OUGD406 | STUDIO BRIEF 3 | LIBRARY EXHIBITION BRANDING | POSTER DEVELOPMENT

My task as part of the group was to come up with two poster designs that can be used for the exhibition. We decided that one poster should be to obviously advertise the event, and it would also be great to have a poster that people who visit the exhibition can purchase as a souvenir.

Two starting points we had already was the sphere shape and the name "re-connect", so I began to work from these two elements.

The typeface we chose was Bebas Neue, as it is tall, crisp and capitalized; which will help grab the attention of anyone who would see the poster. It also compliments the shape that we'd come up with.  At this stage we were quite open to using different colours although mainly we wanted to stick with blacks, greys, whites and grey-blues.

This is the first design I came up with using the sphere. I kept it simple and central as I wanted to experiment with it just being the main focus on the page.

As can be seen above I tried the design in various colours and also tried positioning the text in different ways. I think the most successful is the central text as it compliments the sphere more than aligning the text to the left and right. There's much less space between the shape and the text which I think looks better as the other designs are perhaps too spacious. 

I then tried the central design in grey which is a simple yet effective colour choice, as the shape is quite intricate in itself. I added a ripped edge to the bottom as an experiment, as I thought since we are re-designing existing covers, it's almost as if the original has been ripped off the page. The next thing I tried was zooming in on the sphere to capture the details and make them clearer as when it is smaller it is a complex shape. I filled the triangles with a lighter grey to create a 3D effect but I preferred it more simple.

I tried this design with the shape coming from the side, it almost looks like earth from a satellite view which would relate to people on the planet connecting in some way, through the lines and dots. I tried this in red, but members of my group found it looking a little gory. I think a calmer colour for this project would work better. I tried the text in the center as anywhere else looked oddly placed as the sphere is emerging from the left in the center. I added a strip of red to frame the page too. I think the text on the strip looks a little out of place, it looks a lot better in the center along with the title as all the information about the exhibition is then central. I think the larger title looks better though as it would grab attention more than all of the text being somewhat small.

I came up with this design by using the shape in the corners and to the side, so it looks framed and filled. I thought that since these posters will be a large size, the intricate details will be captured accurately and look nice emerging from the edges. I also put 'connecting' lines from each sphere to relate to our exhibition name. I think the black version with white lines stands out the best and reflects the darkness of space or something along those lines. After getting some feedback on this design I was told that it could be a little too cramped.

 

I altered the spacing to let the text breathe a bit more, and I think this looks a lot more effective than cramming it all in just to get more of the shape on. The shape is quite intricate anyway so even just a small area is decorative and does the job of framing the design. This will be taken into our interim crit along with the other work done by members of the group such as signage, bookmarks, exhibition booklet etc.