McGill l Week 6

I decided to create a poster for Komanse Konya, a group hosting a benefit dinner and letter writing campaign for victims of the Haiti earthquake. I started by establishing two colors for my background. I used two pantone colors that are close to the ones used in the Haiti flag. The black strip stretching from the upper left to the middle right represents the earthquake that hit Haiti in January. I used the crack to represent Haiti which is why I created a letter coming out of the crack - to give the visual that the letters that students write will go directly to Haitian citizens.

The stamps on the letters are significant also. They have palm trees on them, which resemble the palm tree in the center of the Haitian flag. The crack also directs the readers’ eye down in the page. As they follow the crack line down to the right, their eye encounters the multitude of letters, which then leads to the quarter circle. The quarter circle is mean to represent a table (since the event will include a dinner). The table contains all the information not already included in the poster.

I decided to keep the poster rather simple and wanted the reader to notice the letters first. The letter writing is the main part of the event and I thought this was the best way to illustrate this.

Week 6 | Mariotti

Design Strategy and Client Information:
My client was the Pi Beta Phi sorority, who is hosting a Casino Night benefiting the First Book Program for literacy. The demographic for this event is any SU student. I wanted to make a design that was clever, yet still got the idea across. I also wanted a design that didn’t say the information directly, but had an implicit meaning.

Choice of Typefaces:
The typeface I chose was Rockwell. I chose this typeface because it was similar to the typeface on a card. It isn’t exact, but it’s the closest I could find. This font is also very readable.

Visuals
I created the image by scanning individual cards, creating a white rectangle over the number, and replacing it with a letter to spell out CASINO NIGHT. I cropped the cards in Photoshop and placed them in Illustrator. The visual relays the information in an interesting way.
The red I used was CMYK red swatch. I used this color because it matched the red in the red cards.

Week Six: Davis Reiter

Design Strategy and Client Information: The not-for-profit organization I chose is Colorado Service Dogs. This organization helps train and provide rescued dogs to assist people who have disabilities. Therefore the demographic of this organization has a lot of people with disabilities, and many children as well. This is why I tried to make my poster a little more friendly and not so formal.

The event is being held in Washington Park which is a really popular park in Denver, CO. Very active people go to Washington Park so this venue is perfect for dog walkers since the park is always filled. In general, people are very laid back so I wanted to make a poster that portrayed this happy go lucky feel.

I knew that I wanted my design to be very simple and ‘cute’ for lack of a better word. Washington Park is a very family oriented place. I also did not want too much text on my poster, which was difficult because I wanted to get all the information there and it was hard to choose what details were important and which were not. One thing I did struggle with was the amount of free space, which is why I decided to add the leash.

Choice of Typefaces: I chose Carolina std as my typeface because I felt that it was very easy to read. Originally I was going to use a really fun curly font because it was a little more playful but I was worried about the readability. I tried to keep the fonts consistent throughout the poster as well. Fuzz is capitalized only because it is capitalized in its formal name. I tried putting a shamrock in the o of spot but it seemed too busy.

Visuals: The visuals were a little frustrating at first, but after a little time practicing tracing images it became better. I tried free hand drawing the dog’s tail end in Illustrator but it was messy and did not look like a dog. I then decided to google a picture of the dog, a leg, a shoe and trace each one. I used the paint tool to get the spots onto the dog, and then freehanded the leash. I really wanted the images to go off the page. I think it works well because the viewer can image a person walking a dog. I wanted it to appear kind of messy as if it were hand drawn which is why some of the lines aren’t fully colored in. I also really wanted to use a bright color because I thought it would draw the viewer’s attention. I chose green because it is like grass and also because this event also celebrates St. Patrick’s Day.

Week 6:Nicole Buckbinder

Design Strategy and client information:

The not-for-profit organization that I created a poster for was my sorority Delta Delta Delta’s Pancake Breakfast. This event raises money by charging five or more dollars for all-you-can-eat pancakes, and all proceeds are donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Since this event is taken place on campus during homecoming weekend I wanted it to attract all age groups since there are many visitors that weekend. I also wanted it to be simple and straight to the point. I aimed for it to be very large and not too full of words because I wanted the viewer’s to be able to look at it fast and know exactly what it was.

Choice of typefaces:

I chose the serif font Nueva Std. Condensed for the whole entire poster. I decided to use one typeface because I didn’t want different typefaces to make it look distracting. I used lowercase letters for the headline because I didn’t want it to take away from the visual in the middle. In addition I chose this font because it was similar to St. Jude’s logo’s font but was a little bit more playful since it is an enjoyable event.

Visuals:

For my visual I decided to use syrup and pancakes and incorporate them into the words “Pancake Breakfast” I first traced the syrup bottle, filled in my own colors, added the deltas into the label, and warped the handle to make it stand out as a “P” more. In addition I made the weight of the line around the syrup bottle thicker to resemble the font of the rest of the word. For the “B” I used chocolate chips, and two pancakes with butter. I made the “B” by drawing each object, using the shape tools, and warping them to get them to the shape I wanted. Finally I decided to put the words on a plate to make it appear as more of a visual than just all words. I made the plate by using the shape tool. I chose the color yellow as the background because it matched well with the pancakes and syrup.

extra credit, Gernsheimer | Staponkute

The speech Mr Gernsheimer was a useful experience for upcoming logo's project. I found out that there many different types of logos such as legible, sophisticated, memorable, enduring and more types. I actually never thought about the differences of the each, and about the purpose - to be valid for a long time, to be easy memorable, or to try attract audience by visual appeal. Though you have to plan ahead.

I also find out how important sketches are. Honestly, I didn't have many sketches for the poster project, I created some things by working on it on lab. For logo, it is definitely important to have many examples. If you use one type, it is necessary to have at least 10 of its various shapes and forms. That might lead to creative logos that future clients might like.

And it is not only creating process. In order to know what logo represents, it is important to gather a lot of information by visiting the client, touring the facility, interviewing the client, taking notes... There are many steps that for simple people designing process doesn't seem complicated. Though it really is!

