Progress of design for first draft of DMD BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition Poster

Before even starting to brainstorm, I decided to read the reading for this project. The ideas discussed in the reading helped spark my creativity and gave me a better understanding of certain things I should incorporate and think about when coming up with my design. In Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner, it begins by saying that there is no right or wrong way in design. There are a countless number of possible solutions, however, some solutions are better than others. As a designer, your goal is to use methods of selection to come up with the best possible combination of solutions, to the best of your ability. There are so many things to think about when deciding on a typographical design, such as reading direction, spacing, form, and design. Typographical design is not just typeface. The arrangement of text, the sizing, weight, and abbreviation of words, all contribute to the reader’s understanding of the text and the hierarchy of importance within the text.

In my design, the first thing in my thought process was: what represents DMD and BFA? I began to think of blending the fine arts with digital. The imagery of Greek and Roman statues was what I thought of when I thought of fine arts. When I thought of digital, I thought of geometric shapes and patterns and grids and programs. In my initial design, I placed a sculpture head in the center of the poster. The background of the poster was a grid, populated by geometric shapes. I placed my text in the bottom right corner of the poster in a box that resembled a popup ad. Although the hierarchy of the information was good and I enjoyed the design, the layout was not right. I played around with different aspects of the poster, coming up with a couple variations, but eventually decided that the sculpture head in the center took up too much space. I then moved the sculpture head to the left of the poster and made only half of the face visible. This allowed for much more space for the text to breathe. My second design was similar to the first and a good improvement on the first, however, it was lacking a design that would make it stand out. In my final design, I made the head smaller and added a spiral design against a black background. This design seemed to pop the most and draw the most attention, so I settled on animating that poster, as I felt it had the most opportunity for movement. 

Throughout the process I had always decided to use bright, fluorescent colors, to represent the digital and futurism of the DMD department. In the design I decided to animate, the colors were simplified, bright, and stood out against the black background. I chose to make “2020 DMD” and “Senior Thesis Exhibition” in pink, as well as a different typeface from the other text to make it stand out the most. I believe that the decision was successful.

For the majority of my text, I used the Avenir font. This font is a clear, simple, readable, san-serif font. I especially liked this font because of the variety of weights it had. I used these weights to further distinguish hierarchy within the different information. I used a bolder weight for “Opening Reception”  and “Exhibition” than the date and time because I believe that the event is where the audience should look first and the audience will then question when the date and time are, and their eyes will follow to find that information. I also used a heavier weight to distinguish “Jorgensen Gallery” from the address for the same purposes. The different typeface and color for “2020 DMD” and “Senior Thesis Exhibition”, establish that information as the most important information. The font I used for that text was Retrahaus, an interpretation of Bauhaus fonts. All my text was placed flat, except for my opening reception text. I thought by putting my text at a slight angle allowed there to be more space for the text to breathe, it looked nice as it followed the same line angle as the black space on the bottom, and it made the text more dynamic.

Overall, I tried to combine the ideas of language, type, and design to create a meaningful and well-crafted work that represents the DMD department and BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition.