217.1A Introduction to the Graphic Arts (Spring 2010)

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.