One more thing, I never thought that logos might last for 30 years without being changed (Woolmark logo), it is amazing.

Week 6 | Staponkute

I was completing this blog in bird library so they didn't have the font needed for my poster, and used older version of inDesign. This font in here is not the actual in my poster, just wanted to let you know!

Design Strategy and client information

Faith Hope & Love Foundation is established in order to address the overwhelming needs of today’s children and youth. In the event they organize and that I chose, people are encouraged to donate formal dresses for upcoming prom events in high schools. These are big events and as always, prom nights are not imaginable without dances. That is why I chose to picture the feet of the dancing couple. It is the last dance being at high school, the last one to dance with high-school love. I wanted this poster to look cute and girlish because we are talking about teen-age girls that usually love colors pink and purple. I used cute typography and an orange bow to bring some “sweetness”. However, I think this project might have some limitations. This non-profit organization is run by Laura Brusseau, a high school teacher of Laconia, NH, that is why it might not afford big quantities of colorful posters. However, I think it is possible to refuse some colors to make production cheaper if necessary.

Choice of typeface

I wanted to find something oriented towards the teenagers that is why I chose Party LET Plain:1.0 for the headline. I liked this typeface because it is already curved and that it has a nice letter “L”. Other additional information I put in Bodoni Svty ITC TT as it is simple and makes easy to read the information.

Visuals

For the visual in my poster I took a picture online and used the Blob Brush tool to go around the shape of the dancers’ feet. I chose (RGB) color purple inside the objects and light pink around them. I chose the same pink for the background because I noticed that the purple forms looked more attractive. I also used Blob Brush tool for a bow but this time I drew it myself, I only chose a different size. Orange works well as I can use it also in typeface to emphasize important parts.

Week 6 | Palermo

Design Strategy and Client Information:
The demographic for the Crossroads Guitar Festival is guitarists and music enthusiasts, especially those interested in classic rock and blues. Many of the musicians performing fall into these genres such as Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Jeff Beck and the Allman Brothers. I felt that most concert posters have a picture of a guitar on the poster and it was getting cliché. I wanted my poster to differ from this trend but I knew I had to incorporate a guitar. I chose to take a picture of the fret board of my guitar. I thought the fret board was a great idea because guitarists and music enthusiest would recognize the fret dots (the double dots are on the 12th fret) and it would get those viewing the poster to envision the whole guitar. The frets also created a way to clearly separate the information on the poster. I looked at past posters for the event and they featured colorful and intricate hand drawn pictures of guitars, so I think my design is realistically affordable.

Choice of Typefaces:
I went with the Mojo typeface for the header and the word “blues” as a way of alluding to the 1960s and early 1970s where Clapton and some of the other performing musicians got their start. I noticed in Eric Claptons’ most recent cd releases that many of the featured fonts and texts on the covers had a psychedelic feel to them. I wanted to have a psychedelic feel to the poster since many of the concert goers probably grew up in that era of music. I used Futura as the other typeface because I wanted a sans serif to make the poster look modern, to contrast with the nostalgic Mojo. I also chose Future because it was very easy to read at first glance, the viewer doesn’t have to stare at the poster for minutes trying to decipher the typeface. I colored the header with a gradient of three bright colors to enhance the psychedelic feel. I colored the word “blues” blue to make it stand out more.

Visuals:
The main visual is the fret board. I knew it needed to take up the whole poster and bleed of the side to be fully effective. To create it, I loosened the strings on my guitar, pulled them out of the way and took a picture of the fret board around the 12th fret (the two dots would be most recognizable). Then I cropped the photo in Photoshop, and used a watercolor effect to make it look as if it was painted. I thought the watercolor helped the visual appear more nostalgic and be more in tune with the 1960s era of psychedelic art. In the poster the frets ended up serving as dividers for the posters information, separating the header, from the caption, from the list of performers.

Maxwell Week 6

I chose to do my poster for March of Dimes which is a foundation that raises money for premies and babies in general. The hardest part about this project was coming up with an idea that I had the skill to create with the software. I ended up throwing out my first four ideas because there just wasn't enough time to learn the software well enough to execute the poster that I envisioned. I looked at some of the other posters March of Dimes used in the past and the ones I found were all really old; and they all showed either kids or entire families with walking sticks and and other illnesses.* So I wanted to do something a little perkier with my poster. I wanted to add some happier colors (and some healthier babies!) to make the poster less...melancholic. I have done the march twice in Cincinnati and it's a very big deal in our city so I added the Cincinnati skyline behind the baby to spice up the background.

I also played around with the Uncle Sam war recruitment poster because although it is nice and pink and blue with a smiling baby and whatnot, I also wanted it to be a call to action and really encourage people to participate in the march. So I used a big bold typeface and added a thick red stroke, as it is done in the original poster, to catch attention and give the poster a more conversational, or personal tone if you will.

Overall, I think I want to do another poster. I like this one just because it's the first one I've ever designed, but I would like to do another one for a different event to see what I can really do with a little more conceptualizing and more skill with the software.

Final thought of the project: Knowing photoshop would've been f*cking amazing.

