My Final Design Choices

Looking back at my presentation i thought i'd wrap up all my final design choices like i did in my presentation on here and also justify why i'm going for that specific design choice.

Visual Style

First of all for my visual style for the science poster i'm choosing to go for...

Steampunk

The reason i chose this style over the others was when i was doing the visual style research i looked through a lot of examples of steampunk and i grew to admire the style and the way its represented. The time period is something that appeals to me, close to the Victorian era but more based around the technology. But overall steampunk just appealed to me and i had more ideas with this visual style than the other ones.




Tagline

As i was developing my ideas and started with taglines i didn't really have that many ideas apart from a  few that i thought would work well and as i began to visualise some design ideas i thought of 'Science is Key'.

The reason i decided to choose this one for my final tagline was because i had some great ideas of how i could incorporate a key and a young female an relating it to science and the tagline. I also think its short snappy and is appealing which is something i realized a lot of recruitment posters do is use short snappy words to catch the target audiences attention and this is what i intend to do for mt poster. 

Main Font

After looking into many different types of typography i concluded i would go for this font below.

I like this font type a lot because its serif which does make it formal in a sense but uses more curves and curls which makes it slightly feminine and elegant so i feel like it would appeal to girls a lot more and since its serif its set in that era of the Victorian period as well as overall appearance it does look like a steampunk/victoriana type of font and i think it will go really well in my final design.

Main Colour Shceme

I've tested and explored out different colour schemes whilst doing this assignment and i decided to got for this colour scheme as some of the primary colours i will use in my final piece.

A lot of these colours are more related to the industrial side of steampunk, with the brass and gold colours as well as the greens and light/dark browns browns. I wanted this colour scheme not only to be relating to steampunk but some colours to have a slight sense of victoriana but not overwhelming.

Design Style 

This is one example i drew up in my sketchbook of how i might have the design look like and how i could use the tagline to my advantage. I decided on this design as my final choice because i think it would appeal to women with the girl example the key relates to the tagline as well as the girl holding the key is emphasising discovery, success, etc showing science can be fun and important as well as satisfaction of discovering something new etc. The use of the gear like key and goggles relate to steampunk and the lab coats and beaker relate to science. But overall i like the angle, design and general idea and i think it could work out very well.

Science Poster Presentation (Feedback)

On the 16th of October we were supposed to present to the class a presentation which consisted of our knowledge of the brief and how we began to respond to it with the use of some research of the visual styles, ideas, taglines, sketches, colours, type choices and a final proposal to wrap our idea for this assignment up for what we were going to do for our poster.

On the day i was ready with a presentation that was well designed and had a lot of content portraying my ideas and the process i took as i began to start the assignment and developing them. As i pitched i was slightly nervous but decided to forget about nerves and just pitch the class my ideas and giving them a clear idea of what i want my final design to look like and i think everyone had a clear understanding of that so i'm happy in that regard.

After presenting i was given a decent amount of feedback with the majority of it being very positive and a few small critique hear and there. So the main positive feedback i received from my peers was the following:

"Well Presented"
"Easy to understand ideas"
"Great themes"
"Well Researched"
"Amazing Sketches"
"Interesting + Engaging Slides"
"Good range of taglines"

This was the main feedback i received from everyone and i'm glad everyone enjoyed my presentation with it being engaging and like both the theme of my slides the way i presented it and my sketches i produced in my sketchbook so i'm very happy that i did get all this amazing feedback. However i was given a few small improvements i could have made in order to make my presentation that much more better.

The few minor critique i received was the following:

"Engage with audience a bit more"
''Too many filler words (um, like)"
"Summerise more of the research"
"Look at Audience"
"Presentation went on for a while"

My response to the critique is i do agree i needed to engage a little more with the audience, making more eye contact even though i did make i contact occasionally. I did say 'um, like' a lot however i don't think it was a huge issue and maybe with more practice in the future i can prevent myself from saying filler words accidentally. The fact that people thought my presentation was long is a little bit unfair, i can understand i went i bit more detail about research and needed to just summerise it. However i feel like everyone else's presentations were very short or spoke really quickly so my response to that comment is i'll try to improve with a shorter presentation but i feel like my pitch was at a nice pace and wasn't as long as people made it seem.

