3 Color Poster Design
I will create a three-color poster design using either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. I will be introduced to what makes a good poster design. I will evaluate several poster designs, learn the steps to creating a screen printed poster design as well as be responsible for creating a unique, well-thought-out design of your own.Printing: I’ll be printing 10 prints of a single image I create or select from our library. The final size of the print is 12x18 and I will use the same 3 ink colors on all 10 prints, but on 10 colors of paper so that I get a chance to see how the inks react with different paper colors.
For my gig poster I decided to go with the music group Outkast.
At the very beginning of the project I was tasked with quickly drawing out different ideas. I wrote down different things related to Outkast and narrowed down what album I would be doing. I landed on ATLiens as in my opinion it is one of their best albums. At first, I wanted to include the members of Outkast, Andre3000 and Big Boi, physically in the artwork because their style is very memorable. I also knew for sure that I would add the Outkast logo and something to do with Atlanta because they are were an Atlanta based rap group. I ended up deciding against adding the two rappers and embracing the alien aspect, encompassing the project around outer space or ufo's. I also alluded to one of the songs in the album, Two Dope Boyz in a Cadillac, by adding the Cadillac in a few of my drawings. During a peer review, I was given the idea to make the UFO into a Cadillac. From this point on I had a pretty good idea of what I would be doing, so I began the creation process in Adobe Photoshop.
First, I grabbed a picture of a Cadillac and isolated it. I also found some wheels, and turned them on their side to make it look like the car is hovering. I made the car and the wheels purely black and white so that I could later make transparencies. I added a light beam coming from the car with halftone dots to give the piece a little bit of old school technique. Lastly I added a few stars and the words I would be using to in the beam to make it look like they are floating up towards the Cadillac.
To finish the electronic portion of the project, I added the Outkast logo and moved the lettering up. I also knocked out some of the light beam to make it look like the lettering is popping out. I thought a few more stars would make it look better as well, so I added more. I turned each layer into each color ink I would be using so that I can see what the finished product will look like.
To prep the screens, I first received my transparencies which are clear sheets with my artwork as black print. Next, I put emulsion on four screens and dry them. When they dry, I put my transparencies on top of the screens, and subject them to high amounts of light for four minutes. This allows for the area around the transparencies to harden but leave the designs to wash out. This makes it so that the ink only passes through the spots with the designs. Then, I set up my area using clamps and pins so that all of the pieces of paper would line up in roughly the same spot.
Above demonstrates how the ink is transferred to the paper. First, there has to be a lot of ink that is flooded into the screen's holes. Then, a forceful pull pushes the ink onto the paper and that is repeated on each of the ten papers for each of the colors.
This is the best final print. I had used fluorescent ink, so the design glows under a blacklight. Overall, the design came out very successfully and I am happy by how it looks.