*I found out that March of Dimes was originally founded during Roosevelt's presidency to help provide aid to children with Polio and fund research, as a great deal of people had fallen victim to the disease. The Polio cure was actually found partially using money provided by the March of Dimes Foundation, and the foundation was not always called so. They had a slogan encouraging people to even give just a dime to help fight Polio; the name stuck and was eventually made official.

week 6 | Wu

Design Strategy and client information
Say Yes to Education is a non-profit organization. It commits to increase high school and college graduation rates. Say Yes to Education provides students comprehensive support, including after school programs, summer programs, mentoring, tutoring, and scholarships. The purpose of this poster is to recruit college students for Say Yes to Education summer camp. Recruited college students will become counselors to students who are ages from seven to ten. In this poster, I want to three problems. I want to create a sense of summer. In addition, I want to inspire college students to become mentors for elementary school students. Last but not least, I want to send the message out to recruit college students for summer camp.
In general, the poster is like a drawing from an elementary school student. This speaks from the kids’ perspectives to call for mentors who will share knowledge with them and inspire their futures.
Choice of typefaces:
I chose Bruno JB Std to be consistent with the kid’s drawing. The text on bee’s shirt is in ITC Avant Garde Gothic since it is the typeface they use from last year’s summer camp shirts. The information at the bottom is in Gill Sans. It is san serifs. It is clear, simple and easy to read. The white text leads attention to the logo at the right corner of the poster.
Visuals:
First of all, sunflower is also a sun, with a bee flying around it, gives a sense of summer. Furthermore, a metaphor is throughout the concept. Bee is like a teacher. Flower is a student. A teacher empowers a student with education is like a bee pollinates a flower. The bee wears a Say Yes summer camp shirt. In addition, the sunflower has a child’s smiling face to further indicate that sunflower is like a student.
The sun glows light, which represent the bright future of students who received comprehensive education. The trace of the bee leads viewers’ eyes to the text on the leaves. The glows of the sun lead eyeballs to the information at the bottom.
Above all, this poster will standout among the posters that speaks to college students, and will effectively convey the message.

Week 6: Irina Dvalidze

Design Strategy and Client Information
My poster design was created for an event hosted by Play It by Ear, a new non-profit student organization that aim to “perform, impact, and educate utilizing music and the arts.” Play It by Ear primarily supports the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for 2010. This year they will be hosting live performances during Relay For Life. The poster’s demographic is the student population, since it is primarily a university event, which was the primary reason I wanted to have a fun and simple visual with direct address statements. The organization has a specific amount of funds at their disposal, however I wanted to limit color use, which is why I opted for the poster to use primarily white space.

Choice of Typeface
I chose condensed extrabold Futura, through out the poster, with the exception of the date, which I did in regular. I find Futura to have very a clean geometric visual appeal. It is very straightforward which is why I chose to use it. I did try to give it variety by changing kerning and font size throughout the poster. I chose to do the date and place in regular because I wanted it to be easily readable, without much effort from the viewer.

Visuals
I needed to have a visual referencing music, since it is a musical event, and I also wanted to play around with the name of the organization, since it has such a visual title “Play It by Ear.” Initially I had an idea of a musical clef resembling the outline of an ear with text worked into the outline to tell the general info. However this idea had to be scrapped because of the execution difficulty and visual complexity, which might have been lost of the viewers. So instead I chose a vintage symbol of music, a gramophone, and worked the ear into it as a visual “trick.” I used block color to liven up the visual.

Week 6: Wolk

I chose Relay for Life as my event. This race is held annually across the country by the American Cancer Society, but my poster was designed specifically for SU's event. I wanted to attract students with my poster, and I know that students pass hundreds of posters every day- I wanted to make sure that my poster would catch the eye quickly and efficiently convey the basic information for the event. I wanted to make the poster youthful, since the primary audience will be young students.

I used Glypha LT Std 64 Bold for the typeface on my poster, because it was easy to read from a distance. I also thought the font had a fresh, modern quality, especially with the all lowercase letters.

My visual is two runners, which I created in Adobe InDesign with the trace tool. I like that the images are running across the page, giving the poster some movement and going in the same direction as the text below. The heart that the runners are passing is also traced, and it goes with the headline "pass on love, run for life" because it is literally the love being passed during the event.

I chose to use light blue, dark blue, red, and black colors on my poster because they are all found in the American Cancer Society logo. I think that by using the colors I was able to tie in the logo at the bottom of the poster, and I think the colors are visually appealing.

Week Six | Loguidice

Design Strategy:

I chose to do a poster for the not-for-profit organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is a breast-cancer related walk/run that is held annually. My primary demographic for this event included anyone who has been affected by cancer in some way, such as family or friends succumbing to the disease etc.
I wanted my poster to be motivational and inspiring for survivors and victims so they would attand this year's race. I wanted to promote unity, and the organization's desire to spread the message about breast cancer. I decided to use the pink ribbon to symbolize the "road" we still have to travel to discover a cure.

Choice of Typefaces:

For type, I chose Fairfield LT Std, a transitional serif typeface. I used this type both in the headlines and in the information; it is a typeface that is easy to read in all sizes, and has a diverse set of weights that I could choose from.

Visual:

Visually, I wanted to keep the design simple. I came up with the idea of a runner (it is a race) running on a pink ribbon to symbolize a "road" as well as the trademark pink breast cancer ribbon. I also only used a silhouette for the runner, to simplify it further. I traced a pink jersey on the runner both to "break up" the continuous black of the silhouette as well as to show what the runner was running for; additionally, it creates a great visual gestalt.
Differing shades of pink were used as a color scheme because pink is the breast cancer "color."

Week 6 Ryan McDonnell

Design Strategy/Client Information

The annual LEADD Walk is a very important part of the Levittown, NY community. The Levittown School District runs the LEADD program to help educate students against drug use and to bring awareness to anti-drug programs. The walk itself is the marquee event of this program and brings together many in the community.

The school district is on Long Island and has quite a bit of money it can use. Although that is true, there is still the concern over cost. However, considering posters are not normally created for district events, doing one with color for a once-a-year event is fine.

What I wanted to accomplish with this poster was to bring a nice simplistic message of unity in the community while having an appeal to students, especially in the elementary school level where there are more children attending classes, as well as parents.

Typeface Choice

The entire poster is done with two variations of one font. I chose VAG Rounded STD because I felt it had a child-friendly feel to it. It looks very similar to fonts used in grade-school books and posters and has a comforting feel to it as well. The two variations I used were light and bold. Light was my choice for the information and the headline while I used bold for the title of the actual event. I also bolded the first letters of the acronym “LEADD” to help further explain the initiative of the program.

Visuals

There are two reasons why I made the background color yellow (0/0/100/0). It gives off the feel of a school bus, which is known for it’s distinct yellow color. It also gives off a reminder of school crossing signs that are found near schools. The latter had a role in the inspiration of the poster, as the figures are a variation on the people seen on those signs.