Overall i felt myself i presented a great pitch that was detailed spoken clearly and got my ideas out and made it clear what style and look i wanted for this science poster that i would create. So in conclusion i think maybe more practice and not many slides as well as focusing on eye contact as well and summerising my work will make future pitches a lot more engaging, and enjoyable.

Layouts, Poster Design ideas and Colour Schemes!

After going into Illustrator to put a collage of typography together that i explored and researched i then decided to work on the poster designs and layouts and chose a few of the fonts from the collage to work with and began experimenting with placement, composition, colours and size. I didn't want to go full in to making a mock up since i feel like some of my ideas are a little complex to be doing it all since most of the ideas i have will need to be illustrated and that might take a lot more time at this point.

I started but making separate files and then moving and experimenting with the typography and placement and size to see what i might go for in my final product and to see what looked more appealing. I have to say all of these i really like but one in particular which is the first one i really admire the size of the text and the way i placed it which makes it bold and stand out. Its also a short and snappy tagline which is why i made advantage of making the text more larger to catch peoples eyes with single words.

I experimented with colour seeing what worked and what didn't and based on my research of steampunk is why i went fore particular colours since it fits the old theme of industrial steam technology at the time along with gears, goggles etc. I tried to create a different look on each design so i had more variety of style from steampunk however these AREN'T mock ups and AREN'T final layout designs i was only experimenting and even if i carry through one of these layouts or designs it doesn't mean it will look identical to what it does at the moment so don't worry.

 Some of these designs might look more empty and that's because most of my ideas are illustrated and would require more effort and time to put together something like that and these are just for experimenting with the colours, text, layout and designs as well so i didn't both with fully illustrating them all otherwise it would take too long and i haven't got all the time in the world to do it just for experimenting at this point.

These colour schemes are from the poster design layouts and posters colours were to experiment with what colours worked well and if i would possibly use the colours or not and since i haven't had time to look or experiment with colours a whole lot so i've given an overview at the bottom of the colours i believe i'll end up using based of the experimenting and my research of colours from steampunk in general. However as i start my poster i may experiment with more colours or change some colours or add more but for now these are the colours i'm most likely to use for my final product.

Exploring different Typography

After having looked at the types of typography that i thought suited the steampunk theme i then went in Illustrator and put them in a big collage is i could get an overview of all of them together and which ones i think might work more than others. All of these fonts are unique and different to some level and i wanted to use some of them that stood out more for me in layout poster designs which is something i later began to do and i'll post that a little later.

The reason these fonts stood out for me is they have an essence of old and elegance which is something steampunk and be portrayed. Elegance was a common thing back in the time around the Victorian era and also having elegant font will appeal to females more which is what i want since i'm promoting A level science mainly forwards girls around 16 - 18 years of age.

Some of the fonts are more curvy and swirly than others which is what makes some of them elegant and unique and will attract females to the recruitment poster. Some of them are more bulkier and stiff and more sharp which relates more to the science, and steampunk feel, and i almost kind of  want the best of both worlds and some of these are. All of these fonts are serif and some take advantage of that and others are more subtle but i chose to go for serif because steampunk is set in an old era with serif text, its also elegant and would appeal to girls and overall i wanted to to fit the theme with both science and steampunk.

Recruitment Poster Designs

As i looked into all the different visual styles we were given and then having explored or colours for steampunk that are occasionally used i thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea to research in recruitment posters as i am doing one myself and i thought it might help me a little bit with inspiration and knowledge.

Below i tried to find recruitment posters that were related to recruitment as well as similar kind of the styles we were given to choose from.

