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.
After doing my SPCA website, I can really appreciate a cause for animals. I think you very effectively completed your mission.
ReplyDeleteThe dog houses are easily recognizable as an index of dogs. They speak to the headline, and really make the viewer want to help the cause.
I think the condensed nature of League Gothic is very effective as a headline. You used a large enough size to compensate for using all-caps, and so it is attention grabbing and easy to read.
You used the rule of thirds in the headline, the background, and the dogs houses, and it really makes for a great gestalt of continuation. If I was walking by this poster, I would certainly stop and read the whole thing.
All in all it is fun and evokes the passion for animals I have. I think any animal lover would want to spend the day outdoors at this event after seeing this poster.
Very nice. It was fun going back and looking at one of the first projects we did. Have a great summer!