As for the figures themselves, one was drawn using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator while the remaining four were copied and pasted from the original and rotated on an axis. As you can tell, each figure is a different color. This is to represent the colors of the schools in the district, as one school uses purple (74.92/93.2/0/0), three use blue (87.78/77.24/0/0), four use red (0/100/100/0), two use navy (100/98.64/6.36/4.3), and one uses green (78.67/0/100/0). The idea of all these figures joined together holding hands is to promote unity in the Levittown community and how the entire district is coming together to hold this event to help better the lives of children and adults in the town.

Week Six | Nelson

Design Strategy and Client Information: My not-for-profit organization is Camp Good Days and Special Times, a summer camp for kids with cancer. I chose Dance Marathon as I’ve been involved with it throughout high school and it is a huge event in my community. Each year, a student creates an ad campaign always focused around people dancing and the clock that shows a countdown of 12 hours, and this design is used on posters and t-shirts participants receive. I wanted my design to be simple, since the demographic is high school students, trying to get them involved to go out and get the sponsors needed for the event. I also wanted the design to be something different and to incorporate dancing in a different way, or to leave it out entirely; with this in mind, I focused my design more around the idea of the “marathon” and stayed away from the more cliché dancing. I wanted a design that was eye catching, and that you could simply glance at as walking through the halls of the high school and get the most important information.

Typeface: I chose Adobe Caslon Pro as the font for the water bottles. I wanted a typeface that would actually be used on beverages, since I based my water bottles on pictures of Aquafina I had taken. To contrast the serif of the bottle, and be more modern for the young students in high school, I used Gill Sans for the actual information on the event. Besides being modern, I wanted this portion to really stand out, and since I knew I was going to make the font wave-y to fit in the splash of water, I wanted a sans serif font that was good for readability.

Visuals: When brainstorming for this poster, my first ideas went to the cliché ones I had already seen used by the school: dancers, counting down and musical themes. I looked at the word marathon, and began to think of things associated with that event in itself, outside the traditional runners. Water bottles came to mind, since at DM itself, there’s lots of water floating around for the worn out dancers. From there, I thought of what I could do with the water bottles, initially thinking of a dancer gulping thirstily from it as others danced around. But I wanted a more simple design, and came up with the idea of manipulating the water inside the bottle to fit the tagline “Don’t walk. Don’t run. Just dance.” I decided on using three bottles, one for each part of the tagline, and having the water represent walking (still), running ("choppy" water) and dancing (exploding from the bottle), with all the relevant information spewing out of the “dancing” bottle. The colors of the water bottle were taken from the images of the Aquafina bottle label using the eyedropper tool. I wanted the background to be very light and have a water-y aspect, so chose a very light blue , and then outlined the water from the bottles in a shade slightly darker than the lightest blue of the bottles to tie it together.

Week 6 | Leveille

Design Strategy and Client Information
I chose to create a poster design for New Hope Arts, Inc.’s upcoming summer event Savor New Hope: Showcase of the Arts. New Hope Arts is a non-profit organization that serves to promote the arts. Each year, the weekend following July 4^th is dedicated to the celebration of the arts. Community members and visitors can see concerts, exhibitions, a dinner to celebrate culinary arts and more.

New Hope is an enriched art community, so in order to solve my poster design I wanted to focus on multiple types of art at once. I also wanted to reach out to a diverse audience ranging from children to adults and community members to tourists. Although New Hope Arts has many sponsors including the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I kept in mind that the organization is non-profit and decided to limit my colors to those of the logo (red, white and black) and Pantone 616C, which is a shade of yellow. In doing this, I was trying to make the contents in the ladle resemble soup. My goal for the poster was to combine culinary arts, musical arts and sculpture/pottery in such a way that would lead the eye to the details of the event.

Choice of Typefaces
I wanted to use a font that looked sturdy yet artsy, so I chose to use Bembo Std. with a black stroke and red filling. What drew me to the font was the extension of the R’s and the serifs. I felt that this was a good representation of the arts. The reason why I chose to make the font red with a black stroke was to make a connection between the event and New Hope Arts because the logo is made of the same colors. I also kerned the letters to create a sense of continuity. For the details about the event, I used Goudy Oldstyle Std. because it serves as a contrast to the headline.

Visuals
I used the rule of figure of the gestalt theory by showing part of ladle filled with soup. Drops of soup shaped as musical notes are then shown dripping into a bowl. These three elements combined represent the different types of arts represented at the event and lead the eye to the bowl that contains the event’s details. I created my image by using the pen tool in Illustrator to create a bowl, notes and a ladle. I then used linear gradient to shade the bowl and ladle in order to create more depth to the objects. In order to make the notes look more like soup I used the warp effect.

Week Six | Picini

Design Strategy and client information:

Ten Tons of Love is a not-for-profit, university-wide donation drive that occurs at the end of semesters, when students are packing up for home and throwing away old things. Items donated are sorted by the First English Lutheran Church and distributed between eight organizations in the Syracuse area. I want to design a poster that will draw people’s attention to the event and show it as an easy, logical event to partake in. The demographic for Ten Tons of Love is mainly college students. Although it is open to the outside community, the event is based in the students of Syracuse University and SUNY ESF. In general, students don’t have a lot of money to donate to non-profit organizations, but Ten Tons of Love accepts almost any sort of donation, making it realistic for college students, wealthy or struggling financially. I think the title of the organization is incredibly clever, so in designing this poster I wanted to utilize the title and emphasize the ideas of ten tons and of love. Weight scales usually have negative connotation, especially among women, so I thought it was refreshing to show a scale in a positive light, associated with giving to those in need. Also, many people weigh themselves on a daily basis, so it seems like a natural thing to do. I wanted to make a simple poster that emphasized the easiness of the drive and inspired people to take the step to participate, knowing how achievable it is. One parameter was the low budget since Ten Tons of Love is a not-for-profit organization and run by volunteers. Because of this I decided not to use special ink or paper, and kept the color scheme simple. The budget wasn’t the only reason for only using one color though; I wanted the red to stand out especially and to portray something simple and readable.

