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.