makeovers and body image, so why not enhance yourself where it counts the most?

 

Choice of Typefaces:

I chose the typefaces that I did (Consolas and Myraid Pro)because they are simplistic, blunt and legible. I did not want a font that was too whimsical because even though my design is cutesy, heart health is a serious matter and I wanted my point to be visible and taken seriously. I also wanted a font that could be read by females of multiple ages.

 

Visuals:

I created my visuals by selecting several images of females and tracing different aspects of them with the pen tool in Illustrator. I freehanded the heart, hair, and skirt on my poster in Illustrator with the pen tool, as well. My colors were all CMYK. The heart held in the girl’s hands was manipulated using the opacity option to add contrast, interest, and look as though you were seeing through her. The half of the heart on the background was altered using stretched out pieces of the girl’s hair and the Gaussian blur option to tie in her curls, anchor my figure, and create an abstract heart. In a way, the hair pattern on the heart and the blur almost compliment the idea of veins on an actual heart and the free form shape of the organ. I feel that my image brings my headline to life because no one wants to see their heart broken. 

Project 2: Poster Design | Llewellyn

Design strategy and client information

My poster was made for OrangeSeeds, a first-year leadership group on campus. OrangeSeeds is a community-based organization that holds events to get Syracuse students involved in doing community service. Workstock is an event where Syracuse students will be bused to the West Side of Syracuse to clean up and hopefully improve this impoverished area. I needed my poster to incorporate the event’s theme, which plays off of Woodstock. I used bright colors and bold lines to make the poster fun and appealing to college students.

Choice of typefaces

I knew from the beginning that I wanted a very fresh, sans serif font that would modernize the theme of Woodstock. I chose Century Gothic for the event information and tagline because of its large counters and the fact that its letters have no variations in weight. I thought these characteristics contrasted well with the type used in the title, Antique Olive Std Black. I chose this font because it makes a bold statement and has clean lines. My favorite aspect of the type is the detail in the letter “t,” which seems to give the title a slight traditional appeal. I used lowercase for the event information, all caps for the tagline, and caps/lc for the event title. This variation in type cases gave the poster a bit more variation between type.

Visuals

The primary visual of the paintbrush I drew by hand and scanned into the computer. After scanning, I traced the image using the Wacom tablet. The image was created in Illustrator. The visual of the paintbrush really works for my design because it ties in the Woodstock theme through the use of bright and crazy colors, while also showing that the event has something to do with community service. The bird sitting on top of the brush, which was also drawn on the Wacom tablet, also plays off of the Woodstock theme. Color is essential to my design; I used CMYK for all of my images except for the background which is a Pantone color.

TYPE CHALLENGE 4

This week's type challenge is an EMERGENCY.

Be the first to correctly identify the typeface used on the ambulances outside the health center on Waverly Avenue. Note: the typeface you should look at is the one on the front of the vehicle used to spell "Ambulance" backwards.

E-mail your guesses to Prof. Taylor to win some Starbucks love!

Project 2: Poster Design | Ben Berk

My poster was advertising a talent show benefiting Haitian relief. It is being put on by the afterschool segment of the summer camp I work at, Oasis Community Corporation. Oasis runs many free or near free children's programs in New York City, including summer camps, tutoring programs and afterschool programs. The site that this one advertises for has many children from temporary housing.

The picture I use for the background was taken at my mom's school (she's an elementary school teacher in the city). I originally planned on just having one chair centered but after I saw this picture, I had a new idea. The letters of "you" could be centered on each seat, giving the illusion that they are sitting in the chairs. I felt this worked because it almost pressures the reader to attend the talent show.

I used Celestia Antigua Std for the top 3 lines. I picked it because I felt it was soft enough to seem written by children yet still legible. The serifs are rounded, and there are no extravagant stylings.

I used Flood Std for "YOU" because I think it looks really raw. It almost looks as if it was painted on with a large paintbrush. Again, I felt like it looked slightly less professional, but in a good way.
Finally, I chose Trajan Pro for the text along the bottom because the all caps and bold strokes are legible while still remaining small and unintrusive.

I used the eyedropper tool to transfer the color of the red from the picture to form the background of the lower third of the poster. I tried to remove the white of the Oasis symbol with the clipping tool but I wasn't able to.

Project 2: Poster Design | Paterson

Design Strategy and Client Information:
My client is a non-profit organization in southern Rhode Island. The Narrow River Preservation Association (NRPA) strives to maintain the quality of the ecological communities and natural environment within the Pettaquamscutt (Narrow River) Watershed. The NPRA hosts several events in my hometown throughout the year, including, the “Narrow River Turnabout Swim”, and the Annual “Narrow River Run.” The latter of the two events is a 5k/10k run and 5k walk that occurs around the town of Narragansett, RI. This event attracts participants of all ages and brings the community together to consciously preserve a river that many southern Rhode Islanders have grown up around (including myself).

The preservation of Narrow River helps to maintain the wildlife, which plays a significant role in the community’s fishing environment. Crabs caught in Narrow River 13 years ago were edible, but now they are so polluted, it is pointless to go crabbing. This is why I have chosen a blue crab as the primary visual. The simple sneakers personify the crab and match the slogan, “Catch Me If You Can,” a common phrase that exemplifies a race and the common practice of crabbing in the river.

The NRPA is not an organization that would be able to afford printing a poster with many colors. I decided to keep the poster down to different opacities of the same color blue, a consistent green and white. These colors create a great contrast so that a majority of the posters can be printed in grayscale and a few [located in major areas of the town] can be printed in color.