Choice of typefaces:

For my typeface I chose Antique Olive Std because I liked the modern feel of the sans serif font and I like the large counters in the lowercase letters. I chose to use all lowercase letters because I think it makes it less intimidating and thus more natural, which is the theme I was trying to subtly convey. I also thought it made the font more readable (the counters especially), which is important because people rarely take the time to read posters that take effort to decipher nowadays. All of the type was the same font in varying sizes except the title of the event on the scale which was the same font but a different family, because I wanted that to stand out and look like part of the scale. I originally had a lot more type on the poster because I put the information about what could be donated, drop off locations and recipients, but I decided that it made the poster too busy, so I kept it simple.

Visuals:

I created the picture in Adobe Illustrator before moving it into Adobe InDesign. I found the scale on Google and traced it using the pen tool and I found a picture I had taken of my feet and traced them using the pen tool in Illustrator as well. I chose to add a heart because hearts are the closest symbol tied to love and I turned it sideways to speed up the eyes across the page and keep it from getting boring. I also made the subtitle, “university-wide donation drive” and date on the line indicating the top third of the paper, because we see in thirds. The heart I drew freehand with the Illustrator pen tool, and went back after to edit bumpy spots with the pen tool options and white arrow. I made the feet on the scale pointing into the poster to draw the readers’ eyes into the information and placed the title of the organization in the part of the scale that tells the weight, because naturally when I recognize a scale my eyes go to the reading displayed. Finally, I included the Ten Tons of Love logo in the bottom right corner, because that’s where the eyes naturally flow. I chose to use red because it’s the most attention-grabbing color, and it also indicates love. My final balance was C:8%, M:100%, Y:90%, K:18%, which was lighter than the original color I chose because the printer didn’t print it the same as I saw it on the computer.

Week Six| Susan Mihalick

Design Strategy and client Information: My poster design is for a SU student association, not-for-profit, called The Residence Hall Association. The event “Condom Casino” is an annual, sex education cocktail party that is targeted to any resident of the SU residence halls. This is a fun, and quirky event and I attempted to tailor my poster design to this. I wanted the design to incorporate a strong, witty visual that would capture the audiences’ attention and still convey the casino fun and educational aspects of the event. This organization typically does not have an extensive printing budget, so I limited the color as much as possible.

Choice of typefaces: I decided to use Script MT Std (bold and regular) and Adobe Jenson Pro fonts for this ad. I feel that the serif is readable and that the script is reminiscent of type a vintage Casino’s may have used. I also chose to use a script for the title and headline, because it portrays the feel of the event. I realize that script is usually not as readable as a serif. However, I feel that the young audience will have no problem reading it and that they are expecting a font with a distinct style.

Visuals: I wanted the visual of the ad to be playful and incorporate both sex education and casino games. I noticed the phallic shape of the spade card suit and capitalized on it. I created the spade image by tracing an Internet image in Illustrator. I then used the paintbrush tool in Illustrator to create the condom image stretched over the top of the spade. I also used the paintbrush to create the “f” in the headline, because I wanted there to be a graphic tie-in to the bottom part of the design. By changing the opacity of the interior color of the “condom” I believe that I was able to convey a bit of the transparent latex feel of the object. I decided to use a shade of yellow for the condom, as most people seemed to better identify my portrayal of a condom in this color. Red was just too “breast”, “nipple” or “hat” like so yellow (Pantone 121 M) it is! The bottom forty percent of the design has a background color of green (Pantone 356 M) as I was trying to mimic the green of a card, or casino table. I also thought green contrasted well with the other colors used.

Week 6: Jasuta

Design strategy and client information

Delta Gamma’s national philanthropy events sponsor Service for Sight, a program dedicated to the vision impaired. Delta Gamma is a female social fraternity; Syracuse University is home to the Rho chapter. AnchorSplash® is the annual philanthropy that Delta Gamma holds nationally. It features pool games, synchronized swimming, and wacky relays for collegiate fraternity and sorority members. I am the Director of AnchorSplash and Mr. Golden Anchor (our fall philanthropy event) for the Rho chapter. Our parameters aren’t extremely limited: Delta Gamma colors should be represented, the theme should be nautical to some extent, and the name of our philanthropic organization should be on the poster.

The poster I created is very much possible to realistically use for our April 17^th event. I was trying to create a poster that was eye-catching and simply appealing to a college student: bold use of contrasting colors, simplistic design, and easily accessible information. I took artistic liberty with the use of Delta Gamma’s colors from blue and bronze to blue and the contrasting yellow. Delta Gamma’s crest is featured in place of a logo, since Service for Sight doesn’t actually have a logo, but operates under Delta Gamma.

Choice of typeface

I used the poster-style Stencil Std typeface in the main headlines of my poster to keep it bold and loud. The salute of the sailor girl is echoed in this militaristic font. The juxtaposition of the “Dive In.” title out of whack with the yellow box adds dynamic to the titling, creating an interesting use of space rather than a predicable one. The blue of the font stands out dramatically from the yellow of the textbox. It’s an all-caps typeface that is bold and sassy, much like the college audience I’m trying to garner attention from.

The Optima and Optima bold fond of the detailed information provides legible information in a typeface that compliments the rest of the poster design.

Visuals

The sailor girl was traced with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. There are a total of eight shapes that make up her form: the hat, her upper body, the swimsuit, the right leg, the upper left thigh, the lower left quad, her right shoe, and her left shoe. She acts as the main visual in the poster, popping out against the dark background in as a teal-and-yellow figure. I kept the outlines on her form in order to add even more contrast and visual gestalt.

The background was created in Adobe Photoshop, using a navy blue background and a spray paint effect to create the look of a splash or explosion of water, which in turn adds a dynamic to the poster in comparison to a plain navy background.