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/17/8/17-0796a.gif

When i saw this poster i thought slightly of steampunk with the similar colours like browns, greys, navy blues, reds etc and are used in a very bold and strong way. This poster is to try and recruit woman to work whilst the war is going on with a different variety of jobs from the use of imagery of the multiple woman doing different jobs. The way this would attract woman or catch their eyes would firstly be the use of the bold 3D font that says 'WOMEN' as well as the imagery of the woman as well. This poster doesn't so much persuade but demands them to with words like 'WOMEN' 'work to be done' 'NOW!' its almost forcing them or demanding them to get a job that's useful and that's what makes it eye catching.

http://www.uc.edu/content/dam/uc/honors/images/worldwarII/britwomenfact_large.jpg

This poster is trying to recruit woman of Britain to work in the factories and this find of reminds me of sci fi style of the 20th century with the visual style. The planes and the angle of the woman make her seem high and mighty and powerful and confident which is what this poster is trying to convince woman that joining will make you feel this way. The colour scheme is old fashioned with tinted colours but working very well together. The black box is eye catching and contrasts with the rest of the poster to have main message shown.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/britain1906to1918/g5/cs2/images/g5cs2s1b.jpg

This poster is one i believe anyone can recognise, its the typical country army recruitment poster that most people must have seen at least once in their lives or the imagery of the man pointing at you, and has been reused for other recruitment's. The typography is is big and bold and uses a variety of fonts with both serif and san serif which makes the overall appearance a bit more interesting. The colours are more focused on the typography with the sharp reds and blues to catch your attention. The imagery of the man pointing immediately makes you think he's talking about 'YOU' which grabs your attention and interest making it feel more personal.

http://lucierice.com/?page_id=802

This poster is not only trying to recruit people to join the ARC but is also persuading you to donate and/or volunteer at the ARC which is helping rescue animals in danger or of a abuse or anything along the lines. Now the first thing i thought of when i saw this design was almost like a vintage poster with elements of pop art in some regards as the style reminds me of some pop artists. What i think makes this looks like pop art is the small colour scheme and the drawing style as well. This makes it simple but effective and bold which works well. The use of the woman and the dog helps you to see what good outcomes helping animals can to for society but also to yourself, it can make you feel strong and good to doing some so kind and generous. The text is bold and easy to read and gets the message across with just a few words, so overall short and to the point.


Overall all of these have a visual style and a layout of how to present recruitment within a poster and do it well. Some things i can take away from this is to use short and snappy words that are bold, easy to read and understand. The use of multiple fonts doesn't hurt and can make a poster look more appealing and using strong imagery and comparing it with the text that is in the poster which relates in some ways can also help as well. So i will take these ideas and thoughts on board as i tackle on my science poster design to appeal to women to recruit them to join A level Science.

Exploring Colour Palettes in Steampunk Examples

After exploring into the type choices themed around steampunk or i thought would relate to the visual style i then decided to look into colour palettes and to do this i thought i'd get some examples of steampunk work and analyse the colours they use within it, in order to get a clear mind of what colours i should go for in my science poster.

So below are some examples where i went into photoshop to get some of the colours out from examples to show what colour scheme these people used from these posters..

http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/steampunk-laser.jpeg

This one uses a lot of creamy/gold colours along with dark colours i.e. moss green, navy blue and a red. These colours are tended to be used often because steampunk is industrial and old and set in around the Victorian era there are more vintage colours used together i.e. golds, creams, reds and the green and blue is more toward the machinery and dirt of steampunk.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/104/7/7/steampunk_poster_by_rice_claire-d4vr8c5.jpg

In this example we can tell the colours here are more darker fitting into steampunk a lot more with the very smoggy and industrial colours we would've seen back then and these colours are mainly portrayed through the outfits and with the vintage gold/browns in the background, this really fits the steampunk colour platette.

http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/105/1/3/steampunk_worlds_fair_poster_2012_by_felixxkatt-d4wa2vi.jpg

This one above is a little different, it does contain browns, creams, reds, and even oranges but these colours are more brighter and bolder to create a very visually impacting poster and making it somewhat modern with the old theme of the steampunk. The colours help to bring out the poster on a whole along with the starburst background and bold text and imagery. Overall the colour scheme is a little more bolder than steampunk art or other work usually is.