Typeface:
I wanted the typeface to be smooth, yet eye-catching, which is why I chose the sans serif font family, Futura. “Catch Me” is Futura Condensed Extra Bold so it would stand out from the rest of the text. The rest of the slogan is Futura Medium with a very large tracking in order to differentiate it from the first line and visually bring the entire phrase together. The slogan is in all caps and the body text is in caps and lower case this is because áI wanted the slogan to be considered more of a visual than text. Because the amount of text is so little, Futura is easily readable throughout the poster design.

Visuals:
The primary visual focus on my poster is the crab in the upper right hand corner of the page. I drew the entire crab using the Wacom Tablet and the “blob brush” in Adobe Illustrator. I then used the shape tools to draw the sneakers. I chose to bring the crab off the page because I wanted the claw to direct the viewer to the text and it would appear redundant to show the entire crab. It is blue because anyone who has been crabbing in Narrow River would know that blue crabs are most prominent, and I felt that a red crab would be too cliché.

I wanted the visuals to reflect the purpose of the organization while hinting at the actual event, which is also evident in my color choices. The blue is Pantone 280 M at 100% and 80% opacities, and the green is Pantone 377 M. I chose green because it is a good representation of the environment and the blue was carried from the crab to the slogan text and organization logo. I chose to make the sneakers white so there would be a link from the white in the upper area of the poster to the informational text.

Poster Project MERCER

For the poster project I decided to create a poster for an upcoming recital for my mother’s piano trio, The Almeda Trio. This trio is the trio-in-residence at the Music Settlement in Cleveland, Ohio. This is a non-profit school of music for children in the Cleveland area. I am very interested in music and my mother’s trio which it still very new, so I was excited to work on such a project.

My overall goal with this poster is to provide a graphically pleasing and interesting poster for the trio to use. The Music Settlement commonly prints posters out on tacky-colored 8 ½ x 11 papers with an image of a cello snagged out of clip art! This trio is very new and its main goal is to help modernize the Music Settlement and lead it in a new transition to a future with more creativity and better structure. I think using a creative poster will make a huge difference, especially amongst the terrible posters seen floating around the building. I also wanted to create one that is acceptable for posting in other Cleveland locations that may be home to more graphically pleasing posters to begin with!

The visual aspect of my poster is the word ‘Schh!’ I wanted to catch the attention of people passing by the poster (which, by the way, is going to be hung amidst a sea of graphically-displeasing posters) and I thought this noise, so often heard in concert settings, would do the trick. I used a bit of a play on words by spelling it the way I did- as the reader looks down the poster, it’s clear that the composers whose works will be displayed at the concert have last names beginning with the letters ‘sch.’ After picking the word I wanted to use, I decided to trace images commonly associated with music to fill the letters in. I used the pen tool to trace seven symbols that I recognize easily (as well as anyone attending the Music Settlement) and duplicated them in a pattern on a plane that I used to fill the letters in. For the ‘Schh!’ I used Avenir LT Std 95 black in 290 pt. I wanted it to be an easy-to-read sans-serif font that is huge- which it is.

The second line of text is another common phrase used within the concert world- ‘the concert’s starting’ is something I hear at almost every event I go to. I used Futura Std. Heavy in 76 pt. for this text because Futura is a large font that provides stark contrast to the peach background (C=0, M=43, Y=53, K=0). The rest of the text (aside from the Almeda Trio’s word mark) is also Futura Std Heavy (in 29 pt. and 25 pt.). I used the same font to lead the reader down the left side of the page for further information about the concert details.

The Almeda Trio uses Caecillia LT Std Heavy for its word mark, and I made the size smaller for the purposes of the poster (34 pt.). I made the gray text (C=48, M=43, Y=45, K=7) larger to make the trio name stand out.

I really didn’t include much text on the poster- I wanted the focus to be on the visual ‘Schh!’ and otherwise I was only interested in including vital information about the concert. In the lower right-hand corner I also included the Music Settlement logo (which is also new to the organization!)

Overall I really enjoyed this project because I was able to create something that will actually be used in the real world! I like how it turned out and I'm pleased that I was able to create this graphic image for the trio. Hopefully there will be a lot of attendees!

Gestalt (late) | Wong

I absolutely love musicals. One of my favorites is Wicked, the one about the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz. I have the entire soundtrack memorized and have probably seen the musical five times. And Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, two amazing Broadway stars, originated the roles. And the soundtrack just rocks. Anyway, the musical's poster uses the gestalt rules of figure/ground, closure and simplicity. The colors used in the poster to depict Elphaba make it obvious which figure she is - the one that's green and dark, implying that she's the "wicked witch." Whereas Galinda is in white and has a "normal" skin tone, showing that she's the "good witch." The entire poster is really simple - the figures are really depicted by closures of color - black, green and white, which makes the poster clean and easy to understand. The simplicity of the poster also shows that the musical will be mainly about these two characters, although there are many other important characters in the musical.

Another musical I adore, that really should be revived again on Broadway because 1999 was much too long ago, is You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. The song "My New Philosophy" is just adorable, and the musical helped amazingly talented Kristin Chenoweth win her first Tony. Of course, now I'm rambling so let's get to the gestalt part. The poster uses the gestalt principle of simplicity, and it works because everybody can recognize the silhouettes of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Also, if they couldn't, the color scheme should help - the yellow is a signature color for Charlie Brown. But if the color still couldn't recognize the two figures, then they need to go back in time and watch some Charlie Brown cartoons. Or watch the musical. There are still clips online, and Anthony Rapp, from RENT fame, plays the title character, and B.D. Wong, from Law and Order: SVU fame, plays Linus! Yeah, in case you couldn't tell, I'm a bit addicted to Broadway. It's the reason why I'm always broke.