Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Poster option in which is going to be edit for final portfolio.
Art done by: Miguel Tenorio

When it comes to the looking at the three different designs that I have created for this project, the image that you see on the left happens to be the strongest design in my opinion, as well as the person that critiqued my posters. While actually designing the posters, this was the second one that I crafted and found to be my favorite since it actually from afar caught the attention of others on possibly making them take a second look on seeing what the poster is all about (I did test my project even with my roommates to see which one would they actually “possibly” stop to read). When it comes to the actual design, I try to balance it out with the amount of the text on one side of the poster along with the other, from the big bold text on the top with the smaller text on the bottom to create a sort of balance – I did not try to make it symmetrical at all but it does tend to be that way if you were to fold it in half from top to bottom. I’m not a total fan of blank-space/negative space since I do feel like I can do way more to fill the gap or make it more dazzling I suppose, so when it comes to revision – though I know it is not a bad thing – I want to toy with the text on the bottom and possibly see if I can fill up all the space by maybe even adding a frame along the “EPIA” – I got some options. Than also when it comes with the text inside the bigger letters, I want to mess around with the format on size, angles and so on – I feel like it can be more presentable and more “experimental” than what is shown right now. I do want to make this look like something that this event would actually use without it being too chaotic even for a plain audience member to stop and go, “oh that looks cool!”
That’s my main goal.

I designed this poster in the Composition and Design 336 course as a rough draft for Project #1. This poster will act as a starting ground for the continued development of Project #1.

The poster I chose is my second option, featuring the title in the shape of a mouth. The title of my poster is the most clear example of utilizing multiple design techniques: I have framed the title with the biographies of the poets and placed it in the middle of the page to clearly establish it as the focal point of the poster. I also used the letters of each word to create a new shape, utilizing creative lines to make the words into something new. I put the important details of the event, the date and time, on the inside of the mouth to draw attention to them, placing them in a different frame than the rest of the poster. In order to balance my composition, I also included the detail text of the event on the bottom of the page, as most of the heavier text is in the middle and top of the page. I kept this text simple so as not to make the poster visually overwhelming. However, I still see ample room to improve my design. I believe that I can make the mouth shape that I meant to convey with the letters in “Experimental Poetry in Action” much more true to the shape I meant to achieve. I also believe that the speech bubble meant to be formed by “in action” is too busy when framed by the authors’ bios. I plan to edit the format of these biographies so as not to overwhelm and take away from the intended title of the poster. I also believe that the text on the bottom of the page kind of blurs together, and the composition looks kind of busy overall. I plan to utilize more white space and text manipulation in my next design so as to keep it as streamlined as possible while still effectively creating a visually interesting poster.

I designed this poster using Adobe Illustrator for a school event here at Washington State University for a Poetry Reading (Maryssa Beare, 2015).

This poster I believe has the most potential because it’s more engaging than my other designs, mainly due to its asymmetry but also to its scale of letters making a suggestion to depth–not quite positive and negative space (I’ll explore that in the final draft) but alluding to depth by way of farther away elements are smaller and closer, more prominent elements are larger.

Refining this design will include exploring the abstract nature of the materials we’re given. Yes, these shapes put together form English language, but they’re still shapes that can serve other purposes, like creating negative space and increasing the dynamic nature of the poster. My plan is to see the unconventional uses for the materials given. I would like to combine some elements of my other drafts that were successful, such as using large letters as negative space for smaller letters or words, adjustment of scale in a more profound way than what I have here, and the options that my font, Futura, has (oblique, bold, the like).

Using the bio text as a frame holds a two-fold purpose. I can use this less-than-pertinent by somewhat putting it aside, but in a way that emphasizes the more-pertinent information–date, title, location, etc.

I chose the middle design poster to use for my final because it was the easiest to read and had the most eye pleasing design to me. I like how my eye goes directly to the X at the top right hand corner.  The X symbolizes something important because it is bolded and the biggest letter, and the viewer looks at that first, the first word of the title. Then the viewer is easily directed to the rest of the words in the title. Then the rest of the title is trickling down the page, making your eye follow it. The X gives the poster good alignment because it is leveled and has leveled information at the bottom and top, which also creates a line. X also is a strong point in the poster, which I like because rather than a bolding word, it is a single letter and might create interest in the viewer. X also might attract people to read more information on the poster because it is related to extreme activities, attracting a different target audience. Therefore, the X is more favorite element of the poster.