Only three colors are used throughout the poster, with the exception being the Delta Gamma crest in the right lower corner: Yellow (Pantone 107 C), Blue (Pantone 297 C), and Navy (Pantone 2748 C). Many different shades of each color were experimented with before these final swatches were chosen. They work in harmony with each other, the navy isn’t too dark, the yellow jumps out with the perfect balance of intensity, and the blue meshes well as an intermediary color.

TYPE CHALLENGE 4

This week's type challenge is an EMERGENCY.

Be the first to correctly identify the typeface used on the ambulances outside the health center on Waverly Avenue. Note: the typeface you should look at is the one on the front of the vehicle used to spell "Ambulance" backwards.

E-mail your guesses to Prof. Taylor to win some Starbucks love!

Week 5/ Staponkute

This a poster I found among 2008 movie posters. It is a very interesting idea of guitar shaping women's body. We can see how figure/ground rule of gestalt theory applies in here. The guitar replaces the back of the women so perfectly! Arms holding guitar leads us up to the top emphasizing the name of the actress in the movie. It also uses the rule of simplicity, this is very simple design, easy to get the idea. There is not much said but very obvious to understand. I also liked the idea of putting bottom words in the shadow that is made of the back. White font goes with the overall poster's colors very well. I think it is just one of the bets posters I've seen.

Alexia Foundation Response | Picini

I really enjoyed the speakers at the Alexia Foundation on Friday. Since my major is photojournalism, it was fascinating to hear from such great photojournalists, especially Tim Kennedy. One of my favorite things that he said (not verbatim) was, "Your ability to photograph someone depends on your ability to convince them of the value of their story". He really emphasized the importance of showing a person's story through your pictures. He said he tries to capture through picture the work that people put into their passion, and that the greatest benefit of visual journalism is the chance to meet people. I loved hearing him say this because people fascinate me, and I love having the chance to try to show someone's character and personality through a photograph.

Some of the other things he said were vital as a photojournalist are passion, observation, courage, empathy, building trust, and inspiration. Although these were all powerful to me, empathy stands out the most. I loved that he said that the subjects of your photographs aren't objects. I think lots of times photojournalists forget they're photographing people, and view them instead as statistics. It's important to view everyone you photograph, no matter how unknown, young, or different from you they may be, as real people with real stories. Because if we taking pictures of them don't see them for their individual worth, how can the world?

WEEK 6 | Project Posting

Don't forget this week's posting is simply a project post. Upload a jpeg of your poster and also your rationale before Friday, 11:59 p.m. Let me know if you have any troubles.

Cheers,
paul

Week 5: Nicole Buckbinder

The poster for the broadway play musical "Hairspray" is a good example for how the Gestalt theory is used to help convey a message. First of all a very important principle of the Gestalt theory that was used in this poster is the rule of figure/ground. Even though the womans face isnt actually drawn in or outlined and you can only actually see one half of it you get the point that it is a face and the hair of the woman on the poster outlines the missing face. The hair itself is supposed to be the center focus of the picture. The rule of repition is used for the way in which the type of the word "hairspray" is layed out. Every other letter of this word is either outlined with a box or isnt outlined by a box. The rule of simplicity is used because there isnt much going on in the poster to distract the viewer. The main focus of the poster is the hair and the logo. Also the rule of similarity is used by the same color scheme that is consistent in this poster. The rule of proximity is also used by the way in which the letters are arranged. They are evenly lined up with the womans hair in the poster. In addition the letters themselves are staggared a little bit but not to much that they arent distracting or take away from the picture of the woman.

week 5 | Wu

The concept line of the poster is a question :"what makes your vote matter?". Then you see the big question mark in black, which is the same color of the text line.

The question mark at the same time form into a brain of a man who is thinking. It uses the principle of closure. Even though it is a question mark, it is not closed pattern, people can still tell that a man's brain. And this also consistent to the question text line: what makes your vote matter?

This is effective. It is simple and conveys the idea.

Week 5 Ryan McDonnell

With the Olympics going on right now I decided to analyze a poster for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games. All in all I have to say that this poster does a very nice job of conveying it's message. You can tell it's for the Olympics with the use of the Vancouver 2010 games logo in the upper right hand corner. However, the most visually striking part of the poster has to be the maple leaf. The silhouette of a maple leaf, which is Canada's most recognizable symbol, is seen in the poster. The effect of having it split in half allows the poster to not be cluttered and have a nice artistic value to it. The use of the color is important too, as green and blue, the official colors of the games, are dominantly placed inside the leaf. These colors are symbolically important too, as the blue represents the sea and the green the land, as Vancouver has been known as a city where its port is key in trading and its dramatic landscapes have been awe-inspiring. There's many different designs going on inside the leaf, as well, with a variety of patterns being used. The most effective I believe are the blue waves that bleed off the leaf and provide a nice flow. Lastly, the poster makes good use of having the slogan and information on the bottom right hand corner. It's also worth noting that there's a second poster with the left half of the leaf, so having both posters leads to a cool effect with a full maple leaf. With the Olympics being such a world-renowned event, it's nice to see that the organizers put much thought into the design of their poster, which all in all effectively conveys its message.

Week five: Davis Reiter

I came upon this poster the other day, along with many other similar simplistic type posters for popular t.v. shows and movies. I thought this one was particularly catching because of its simplicity but also obvious brilliance. This poster most clearly uses the Rule of Simplicity featured in the article on Gestalt. Most everyone that is familiar with American culture recognizes spiky yellow hair as that of Bart Simpson.

The designer here also decided to only put in two spikes, making the poster very visually pleasing because the two spikes mirror each other. The spikes also start a third down the page so the page is divided nicely. The Simpsons text in bold is very clear and simple and leaves a lot of open space, making the eye immediately travel to the bottom of the page. In reverse, the spikes point up towards the text, leading the eye. Furthermore, its nice that the whole poster is in yellow to make it even more eyecatching.

