Following from the trip to the Strand and the Tattoo art exhibition, I’ve now decided to expand my research further and start to look deeper into posters and typography. We got given a brief list to find out certain posters to help develop our thoughts in order to come up with designs for our own posters.
Obviously, ‘Type Tour’ is not an actual event going on, so I had to try and find posters that could link similarly to my brief.
I first started out with the list and as a quick research; I found 3 examples of each:
- A poster that provides too much text based information to be visually interesting:
This image was a critique on biomaterials. I decided to use this as an example to give you the idea on how NOT to put lots of information on! The page itself looks messy in my opinion as the text is in all different places on the page, meaning you are not entirely sure what bit to read next. It doesn’t catch your eye and it is not bold… to me its just a bit ‘naff’ as there is not much to it. It’s just like a page out of a GCSE textbook.
This one by a man called Colin Purrington, produced this image as also a bad example of a scientific poster. I am not a big fan of text boxes that are all filled out in different colours with what appears to be ‘Microsoft font’ used as the subheadings. The poster is too much to look at which automatically bores you from the sight of it, let alone reading it.
The last one was about Pancreatic cancer. I feel like they should make it more factual than give a story about it. The poster itself has too detailed information to make you want to read every word. If the top left image was used alone and has some short facts around it that was easier to read, it would appear more appealing. Or even have just one major fact about it.
- A poster that is too image based with insufficient inclusion of text-based information:
This piece by Arlene Owseichik was creative, but I felt that the image itself was not right. The text with the image I felt was too difficult to read because of the colour, and I did not understand why there were random shells scattered across the page; it just didn’t blend overly well for me.
I’m not sure of who made this poster, but I felt that the images of the cavemen were quite irrelevant to the poster itself. The whole design almost looked like a young student who was new to any computer software just went overboard with the border and merging whatever they thought in one poster!
I have no idea what on earth this poster was about… the poster being a plain image of a man with two tones of colour I felt did not say anything to me. It did not catch my eye at all, which would be an issue if you were publishing it in a public area. The poster was about superheroes, however I would not have got that if I hadn’t of reading the text that followed from this poster.
- A poster that combines text and image in an imaginative way:
These prints by Glenn Manucdoc I really liked. I love how they have got the silhouette of the figure and put it very faintly in the background, having only one feature that would resemble them on the poster. I found these type of images makes you look closer at them because you can see with the human eye that there is more than just an object in the middle, with one word that would give away who the silhouette was.
This poster I found randomly called ‘Grandma’s Boy’. To me, an object made out of text is really interesting because you can use your imagination to create almost anything in all kinds of styles and ways. the text inside the game controller obviously represented certain speeches made, and the controller was a symbol also, which gives almost like a brief introduction to what it could be like or about.
Again with this poster by Saul Bass, I love silhouettes because you can make them so dramatic. The silhouette of the two main characters and the chain portrays what the film is about, which people would have got if they watched the film. The colour scheme as well I thought was well suited, using red to resemble blood, as I very clearly remember, has a lot of that in the film!
- A poster that makes good use of a limited colour scheme:
This poster of the Thor movie I thought was an excellent example of limited use of colour. I prefer how the image itself shows that it is the main statement, and that it doesn’t need much colour added, otherwise it would be too much. Again, they have emphasized the colour red as its main colour to represent blood for the film, but only used it in certain areas so that it doesn’t become the statement of the image.
The film World War Z I feel doesn’t really need anyway a massive over-the-top poster to show what it is about. This poster I found on the Internet was quite spine chilling especially without the colour. Because the image itself is a huge statement to the picture, adding colour to it would have made it too much to look at, as the photo is quite detailed.
Konrad Kruczkowsk’s poster on the USB was a nice example of using some pattern with the poster to make it seem less dull with a limited use of colour. He has kept the colours fairy neutral because the text itself is supposed to be the main ‘object’ within the page. I like how some posters like this are simple and neutral, as that is what makes them effective.
- A poster that makes good use of text set at an angle:
I really like this poster that I has found. The way that the text is angled to me is set out to look uneven like when a tyre skids or goes down a road, as it is never straight. The image itself is not too separated from the text, but again they both compliment each other as neither stands out more than the other.
This poster by Christopher Greaves I thought was a little dull in the layout, but still the way the text has been laid out with the image combines well with each other. I like how the text is angled slightly so that it creates a bit of variation on the page and it makes you read the whole page because you have to adjust your head to read exactly what it is saying.
This poster I found on SpotCo, I thought it was really nice having the text altered in the way like it was coming in or out of the book, making it look like it was moving instead of it being a 2D standstill text. I also like how it was the main title they used for it, and the information part they left separate for people to read if they wished.
- A poster that makes good use of multi-directional text:
Again, I randomly found this poster but I loved it! The way that it has given motivational pieces of text to form a peace sign of a hand I thought was really clever. The text is written in different shapes and sizes so that it merges into the hand which I also really liked as it gave variation to the image and to me, it was more interesting to look at.
This poster made by MrBadger on Deviantart I thought was really nice to look at. I thought the way that the text has been ordered and laid out merged well with another, as well as making sure it doesn’t look too busy on the page.
What I really liked about this poster was that it almost had a ‘retro’ feel to it with the colours used. I also really liked how they have completely changed around the texts so that some form in circles and others in all weird directions and angles. These sort of posters I feel really grabs the attention of viewers because you have to stop and look at it deeply to read it and gather the words together to understand what it is really about.
- A poster that creates an image from the arrangement of text:
Jessica Costa made this poster about a drugs and smoking campaign. I liked the way that she had turned the image into text and showed the silhouette of someone smoking, then having the information separately at the side. I think she could have been more imaginative with the image and put some more detail into it by changing the font sizes etc.
Neville Brody himself made these two posters. I absolutely love the colour schemes he went into producing both of these images. The detail put into them as well so that you could recognize whom the faces were I thought was incredible. I feel like the image itself it the statement of the posters, and to me I feel like no other piece of information should be on it, unless you want to have a small line at the bottom so that the main image is the primary focus.
- A poster that is very unusual in its approach:
Something about this poster really caught my eye and I’m still unsure as to why. The artist David D’Andrea obviously knew what he was doing when he created this, as the image doesn’t quite look like a poster at all, or definitely not a modern version. I still think it is very striking in the design of it all, but I cannot say whether I really like it or not.
Shaun Barber’s work I thought was absolutely amazing but completely weird. His art is what produces the poster design with his range of tattoos also merged within. I love how he has made the text in the image look artistic also, but kept the image and the information very separate from another.
By far, this was my strangest find yet. The poster made by a series of directors from the group Benetton made a pretty obvious portrayal of what the poster is about; but THAT is what made the image so effective! The fact that you see famous people who are rivals acting in the very opposite behaviour is meant to make you look at it again and think ‘what the..?!’ which is why I would say is hugely successful and clever.
Obviously research can get repetitive… but it is completely worth it when looking at the amount of different ideas people have! Although these were good to look at, I know I need to look further into typographic-style posters to try and get some more inspiration that relates closer to my brief.
I managed to narrow the list to 4 categories of people that could potentially buy this Land Rover: Flourishing families, Educated Urbanities, Aspiring singles and Prosperous professionals. BUT I must only choose two!
dream, discover, design 