Brief
For the first project of my last semester, we were given a two-day brief that required us to design the branding for the 'Institute of Arts 2022 Degree Show'. The deliverables included an A3 poster, an advert for the artist's newsletter and an A5 invitation. We had to advertise the exhibitions to people with an interest in creative subjects and to possible future employers and the challenge was to create a design that represented all the subjects displayed in the show, as well as be usable in multiple formats.
Research
Due to this being a brief project, I quickly made a decision on the direction I wanted to take. While researching poster ideas, I was mainly drawn to typographic approaches and thought it would work well due to it being for an event that advertised many different creative fields. I didn't want to focus too much on making it overly 'graphicy' or illustrative because even though the assets themselves are pieces of graphic design, it still needed to promote areas such as performing arts and game design.
Thumbnail Sketches
I then drew up some thumbnail sketches to experiment with some layout ideas, colour combos and possible illustrative elements.
Developments
When I started working on the screen I decided to explore a few 3D typography techniques. I experimented with different typefaces, angles and colour combinations.
I ended up improving my original blue/red design to the more multi-coloured version with the illustrations as I felt it looked too plain. I also distorted the type to make the page flow more and direct the viewer's eyes across the poster. I thought adding illustrations would really bring the whole thing together.
Final Designs
Here are the final outcomes for the degree show branding project. I wanted to create a design that could represent all the subjects displayed in the show so based my design on the concept of an ‘idea’, including illustrations such as a lightbulb.
I included lots of colour in order to attract the eye and kept the show information simple and easy for people to read. I also made sure the design was contained to make it easy to modify for the different formats.
