We´re Baaaaaaack!

 

This is my reflective essay. It´s about my poster for the Trinity Men´s Soccer Team game against Colorado College. It was a really fun project and I enjoyed doing it. I had a lot of ideas for what to do for my poster. But at the end I wanted to a poster for the Trinity Men´s Soccer Team since I am on the team and there hadn´t been a poster from us in a very long time.

We have a game against Colorado College on March 12 next. This is the first game that we have in over a year and we wanted to have extra hype around the game. The game will be at the Paul McGinlay Soccer Field our home stadium.

Usually the Friday games are the most attended games. But since we are dealing with a global pandemic no audience is allowed at the field. However people will be able to see the game. It will be live streamed through a link that is provided on the poster.

The process behind the project was really fun and it also had me think creatively and outside the box to make the poster the best as it could be. I tried a lot of things with the poster. Used many pictures, words, and was trying to make it very cool and nice. My first draft had more pictures, words, and was trying to make it very cool and nice. My first draft had more pictures then the finished done and way more words than my final one. I realised that it takes a lot of work and creativity to make a good product come alive like a poster. It has to be worked on for a good amount of time like anything else that is going to be successful.

As a consumer you expect the best from everything and you only accept the best. As a consumer you are always deciding what, where, and from who to buy. If one product looks better than another product you´ll buy the product that looks better to you. So as a consumer looking at a poster you will always appreciate something about the poster and there will always be something that you don´t like. What the consumer usually doesn´t think about as much is the amount of work that the produce of the product in this case a produce of a poster has put in to the poster.

Being a producer of a media content I would argue is more work and takes more creativity than being a consumer. Your goal as the producer when creating a media content like a poster is to get the consumers attention. This takes amount of time and creativity and a lot of work to create a media content that will reach that goal. As a consumer you take what you like best and you look at things that you like. So these are two different approaches when it comes to media content.

I learned a lot from doing this project. I have learned that the media content that I like is because of something. The tv-shows, movies, and podcasts that I watch and listen to are because I think they are so fun. But why I think they are fun is because of how well they are made. It is the work that is behind the movie, tw-show, and the podcast that makes me like it.

Now I have been both a consumer and a producer of a media content. I enjoy both being the consumer and the producer like in this poster assignment. However do I think you learn more by being the producer.

A Reflection of Design: Trinity University Club Lacrosse

I designed a poster to advertise for Trinity Men's Club Lacrosse. Playing on the club lacrosse team has been one of the best experiences I have had at Trinity, so naturally I wanted to share this with others by encouraging Trinity students to give LAX a try.

Throughout the process, I gained a newfound respect for media content producers. As a consumer, I realize that I am more attracted to some media designs more than others. However, I never appreciated what design principles and decisions might be responsible for this until acting as the media content producer.

Overall, the main design principles that I learned to apply are having a main focal point, controlling the flow of information, and using the rule of thirds.

I approached the design knowing that I wanted the main focal point to be the call to action. In this case, the call to action is "LAX is Back! . . . Join Today." From there, I controlled the flow of information by using gradually smaller texts based on the order of what information I felt was more important. For example, the main call to action was the most important while the more specific information regarding practice times is the least important and therefore has the smallest text.

Also, I organized the text, picture, and symbols using the rule of thirds. Vertically, the focal point is centered around the first two thirds of the poster while the photo takes up the entire width of the final third. Horizontally, each group of text is also centered around their respective thirds. Breaking down the poster into thirds left me with a grid to more strategically place design elements. 

The main regret I have from this poster design is the design decision to place the Trinity logo with Leeroy at the top. Although its colors contrast well with the rest of the poster, it draws too much attention away from the main focal point and confuses the eye flow of the viewer a bit. 

To correct this, I should have removed the Trinity logo at the top, replaced it with a much larger version of the call to action while adding a more attention grabbing symbol that represents Trinity Lacrosse.

