Type and Image Posters

My story is about journalists and gossip columns and how they exaggerate the truth, but also how celebrities take advantage of this to get more sales in their movies or music, or whatever field they are in. PR stunts help people to create more interest in a subject, for example, the leading male and female in a film, becoming a couple in real life, will create more interest in the film as it makes it more real. Producing a Type only, Image only and image and type poster will be difficult as it is sometimes hard to do image only as its difficult to show the exact message being shown.

Initial ideas;

Type only brainstorm.

Noting down my initial ideas before drawing anything out, so that when I started sketching up examples and idea I had already had many ideas, but just needed to show them visually.

20 different ideas for type only.

Coming up with 20 versions of type only was good for me as I had many ideas to choose from and different layouts which I could use. I decided that I wanted to keep my posters really simple and keep my concept simple. This is why I decided to try and stick to very few words, and something which would make people think about my message, maybe highlighting certain words to make them stand out.

2 portrait developments.

2 landscape developments.

These four further developments are just rough sketches of different ideas, both landscape and portrait to see which I preferred, I think fewer words would work better and be more of an effective statement. Therefore I think that using 'Romance or Showmance?' will convey the best message of what my subject and message is about using the fewest words, to make it more effective.

Image only brainstorm.

Doing a separate brainstorm for the image only poster allowed me to have different ideas but still being able to link them back to  the type only ideas.

20 different ideas of image only.

I thought of the idea of having the theatre faces symbols as they are very well known and people will understand to idea of creating a show, thinking about a show I thought that a stage would also show the same message. I also thought about having love hearts or something that shows romance to link the theatre faces to romance. Doing 20 different ideas showed me the examples which I could use, so that I chould choose something which went well with my 'Romance or Showmance?' idea.

2 portrait developments.

2 landscape developments.

These four developments I think will all work and link well with my type only poster. The masks show clearly a theatrical element, so using them will work better than using a stage. It would also keep the design more simple by having just the masks, also using either a heart of the colour red to show romance. Experimenting on illustrator is the only way which I will be able to find what works best.

Image and type brainstorm.

When doing this brainstorm, there were two different approaches I could take wit this, as I could use an element of both type only and image only and create image and type. Or I could simply come up with something completely different that shows the same message.

20 different ideas for type and image.

I decided to show a mixture of some different ideas landscape and portrait, then also some ideas for using my type only and image only together, but finding different layouts which I could use. This has given me lots of options, and also I can ask friends on the course to have a look and see what they think would look right.

2 portrait developments.

2 landscape developments.

These further developments show that I want to stick with simplicity and my 'Romance or Showmance?' and a simple image. I decided to go with the masks and 'Romance or Showmance?' But deciding on the layout will need different variations to be produced on illustrator to find the one which works best, and conveys my message to its full potential.

Colours;
My preference when it comes to colours is to use neutral toned, also pastel colours. Although this wouldn't work well with this brief. Therefore as I could only use two colours and my stock, I decided to use white paper as my stock, red and black. Red would work really well with this brief as it is red for passion, red carpet, deceit, anger, romance, and shows(theatre stages). Black will also work as it is seen as a serious colour, and helps to show the serious aspect in my message.

Development;
Type only;

Red writing, outlined red, black 'Show'.

Red writing, no outline, black 'Show'.

Black writing, no outline, red 'Show'.

Black writing, red outline to show glowing red around 'Show'.

My original idea was to simply have 'Romance or Showmane?' highlighting 'Show' so that people can see what the enthesis is on. These are some different options so that I can see what looks best. but I also wanted to experiment with some of my other ideas, as I don't think that the message is strong enough in this form.

Black writing.

Red writing.

This, in my opinion works better than the previous ideas, I think it looks more effective as a block colour all together, as in the other it looks as if there isn't a lot of colour.

White writing, black outline, to show a glow around 'Show'.

White writing, no outline, black 'Show'.

Black writing, white outline around 'Show'.

Black writing, no outline, white 'Show'.