This poster also uses the idea of image very well because even without seeing a face, a body, or even a head the viewer can see that these two spikes belong to the Simpsons. I found the poster to be very clever in this way- even more so because I have only seen a few episodes in my lifetime and still recognized this reference immediatly.

Week 5| Irina Dvalidze

While the film itself may not have been the biggest success for anyone other then Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There-Bob Dylan biopic managed to create an incredibly visually effective poster.

Primarily using the rule of figure/ground to establish a focal point of the poster, the designer took an interesting approach. While the image is a silhouette, there are very few details left for the viewer to fill in.

The poster also uses the rule of proximity when approaching the type used within the poster. All of the letters are extremely close together, with only a color change to separate them apart. This approach not only makes the text visually interesting, it hints to the context of the film, cleverly referencing an element an audience will need to know. The same is done within the "cast listing" text at the center of the poster. Using the rule of similarity the designer lists big Hollywood names to attract the public's eye and contrasts them with a clever final line "are all Bob Dylan" in a different color.

This approach leads the viewers eye through the design, successfully conveying the necessary information to the observers, which is the primary function of this poster as a piece of advertisement. One can also say that the poster employees the rule of simplicity, it is very minimalist. We just have a figure with clean cut titles. It uses only what is necessary, hence making it a very successful design.

Week 5 : McGill

This poster for Green Day's album, American Idiot is an example of how simplicity can provide a very powerful message. The poster used only three colors, but by choosing black, white, and red, the poster immediately has a dark feel. You can tell that the album is not going to be about someone picking flowers out in a field or something like that. The white hand is holding a heart shaped grenade. By keeping the hand white, your eye is immediately brought to the grenade. The grenade is also angled towards the text which leads the reader's eye to the text. I really like this poster for this product and think that it works very well.

Week 5 | Mariotti

This Kia ad uses the gestalt principle of similarity with the continuous pattern of sheep. It also has an anomaly with the car breaking up the pattern, which emphasizes the car. It also displays the principle of proximity, because the sheep are all in proximity to each other, they are perceived as a group. This ad has a pretty simple design, and it's use of gestalt principles leads the eye to the product, the car.

Week Five| Susan Mihalick

The rules of simplicity, similarity, and figure/ground apply to these two adds for Hormel's SPAM. I just love how simple, and clever these two ads are. They use strong visual gestalt to convey their message perfectly.

The second add demonstrates the rules of Gestalt best.

It groups two of the same shape, color, and textured products directly next to each other, and plays with the type of the word "SPAM". In noticing missing letters the viewer comes to understand that you can eat SPAM anytime of day. The designers are playing off the iconic label of the can, with the idea of written and visual gestalt.

The similarity principle is applied in using the same forms, colors and angles for the cans. This technique draws our eye to them, and emphasizes the slight difference between them.

This ad also captures gestalt in terms of its simplicity and proximity. It clearly groups the same products next to each other in close proximity so we associate them with the same things. The ads also use the rule of figure/ground well in their use of negative space. The simplicity and use of negative space separates the product from the background, and in turn adds emphasis to the message and product.

In conclusion, SPAM RULES.

Week 4 | Leveille

This is a poster of the musical "Wicked." This poster uses three rules of gestalt: proximity, simplicity and figure.

On account of proximity, the images of the poster are all relatively close to each other. They each work together to lead the eye to the Wicked Witch of the West - the Good Witch leads us in by showing the image of her whispering into the Wicked Witch's ear, and the gargoyles,lead the eye from the title up to the witch as well. The words and images are all in their own groups, but the proximity between each connects them into one.

The rules of simplicity and figure work hand-in-hand in this poster. The white space in contrast to the Wicked Witch's outline creates the image of the Good Witch. Because the main color of the poster is black, the green is used in order to create the image/outline of the Wicked Witch herself. The rule of figure of the theory of gestalt also allows for a simplistic design.

Week 5 | Palermo

The "Full Metal Jacket" movie poster uses the gestalt rules of proximity, figure/ground and simplicity in its design. The poster has 3 main parts to it, the quote at the top, the helmet in the middle and the credits along the bottom. The title and name of the director, Stanley Kubrick, are grouped in the bottom with the credits while the helmet and quote remain separated from them. The simplicity of the poster is summed up in its no-nonsense quote at the top. The quote comes of blunt but sets the tone for what the movie is about, the reality of war in Vietnam and how bad it really was. The quote leads the viewer down to middle of the poster where the visual is. The helmet is the only image on the page and is very simple. The helmet establishes that it is a war movie taking place in Vietnam. In one image the reader already knows the setting and time period of the movie (the peace sign).The helmet is the one Private Joker wears in the film, and features the phrase "born to kill" and a peace sign , which he explains represents the duality of man. Attached to the helmet are some full metal jacket rounds, placed there to make a connection to the films title. The rule of figure/ground is shown in the lack of images and large amount of white space. These allow the viewer of the poster to fill in the space with images he/she associates with the Vietnam War. The designers could have used images of soldiers in battle or walking through the jungle but chose instead to allow the viewers mind to conjure up those images.

Week Five| Loguidice

This poster design I found online, and thought was fun. This is actually a student-designed poster from Carnegie Mellon University. I saw this and immediately noticed several Gestalt principles in it.
The design is a good example for simplicity and for closure. By using two circles and a person sitting in the right position, we know immediately that the person is riding on a bicycle, without actually seeing a bicycle.
I admire the simplicity of this design. If you took away the words, the message is still pretty clear: drive less, save the world. It's better for you, and for the environment. For this kind of message, the simpler the better.
I'd also like to add in the fact that I love how they added in the earth--the thing to be protected-- as the bicycle's wheels. Kudos Carnegie Mellon University.