So overall this helped me to gain more of an understanding of what colour schemes usually appear in steampunk and why they used them and its helped me to consider what colours i may use but taking a guess i would say i'd be using colours like browns, golds, greys, blacks, oranges and creams but i still don't know exactly what shades etc.

So now what i'm going to do is experiment most likely in adobe illustrator with colour palettes as well as layouts and typography to get a better consideration of what to do with my work and how i may want it to look as a whole including these aspects to it.

Steampunk Fonts

So after looking into the different visual styles we had to choose from for this science poster assignment as i was researching into Steampunk i began to really admire the overall theme and style and thought i potentially would go for this style for my science poster. After considering steampunk more and more and gathering ideas in my head of how i might make my poster with the theme i wanted to look into the fonts that i might use for the poster and what would fit with steampunk.

I decided to look on Dafont since they have a great range of font choices, and since steampunk is set around the Victorian era i wanted to look for fonts that might be similar to both steampunk and Victorian since they are set around the same period. However i did end up looking on different sites for steampunk related fonts to get a better spectrum of fonts that i think could work well or not.

http://www.dafont.com/jackrunner.font

http://www.dafont.com/biglodge.font

http://www.dafont.com/hominis.font

http://www.dafont.com/matador.font

http://www.dafont.com/daisy-regular.font

http://www.dafont.com/manuscript-caps.font

http://www.dafont.com/rebimboca.font

http://www.dafont.com/stowaway.font

http://www.dafont.com/copper-penny-dtp.font

http://www.steampunkfont.com/exotica-steampunk-font/

http://www.steampunkfont.com/jf-ringmaster-steampunk-font/

http://www.abstractfonts.com/font/10595

http://www.fontspace.com/pixel-sagas/steamwreck

http://tackorama.net/Fonts/steampunk/2.htm

http://tackorama.net/Fonts/steampunk/3.htm

http://tackorama.net/Fonts/steampunk/4.htm

http://www.howtogeek.com/72406/desktop-fun-steampunk-fonts/

http://hannarb.deviantart.com/art/Steampunk-Font-148871949

As you can see above i looked at a variety of different types of steam punk styled typography, some a little bit more crazier and over the top and some more subtle. But all of these caught my eye because they had some unique features and something i thought that would fit in well with the Victorian/steampunk era and something i feel i could work well with. Most of these fonts were serif because at the time in the era everything was a bit more formal and elegant and some of these fonts convey this and others are more informal with the way they are designed but still work well with this project.

At this point i am still indecisive to which font i may or may not use and i might use a combination of multiple fonts or use some and or create my own or design my own, so I'm still figuring out what fonts i will use and I'll probably experiment in illustrator and see what works best and I'll keep you updated on that.

Looking back at Victoriana

I decided to look back at the Victoriana style as i thought i didn't get enough imagery on the topic and get a clear overview of this particular. So i went on a few more sites to get more of a feel for this theme, and i ended up finding a site called 'design inspiration' where its full of art work in different time periods and wide range of different stuff as well, and found some of these images below on this site that caught my eye.

One of the images that caught my eyes was the image to the left where it presents a woman wearing clothing set in the era of the Victorian period. This image is made to look elegant and does this not only with the flattering clothing but does it with the females hair. Her hair is made to look elegant with it swerving and being long to give her hair a gorgeous and beautiful look and to flatter the woman's face and expression.

The colours are simple and pale which makes the piece slightly elegant with subtle pale greens, and contrasts with the strong bold colours coming from the woman from her hair and clothing.

In this next piece that i also found on the same site is a little bit more related to pop art with the limited colour scheme and bright vivid colours. The illustrations are quite comical and have a light hearted feeling towards them making it a bit more of a playful piece of work. The use of the bold yellow helps to make the piece eye catching and stand out from the illustrations to make them a bit more of a focal point.

