Science on the Edge

Redesign informational posters for a local science lecture series within certain design constraints. 

There is no use of color for all but one design. Place emphasis on the either the topic, lecturer, or date for each poster, while considering the color constraint.

Skills

Graphic Design, Print

Tools

Illustrator

Duration

4 Weeks (recently redone)

Sketches

While considering the color constraint and selecting only one aspect to emphasize, either topic, lecturer, or date, I sketched different poster layouts that explore size, alignment, and figure-ground, especially in the look of the title. 

First Attempt

In my first four designs, I tried to include all information mentioned on the original poster, but this provided little negative space, thus making the poster cluttered and overwhelming. In these designs, the top priority was either topic, date, or lecturer. 

Second Attempt

I went back to improve upon this project by first, picking out what information was essential in my design. In these posters, the title became top priority and after that was either the topic, date, or lexturer.

In this phase, I focused on font selection and experimented further with placement, negative space, and pushing type sizes and perspectives. The next step would be the incorporation of color for one poster.

Final Series

For my single colored poster, I chose a design that had more of a story behind it. As a lover of illustrations and storytelling, I gravitated towards adding more to this design. To properly convey a story, a setting needed to be established, which was achivable by using color.

For these posters, I inverted the colors for designs that I thought had too much white space. As for text treatment, I adjusted some values to further seperate between text hierarchy of the date, topic, and lecturer. The simple use of bold contrast and alignment allows these designs to effectively capture and hold a viewer's attention. 

Takeaway

My first time attempting this design challenege was during my sophomore year (2019). Three years later, I attempted to make these posters better to practice my graphic design skills.

At first, my plan was to tweak my old iterations, but I quickly noticed that my initial designs were too cluttered and didn't have a clear hierarchy. This led me to start over from scratch, starting with the sketching phase and so on. 

It's great to see how much my eye for design has changed, being able to see the many flaws of my initial designs really showed me how I've improved throughout my college career.