The History Poster Final

With this poster I attempted to illustrate a history of  Punk Rock music.  I found in doing research for the project that there is a variety of opinions as to the origins, influences, and even the musical styles that can be considered to be "Punk".   Since I wanted a poster that could be informative without overwhelming viewers with information, I tried to limit my choices to those artists that are considered major influences by a variety of sources.  I also tried to differentiate between those early musicians (pre-punk or proto-punk) that came before the punk explosion of the 1970's and the kinds of music (new wave, hardcore, post-punk etc.) descended from the initial movement with the use of appropriately placed text.  In my initial sketches I decided to center my design around what was considered an iconic piece of punk fashion; the safety pin.  Fortunately I found a high quality image on the Internet that was well suited to my purpose.  I've tried to evoke a style of modern /post modern design similar to the "cut and paste" look commonly used for album covers and concert posters by the bands who were considered "punk".   The design uses a time-line following the spine of a safety pin to show the chronology of punk rock.   The chaotic look and large scale of the typography in the upper-left corner is meant to grab attention and inform the audience of the subject matter.  The "rule of thirds" is used in the placement of the "a brief history of punk rock" text and in the positioning of the lower part of the safety pin along with that of the majority of musical acts depicted.  Emphasis is placed on the words "punk rock" through the use of scale. The eye moves from the emphasized text to the top of the pin and down towards the bottom of the page.  Certain parts of the design are aligned with the safety pin to help maintain this flow.  The use of the open part of the pin for the "British" part of the time-line plus the "weight" of the number of artists depicted towards the lower-right part of the design is meant to achieve balance with the text in upper-left.  The same font is used for the three decades depicted. The words"proto-punk, post-punk, hardcore, and new wave also use an identical font to give a sense of repetition.  Parts of the text (the previously mentioned 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's) along with some of the photography runs along parallel lines for purposes of both repetition and alignment.  The design uses the placement of photographic elements and text along with the use of gray-scale and opacity to achieve contrast.   The choice of making this poster in black and white ( any part including the safety pin that was originally found in color was converted before use) is in keeping with the objective of having a "punk" look to the design.

Partial for History Poster

Where it's at as of 12/7.

BCC Catalog final

Due to recent health and family issues I found it extremely challenging to get this project done at all.  Despite the fact that I haven't found the time to make revisions  in order to give it a more "polished" finish I believe that I have met the projects' requirements.  I chose to emphasize a typical student in a variety of campus settings to convey the college's mission statement of providing continuing education.  The student chosen appears young enough to appeal to those who are just graduating high school yet old enough to possibly be someone who is returning to further their educational and employment opportunities.  By cropping and layering different images, I was able to put the individual in settings that illustrate the variety of college experiences including both technical and liberal art settings.  These images were placed in a larger outdoor setting to convey the idea that the student (both the one on the cover and the prospective one looking at it) is going somewhere on campus and in life.  I adjusted the opacity of the layered backgrounds in order to help them blend in with each other and with the overall blue color scheme of the piece. The student herself was left alone in order to make her "pop" from the cover.  I used the typography to help achieve a sense of balance with the photography and to help maintain the color palette (primarily blues and browns) that I had chosen.   By using a different color and size of type for the word "your" in the sentence "This is your college"  and superimposing them over the person on the cover, I hope to make the student and the school easier to identify with.   The rule of thirds is maintained by placing the school logo  in the left and lower thirds; by placing the words Broome Community College and General Catalog 2010/2012 (mostly) in the upper third and by placing the student who is the focal point in the photography in the right and mostly lower third.  

Final for Second Project

What I wanted to do with the initial thumbnails was to get a "feel" for using positive and negative spaces and also for seeing the the letters more as shapes and less as text. I used the Veranda font throughout most of the thumbs since I found that the look of the negative areas around the letters allowed the space to be divided into smaller areas of geometric shapes which could be easily manipulated. I was particularly intrigued by the kind of trapezoid negative space that's formed underneath the capital letter "R". The nine pencil thumbs are an example of variations on this theme with a large capital "R" being used mostly to break up space as in "the rule of thirds".
The sharpie "rough draft" is a further extension of the thumb in the center of the pencil thumbnails. I used the large partial reversed "R" that dominates to simultaneously establish a focal point and establish a flow in-between the lesser elements such as the small "f" partially obscured in the lower left corner, the reversed lower case "r" in the lower right, and the partial elements near the top.
The design that I actually ended up using was a radical departure from what I had done previously. The major element that this image has in common with the others is a large upper case "R" controlling the overall flow between focal points. Where as the fonts used earlier were chosen with consideration as to whether I could easily render them by hand, the ones I used on the computer gave me many more choices that could be quickly altered into numerous variations. I vaguely remember the "R" on the left being Edwardian Script but have no recollection of the names of the other fonts used. (something I need to concentrate more on in the future) What I like about this choice is how I was able to use the counter-forms of the two letters on the right to "suggest" an outline for the letter on the left. I used the rounded curves in the "R" and upside down "f" in order to give this design some repetition and to achieve a sense of balance between the upper left and lower right corners. The designs' overall balance is also maintained with the alignment of the "f" and the bottom part of the "R". The grey "J" in the upper right corner offers a contrast in both the sharper edges of its form and the use of a value in-between that of the black and white used in the rest of the design.
The final image is once again a sort of "accident". I originally tried to add a gradient of color going from left to right. While experimenting with the gradient controls I found the "hotspot" effect that was used in the backround. After repeating the same type of gradient fill in the upside-down small "f", I found that the design now had an almost three demensional sense of depth to it. I decided to save this version immediately in case I changed it and the design became "overworked" and less eye-catching.

Thumbs for second project.

revision for first project

first project