Mockup made by rawpixel.com
This poster was made for the Green East Chicago organization or Green EC. A small coalition of East Chicago residents trying to improve their quality of life alongside the environment. The target audience was the community of East Chicago and the surrounding areas. The goal of the poster was to provide as much information possible for the event while retaining viewers. The project had a very small printing budget. Green EC requested it be designed in 2 colors only.
I was contacted by a member of the planning committee to create a poster for their Earth Day event. Some of their requests were to use only two colors, make it easily visible from a distance and retain all necessary information in it. I typically use illustrations or photos to draw in viewers. In this particular instance, illustrations would have detracted from its readability. There was so much information to squeeze into one poster that at certain point I had made two posters in an attempt to mitigate the amount of information being thrown at the viewer.
I took some inspiration from my more contemporary peers and tried to use the text itself as a visual aid to reading the text. Another reason for doing this was to avoid “text blocks” and avoid any difficulties with reading the amount of information on the poster. A particular focus when dividing up the text was the flow of the poster’s composition. Although the event didn’t have enough budget to make and print a quirky and colorful poster I wanted to get across as much friendly and imaginative flair as I could.
Century Gothic
Regular | Bold
Initially I had wanted to make the title a big red sign to draw in attention, but it fought too much for attention with the rest of the poster. Making the text lined and editing it to a higher thickness was a way of both retaining attention while mitigating ink costs and lowering the distraction to the rest of the poster. I also ended up putting a lined
This project quickly became a study in lines. The interaction of text lines and shape to create movement and flow. The use of lines as imagery and containment. The use of line to create the illusion of importance and place. In school I was taught that lines were a “cane” in design, something used when you lacked skill to do something. I took it with a grain of salt. I avoided using lines when possible.
This project feels especially important in that I think I’m beginning to understand what my teacher was getting at when she talked about the use of line. The importance of knowing when something was truly necessary and when it wasn’t.