I thought that I would add a colour injection to my original idea may make it more effective. Which it did. These developments work a lot better than the initial ones, I think that the red makes the statement stronger.

White and black repeats.

Black and white repeats.

Even though I want to use simple designs, I thought that it could create a big impact by repeating the statement. Although I don't think that it has achieved the impact, it just makes it look too busy and cluttered. Therefore with this development I found that a red background with 'Romance or Showmance?' It creates a better and bigger impact and tells you everything you need to know with very few words.

Image only;

1st face drawing on illustrator.

2nd face drawing on illustrator.

3rd face drawing on illustrator.

Drawing a few different mask faces to see which one looks best, and most theatrical but also simple. I found that the third one is the better one and what I will be using for my image. I also asked friends to see if they agreed with the third one and they did.

Faces with love reference behind it.

Trying to develop the idea of have a white background and having a red love heart with faces in front of the heart to try and show romance in theatre and shows.

Multiple faces on a red background.

This reminds me of a chinese sign or poster, therefore wouldn't work well for what I am trying to show.

Faces on a white background.

Faces on a red background.

I like the simplicity of this and think that it will work really well. I wanted the the show the like between the white 'Show' in the type only poster, with the happy face, as it is all show that they are happy. And a link between the black 'Romance' and the black sad face. Therefore it would work best and fit in more if I were to use the faces on the red background.

Type and Image;

Type above image.

Type next to image.

Deciding on the layout for the type and image poster was clear for me, as I found that it worked most effectively as the type next to the image as it shows the faces quite large with the underlining question next to it. It works really well this way. I think using a red background would be too much red in the posters, therefore white would look a lot better and balance out the posters.

Font choice;

Type design, Optima.

Finding and designing my ideas I realised that the font which I chose didn't work very well and wasn't very appropriate for my subject. I found the font Optima and thought that it would work well as a statement font, but then realised that it didn't work with the type and image poster, therefore started to look at other fonts.

Type options.

I started by looking up film poster typefaces and found a few but they wouldn't suit my subject of romance. So I decided to search down fontbook. I found 6 different fonts which I thought would look good and suit my subject, applying them all to my posters next to each other allowed me to see what looks most aesthetically pleasing.

Final type image.

This is it font which I chose called Gabriola, I chose this as I think that it most resembles romance and elegance, but at the same time its not too ever the top. It is legible, looks good and suits my subject, so works a lot better than Optima.

Final Posters;

Final three posters.

These are my final posters with the white image and type in the middle to balance the red out. My design is very simple and works well as a set, although separately may be slightly confusing, especially the image only.

After crit;
After the crit I decided to adapt a few of my ideas as the general feedback I got from the crit was that its not very clear that the 'Show' reference is directed at celebrities. Also the type only poster could have slightly more information on it to show exactly what it is I am showing. In hindsight I should have relised this, as I was aiming for simple minimum design, I may have taken it too far, so that I am not longer showing the message clearly.

Only after my mail shots had been critted, I decided to change my typeface, as it may work on a larger scale, for example a header, but does not work as body copy. Therefore didn't change any aspects of my posters until after the mail shot crit, as I wanted the mail shot and the posters to have the same typeface.

Type only.

Whilst changing my typeface to something which is more readable and is similar to gossip magazine typefaces. I decided to use Gill Sans because I believe that it works a lot better, it works well as body copy, but also looks more clear and less 'posh'. I looked at magazine typefaces as they are my target audience, and with my old font it wasn't clear who my target audience was, therefore having a font which is stripped down to its bare essentials will work better for its context.

Image only.

The image only poster I decided not to change, as even though on its own its not very strong, as a group it works really well. My feedback from the crit said that it would hard to see what it means on it's own, but I personally think that image only is harder to make a strong message, therefore adding anything to it would be unnecessary and would only make it cluttered.

Image and type.

For the image and type poster I decided to add a lot more information to it, this is so that it would allow people to understand what the posters are trying to make you aware of. This is a stronger design than the first attempt, it shows more information, its clearer and gives relevance to the faces, and gives them a reason to be there, and make people understand it more.