Posters & Visual Systems

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October 2020

This project was done for Design Studio I during the Fall semester of 2020 at Rhode Island School of Design. This project is not affiliated with any organization or person that is mentioned within the posters, any such mention is purely for academic purposes only.

Starting with a few blocks of text and images taken from around Providence, the assignment was to create 12 different compositions on a small postcard sized area. The compositions were done in a collage style, using pieces of photographs, cropped text, and other graphic shapes that were juxtaposed to form compelling creations.

The project was then further developed by using some of the ideas from the 12 collage posters to create 6 new posters. The images, graphics and overall compositions were to inform the type of event they might relate to, and the text was later replaced with mock information accordingly.

After a round of critiques and feedback, one poster was chosen to be further developed and refined. I made the decision to work on the 1st poster above, adjusting the layout of the ribbons, color schemes and typefaces in order to create a poster that was eye-catching and memorable. The layout of the ribbons set against a sky inspired backdrop suggested an architectural event. I therefore mocked up an architecture show, with information on the event timing and participants of that event. Repeated lines of 'check it out' made an interesting piece of graphic element that ran along the poster like ticker text, and hence I decided to retain that from the previous iteration. Further graphic elements like a functioning QR code and my personal logo were added to bring out the realism of the poster. The typefaces chosen have a 8-bit style that are seemingly built from repeated squares and rectangles, which felt appropriate in representing architecture. My personal logo was also given a similar 8-bit treatment.

The final poster is show below on the left, with a poster mockup shown on the right.

The poster was later used as the basis to develop a visual system, and I created 2 more posters that would follow a set of rules in order to work both individually and as a series. Using the sky as an inspiration for the background, the radial gradients followed the colors of the sky, with orange representing dawn, blue for the day and purple for dusk. The placement and colors of the ribbons were also varied across the posters, and only the title ribbon remained a constant bright yellow throughout the series which tied the series together. The static position of the logos, QR code and website link at the bottom also helped to create consistency amongst the posters.