Week Five: Nadell

This American Gangster movie poster does a great job of using the Gestalt theory, specifically the principle of figure/ground. The poster effectively uses black and white and a shade of gray to make the images stand apart. Although you cannot see the man's eyes in the background and barely any other specifics of him, it is identifiable that this is Denzel Washington and he is some type of man with power. As a viewer of the poster we can figure out many things about this movie without it being told to us. With a dominant Denzel standing behind and above the New York City skyline, we can assume that this movie has to do with Denzel's power of New York. Also this poster has a lot of simplicity. There isn't too much going on and everything is very clear and easy to interpret. There are really only three dominant parts of this poster: Denzel, the New York skyline and the movie title in the center. The only color used other than black, white and the shades of gray, is the red line in between "American" and Gangster". Just this simple red stroke indicates to us that this is a violent movie, since red is associated with blood and evil. The sum of the three parts give us some specifics about the movie without having to see the film.

Week Five | Nelson

When thinking of the Rules of Gestalt, the campaign for the iPod instantly came to mind for me, since I know everytime I see one even on TV I think "this is a good idea, and so simple." The same idea applies in print. The rule of simplicity is definitely in play here. In this ad, we see the Beatles' silhouettes, each of them listening to their own iPod. There's minimal wording, just mostly white space in a warm green that's very aesthetically pleasing. The rule of repetition is also in this particular ad, since all four of the Beatles were used from that signature, iconic photograph and each is made to look the same. Since all the men were wearing suits in the photo, their silhouettes are almost exactly alike other than height and hair differences, and the iPod is positioned similarly for each person. In some ways, I think the rule of closure is also used in this piece. Most people would likely be able to get the reference with just one of the Beatles walking along with the iPod, but it would feel incomplete without the complete set and break up the iconic image that many people know them for. Since this ad is specifically using the Beatles, it only makes sense that all the Beatles are included in the ad.

Week 5 | PICINI

This is a poster for the annual Special Olympics Nebraska. Lincoln-based agency Bailey Lauerman created this design to mark the event and spread the word. I think this ad shows several signs of The Gestalt Theory. The initial thing I noticed is the Rule of Closure. The Rule of Closure deals with items grouped together to create a complete entity. In this case, the P representing the Polar Plunge is merged with a snowflake to signify the cold that characterizes the event. The Rule of Simplicity is also applied because the top half of this ad is a simple blue background with the white symbol and two words, and the bottom half is a photograph of a glacier. There is very little going on in the ad which draws more attention to its meaning.

Although blue is a cool color and thus generally draws less attention than a warm color like red would, the contrast of the white on the blue is very striking. I also really like that color blue of the top background matches one of the middle blues in the photograph below it. I think this a striking and effective campaign of the Polar Plunge.

Week Four: Wolk

This logo design for the clothing chain Urban Outfitters follows a few of the Gestalt principles. The red and black lines that run horizontally across the edge of each of the letters lead the eye across and connect the letters to form an actual word. The rule of figure/ground is also represented; the letter "A" is missing from the logo but anyone would read this logo as "urban." The "A" is not necessary because the consumer's mind fills in the blanks, and the four letter combination rather than five letter combination leads to a cleaner design. The rule of figure/ground is represented again in the photos that have been used to fill in each letter. The images of an urban city are not part of any sort of set and most are cut off at the edges, but it is still obvious what the pictures are of and what kind of clothing the line is trying to represent.
The artist has created a "perfect two" out of the word. Although it is not a first or last name or even two separate words, the word "Urban" has been separated in a way that lines up the four letters in sets of two, allowing for a tight-knit, polished-looking design. The logo used in this ad for Urban Outfitters truly expresses the concept of the company in a way that is simple yet artistic.

Week 4: Jasuta

Sprinkles Cupcakes: hands down my favorite place in Beverly Hills. Despite the absolutely delicious cupcakes, part of the bakery's allure is its charming use of graphic elements in all aspects of the shop, from logo to campaign posters. This poster comes from Sprinkle's partnership with the American Cancer Society. Sprinkle's does its part to give back to the community with the Rock N Roll Marathon Red Velvet, and you're eating cupcakes for a good cause.

The visual gestalt is evident in the bright red background that matches the red of the American Cancer Society's logo. The white top of the iconic Sprinkle's cupcake stands out boldly in the basic background, and the blue in the rest of the American Cancer Society logo then draws the eye into the logo, emphasizing what the poster is really all about: curing cancer. The red repeated in the poster brings the visual together and helps the eye travel and recognize the most important features of the design. The primary graphic is the white circle of the cupcake top, which has a calming effect in juxtaposition with the passionate red of the background. A crucial element of the design is that it consists of 3 primary colors that are reused throughout: red in the background and logo, white of the cupcake and text, and blue in the logo. It argues the cause of the poster: the need to give back to the community for a good cause can be rewarding for both the giver and the receiver, cupcake by cupcake!

I think the design is particularly clever because of how it plays on the Sprinkle's look. A Sprinkle's cupcake is "dirty frosted" so its smooth and thick, and adorned with only a two-toned sugar dot. The color of the sugar dot corresponds with the flavor of the cupcake (pictured is a red velvet to the right). With the poster, the American Cancer Society logo takes the place of the sugar dot, correlating the icon of the Sprinkle's cupcake with the cause the bakery supports.

Oooh Vogue

First of all, it's Madonna. And not just any ol' Madonna, it's Madonna with her legs spread on the cover of Vogue. Need I really say too much more?

I think this is a brilliant shot. The sharp differentiation of Madonna's name in red on top of the black and white background really makes it pop. It adds more excitement and flare to the photo and I believe that if her name had been printed in a more subtle color, like some shade of grey for example. The mood of the photo would be much heavier especially since the expression on Madonna's face, as fierce as it is, is also somewhat ambiguous and could be perceived as too stern and serious.

The black vertical line running the length of the page on the left side draws the reader all the way up and down so that they get a good look at the gorgeous lady on the front cover.

Madonna's left leg was brilliantly positioned in order to lead the reader across the page; and running parallel above her leg is the name of the magazine, Vogue. This is a great example of using Gestalt principles in graphics and design to help brand the magazine. Because now that the reader is lead to the name of the magazine by this visual gestalt (which is Madonna's sexy outstretched leg) they will remember that they saw Madonna on the cover of Vogue and not just some random magazine they can't remember the name of.