In the next piece of work that caught my eye from the site yet again uses a range of typography which is serif that a variety of different serif font to make it the main interest and eye catcher out of the whole piece on a whole.

The colour is only white/cream from the background and the typography is coloured navy blue, in order to make the text stand out and make it the main interest.

The range of typography is used to make be look at it close up and read it carefully as some of the type is a bit harder to read in comparison to the other text.

The text basically telling you to be confident, and have faith, love etc and don't let others get in your way, so its almost like a speech to make you a bit more confident and proud.  The wide range of typography helps to make this piece unique and eye catching and formal which helps to resemble the Victorian era.

The alignment is quite specific to make it easy to read and positioned well and in a formal manner.





In this next piece the imagery has been separated into its own space with lines that help to form individual boxes giving the image on a whole a very neat and organised feel. The images present some of the stuff relating to the era and are drawn in a very illustrated manner which gives this piece a little bit more of an attraction.

The colours are simple again in order to main them less of a focus in comparison to the imagery and the colours on them so they stand out more.

http://designspiration.net/tag/victorian/  

(Site i used for all images above)

This example next is from a different site i went to and really caught my eye and took my interest. This piece also interested me with the range of images placed in one piece. With themes relating to the time period, so this image gives me a bit more inspiration to what the Victoriana theme is on a whole.

The colours are contrasting with the images being black and the background being white to help give an old feel to the piece along with making the images stand out.

The typography is mainly handwritten to resemble the time when handwriting was popular and was elegant and commonly attracted a lot of people.  

The imagery style is almost a bit of a art style making it very formal and related to an elegant era of the Victorian age.

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/ekmps/shops/thefruitpixie/images/7-gypsies-rubbings-victoriana-9402-p.jpg

Early 20th Century Sci-Fi Movie Posters

Started looking into sci fi movie posters from the early 20th century (1930's - 1940's) and i found this site immediately which has a variety of posters that were made back in the early 20th century.

http://www.cinemacom.com/50s-sci-fi-BEST.html

http://wrongsideoftheart.com/page/2/?s=day+of+the+triffids&submit_x=0&submit_y=0

I also when on a few more sites to get an idea of most sci fi films back then looked like, in order to get a kind of overview of the ways in which the posters were designed and portrayed. The two examples above both really caught my attention, they are both early sci fi films and are very bold to say the least.

When i first saw these two posters the colour scheme/ design style kind of made me think slightly back to pop art with the limited colour schemes which are very bold and bright, as well as very eye catching. The reasoning people made sci fi posters like these back then could've been to really catch people's attention and interest having used very bright colours like reds, yellows and even contrasting colours with blacks and whites. Back then sci fi was a very popular movie genre so trying to make the posters different from any others help to gain more popularity and interest.

In the left sci fi poster the art style reminded me of a very pop art, comic book strip theme, which is very strong and bold with the use of imagery, typography and obviously the colour scheme. Whereas on the right side the other poster uses a lot of contrasting colours with dark reds, and sharp and bold yellows. Using a range of tints to merge these colours with the imagery, giving it a very strong and vivid outlook and overall appearance, which works really well.

http://www.scifidrive.net/2010/02/evolution-of-science-fiction-cinema.html

The next two sci fi film posters from the early 20th century were very well known and popular back then and even both of them having remakes and animated versions of the films as well. These are the posters from King Kong and Metropolis. King Kong was especially a world wide success and did really well in the box office and is a great film which was made back in the early 20th century. Metropolis is relating more to science and technology relating with bots. 

The Metropolis poster has a very arty feel and a type of robotic/future feel towards it with the use of imagery and the colours of grey/silvers which blend with the whites. The title is bold with the use of the red, in order to make the title of the film stick in your head. The alignment of the typography is very odd and is placed of each side of the poster which is also odd. This helps to give it a almost brainwashing and robotic feel to it.

