Meta-Poster - effective poster design
Project: Meta-Poster
Project team: Michael DeFranco, Alicia Lin, Dayna Polstein, Garrett Scheffler
Class: PDI Studio III (Fall 2008)
Objective: This project requires you to learn by doing. You will learn about effective poster design by researching, designing, and reviewing posters. In order to maximize the challenge of layout design, and especially devising clear connections between text and image, the project entails a reflective twist: You are to design posters that communicate how to create effective posters. In other words, the topic of your poster is poster design.
Project summary:
Individually, we created a series of concept ideas and mock-ups, then brought them together to be reviewed as a group. This gave us a good pool of designs, which we discussed in detail and narrowed down to two. We took these two concepts (hereafter referred to as the "Monster Poster" and "Toaster Poaster") and expanded and refined them further to create the best poster that we could. Each detail was contemplated, and as a group we questioned each aspect of the posters. We wanted to create posters that were eye-catching, yet taught good poster design. The two designers who created the initial concepts of the Moster Poster and Toaster Poaster 9myself and Alicia, respectively) worked on the designs in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator while the rest of the team members provided input and justification for all the messages embodied in the two posters.
On the day of project reviews, we printed both finished posters and put them up at the front of the studio. This generated a slight controversy, as the assignment was to create one poster per team. When put to a vote, the class asked for us to take down the Toaster Poaster.
Monster Poster - final poster details
At first glance, this poster looks like a piece of art, yet demands interpertation and engages the viewer, asking them to look deeper to find further meaning in the work. The poster features a rough, hand-drawn monster that symbolizes bad elements of poster design. The city and road in the foreground embody desired principles that are key to creating an effective and eye-catching poster. The contrast between the monster and the city create the message that the designer must "beware," as just a few negative elements may be enough to overpower all the positive features and principles, ruining the impact and message of the poster.
I originally created the concept of the Monster Poster. I wanted to design a poster that would stand out from others in the class by focusing more on "showing by doing." I didn't want to create an "educational" poster that litereally showed and described what each element was - I wanted to engage the audience to look into the art and find a meaning. The two designs that I created on my own are the first two shown below (the red and grey versions). Our group collaborated to choose the desired color scheme and worked together to fine-tune details to create the final product. I made the design in Adobe Photoshop, and made it very clear which layer corresponded to which part of the poster, then sent the file out to my team mates so they could play with the design to visually portray what they thought should be changed. All the art (with the exception of the blimp) on the final monster poster was drawn by me.
Below are some selected iterations to show the evolution of our design:
1. Original concept (me)
2. Original concept with a different color scheme (me)
3. Original concept with a different color scheme (team)
4. Element rearrangement and different color scheme (Garrett)
5. Iteration with grey blimp, instead of orange (me)
Toaster Poaster - final poster detalis
The Toaster Poaster concept was originally developed by Alicia Lin. She began with a series of nine squares on a black background and a small design inside that evolved with the addition of each design principle. In this poster, we focused more on the content than the artistic meaning, as it laid out the message in a very straight-forward way for the audience to see. After a series of iterations, the group finished with a new concept - a toaster (drawn by Michael DeFranco) instead of the flower featured in previous designs. The title then became "Toaster Poaster" because changing the spelling of poster made viewers stop and pay attention to it - it attracted their attention because it was wrong, and asked for the audience to look to discover why this was.
Below are some selected iterations to show the evolution of our design:
1. Original concept (Alicia)
2. Original concept with a text (Alicia)
3. Redesigned poast.er concept with toast (Alicia)
4. Poast.er concept with toaster (team)
5. Concept with die-cut instead of square poster (Alicia)
Iterations - quick mock-ups
Here are a series of very rough mock-ups that were created. These two were developed by myself. The first one features a stock photo in the background, along with brushes that I created. It uses bright colors to draw the attention of the audience, then shows matte planes dropping bombs symbolizing different design principles on the city. In the front is a silouhette of a designer and short message. The second concept plays on the idea of "creating balance" by literally balancing different concepts.
The next two mock-ups were created by Michael DeFranco. The first one shows a cafe with windows, through which the audience sees a series of delicious baked goods. The baked goods in each window symbolize a different poster principle. The next mock-up shows a series of blocks. One side of each block describes a principle, while the other side shows a visual representation of that principle.
This last mock-up was created by Garrett Scheffler. This concept was similar to the Toaster Poster, with a different artistic twist.
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© Copyright 2007
Tiffany Hu
Product Design and Innovation 2011