I plan to make all the words in the title trickling down the page to be more dramatically rotated, or emphasis them in a more interesting way. Another element that I would change  would be the descriptions and titles of the poets. They could have something more than just scaling them all different ways. I also might experiment with the large X, and scale it bigger and have it falling off the page. I might also rearrange the elements to create a more symmetrical or asymmetrical perception, in a way that is more clearly identified.

I have picked this poster as the one I want to edit and finalize for multiple reasons. I feel that it is the most organized and well put together, it utilizes multiple aspects of design we have gone over in our readings as well as I personally believe it is the strongest poster design of the three. In my poser I put ‘action’ and ‘6:30pm’ in the biggest bold letters to try and draw attention to those for passers by. If I personally saw a poster that said ‘poetry’ in big letters I wouldn’t bother reading it, but the word action would draw my attention. I placed the location and date underneath that so a viewer could quickly see when the event would be. Underneath that I aligned the different poets names and descriptions in different ways to give each one its own personality and distinction. Joan Retallack’s is left like standard english literate because it is on the left side of the page, K. Silem Mohammad’s is right aligned because it is on the right of the page. Collier Noques’ description is center aligned with a pyramid shaped description, flowing from the negative space in between the first two texts down to the the lowest text and the large ‘6:30pm’. To edit this poster I will utilize the allowed use of another letterform to enhance the piece as well as making it slightly more complex to draw one’s eye to it. As well as this I will use the new letterform in a slightly transparent way, most likely in the background to give the piece a more visually compelling shape with the text. Weber critiqued this poster and he works as a graphic designer, I’m taking some of his advice as well as some of my new ideas and making this poster as powerful as I can with new edits.

Erik Lemus Poster Remix

After we displayed our posters in class and got the chance to get some feedback from one of the   posters we made, one of my class mates was allowed to give some useful feedback about one of his favorite posters out of my three options that I designed. After receiving his feedback he made me realize something that I did not notice about one of my posters. Taking a good look at the printed versions of my posters it made me realize that one of these posters could get some good improvements. I was not planning on choosing this poster but after taking the consideration from one of my classmates he had some very good points and made me realize that this poster could use some adjustments. For example, this poster is very asymmetrical but it is still very well balanced up and down as the bottom boxes of text allow the top box of text to balance quite well with the swirly text in the middle. The middle swirly text allows the poster to be very eye catching but it also contains some negative and positive space by playing a little bit with the scaling of the text will allow this poster to be more successful. By making this swirl a little smaller I could have more room to make some minor adjustments to the three boxes of text that contain the poems. These boxes look like they were framed around the swirly text which gives them an unbalanced looking triangle.

Katelyn Orum poster draft

The composition I chose to pursue for the final version of project 1, is this design. I believe this piece is the strongest of the three because it is clear and readable, yet still unique and “experimental.” I believe this piece is asymmetrically balanced, because although each half is not identical, there is not one side that is over-powering the other. I like the way the names in white work as lines written in white within the bold “poetry,” and the short biographies work as planes being framed by the letters.

As we discussed in class, it’s important to consider an audience. For this particular event, I would want to draw attention to poetry-lovers because they’re the ones that will attend the event, but also have a chance at introducing experimental poetry to those who are indifferent to poetry. I believe this poster would be effective in drawing both of these audiences attention. It’s very clearly about poetry, but with the shifted scales of the letters and different angles, it’s an appealing design that may draw the attention of those who aren’t so interested in poetry. I also like the interesting negative space left by the letters in the word “poetry.” For example, the triangle (which is arguably a point) left between the t, o, and r, and the line left between the t and r.

For the final, I plan to further experiment with the scale of the letters in poetry, as well as experiment with the letters running off the frame. Since we are able to play around with the opacity of one letter form, I may do so with the words “experimental” and “in action.”