In contrast the King Kong poster is more focused on the ape itself along with the title rather whats going on in the background. The font is serif and is 3 dimensional and also reminds me of a very comic like font type. The use of the bold colour from the font as well as the very large and strong imagery of the ape helps to gain the main attraction to the poster and at the time would give somewhat enigma to people who saw this poster and would appeal to the and convince them to watch it.

Overall i've noticed looking at these posters is that the posters use:

San Serif (To make it informal and appeal to all)
Occasionally limited colours (to be bold and not to overwhelming in detail)
Typography aligned most of the time (to make it look neat or stand out)

Pop Art Style

So to start with researching the next visual style of pop art i went to look on google for some background on pop art, and ended up finding this:

"Pop Art is the movement in art when artists began to create art with the subject of things that are the iconic in nature such as famous people, advertising, and movies. The British and the American people were responsible for setting off this type of art in the 1950's and 60's. In art history, art movements are attached to time periods. It is the most recent form of artistic movements next to postmodernism. Abstract expressionism precedes pop art."

 http://www.osnatfineart.com/pop-art.jsp

So to put this in my own words, Pop Art is a popular type of art that was first brought out in the 1950's and was a very common and highly admired form of art at the time. The art was used to relate it to things like comics, movies, advertising etc.

Once i had an overview of Pop Art and a bit of the background i then looked into different Pop Artists in order to seek some of the type of work they created to get an overall point of view of the visual style of Pop Art and how its portrayed.

After googling Pop artists the most common were Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

 Andy Warholhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

Roy Lichtensteinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein

I decided to look into some of their work. I began looking into Andy's work and here is some of his stuff below.

http://www.ilovesensus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Opere-di-Andy-Warhol.jpg

Above is one of Warhol's most popular pop art work which has a selection of popular celebrities at the time in the 1950's some people will obviously recognise. This work is chopped up with a individual portrait of each famous person and them placed together as a collage. The colours are very bright, solid colours to give a very pop arty feel and make it eye catching. There isn't any typography in this piece mainly to make the portraits of the people the main focus. Each of the portraits are slightly different through the way they are presented to show a lot of interest to the piece on a whole with the slightly different looks in each portrait.



http://www.easyart.com/trends/2011/12/marmite-art-prints-get-a-andy-warhol-pop-art-makeover-love-it-or-hate-it/



http://swanmoreart.wordpress.com/category/ks3-art/pop-art-food-and-drink/

The next bunch of pop art is also from Andy and these are of products i.e. food products. Pop Art was related with not only famous people but with advertising, products from everyday life that we may see on television as adverts and marketing were very important at this time.

The colours in some of these are simple, with the marmite its very bold with its strong colours that help to brighten up the piece and bringing more interest to it. Whilst the other two use very simple background colours in order to make the product itself the main focus.


Now let's take a look at Roy Lichtenstein and his Pop Art work. i've seen a few pieces of his work before in the past since i took Art back in school so i kinda have an idea of what type of pop art work he did in the past.


http://rap361.com/?p=22933

So just looking above at one of his pieces of work we can already see that his style of pop art is more related to the comical, comic book strip themed pop art style, and he carries this style out in a lot of other work of his. What makes this relatable to the comic strips is the use of tiny polka dots of the characters which was a common thing for comic strips as well as the think outlining of the characters.

http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/10/18/see-roy-lichtensteins-cover-for-newsweeks-1966-pop-art-issue/

Comic book strips occasionally had typography for punches and kicks and in this one is a clear example of the comic book strip theme along with the limited amount of colours which not only gives it both a comic theme and a pop art theme but an animated cartoon theme as well.


http://seaofgray.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/kate-spades-pop-of-color/

Roy did make a huge amount of pop art relating to the comic strip theme visually and has really worked well through the style of comic books and the simplistic, limited amount of colours that are bold and eye catching.

Overall Pop Art contains a lot of aspects which make it what it is.Such as the following:

Limited colours: (Uses around 3-4 colours in each piece of pop art)
Outlines (Usually thick black out lines in pop art)
No Background (Ocassionally just a solid colour fill for the background)
Bright Colours (the colour scheme consists mainly of bright vivid colours)