Lunches Of Love Volunteer Function

For my media poster, I  created an ad for the Lunches Of Love volunteer event. I knew I wanted my ad to support a volunteer organization, but I wasn't sure which one. I chose Lunches of Love because of their strong support for kids who battle with hunger.

My poster is meant to attract volunteers for the Lunches of Love cause. I wanted the picture of kids with sack lunches to be the focal point of the poster. I felt that even though my poster was simple it sent a loud and clear message. I knew I only had a few seconds to get my point across before the viewer moved on. I used a white background to create a clear contrast with the red coloring of the Lunches of Love title. The red color of the title text created a bold look alerting the viewers to what organization they were volunteering for. I also used the text font Antic to create a clean professional look that was easy to follow.

I do wish I would have formatted my poster a little differently. The first mistake I would have fixed was being able to see the lunches of love title on the van. That way Lunches of Love was present in both the focal point and heading of the poster. I also wish I would have staggered my text instead of just stacking them on top of each other.  

I learned that there is a major difference between being a product producer and a product consumer. As a product producer, you have to be aware of your target audience and make sure it appeals to the masses. Product consumers only have one real goal and that is their own personal interest. It is way easier to judge a poster than to be the one creating it.

The second important thing I learned is that semiotics can play a major role in advertising for posters. Good posters have pictures that relate to the poster, while great posters have deeper connotations associated with the photos.

Ultimately I am happy with my poster and the message it stands for. It's not perfect but I was able to learn from the experience and understand more about media text.

Reflecting History Through Broadway

 

    The poster that I designed was for a class I am currently taking that focuses on the history of the American musical, and on how musicals are a valuable lens through which you can view American society at different points in history. My first idea was to make a poster based on the Playbill design, with the course title or number where the word "Playbill" would normally appear (here's an article showcasing different playbills throughout the history of American musicals).

    Next, I had to decide on what the lower part of the playbill would look like - where a musical would usually have their poster, underneath the yellow text box. I settled on an image of a specific theater -to use as my background. The theater is very old and is still in use today, so I thought it would be a nice design choice for a course which was focused on both history and the present day. Then, I wanted to choose fonts. I downloaded a playbill-inspired Western font to use for the heading text box, and used a narrow serif font for the title of the course

    For my second draft, I ended up settling on a design which didn't use the playbill header. Although the primary reason was because my professor didn't seem to recognize the playbill design, I was also on the fence about it in the first place - the yellow header was a very different color from the rest of it and made the poster look pretty busy. I considered making two designs, but decided it wasn't worth the effort since I would only be turning in one. I put the white text on colored backgrounds, and changed the focal line to be diagonal.

    In this process, I learned a lot about how to use certain photo editing tools. I do digital art so I was familiar with some tools, but I had never had to be as exact with alignment as I had to be during this process. Overall, I'm happy with my finished product - there are probably things that could be done to improve it, but I think it gets the point across succinctly and I'm really happy with my color choices in particular.

    I think a playbill design with the yellow "playbill" header would have still been helpful had this poster actually been put up, since it would catch the eye of students who are already interested in musicals, but it did make the whole design look busy. One thing I could've done was put the word "playbill" on top, but that could be confusing and make people think it's a performance ad (and "playbill" itself is trademarked so I'm not sure of legality there).

    I've done a little bit of graphic design before for my website, but this assignment made me think about a print medium more than I typically do. I'm not used to having to keep my documents a certain size, or to having to severely limit the amount of information on something. Overall, I'm happy with my design and I'm happy about what I learned.

SCAC Men's Basketball Championship Game!

I designed a poster for the upcoming SCAC Men's Basketball Championship game that will display Trinity University Men's Basketball team going up against the University of Dallas on March 20, 2021 at the Bell Athletic Center in San Antonio, Texas. 

During this creative process I really learned how to convey a message without the use of just words or phrases. This experience taught me that when being in the position of a content producer it is very important that your message it made clear quickly and precisely. Beforehand, in looking at this task from a consumer perspective it didn't come to mind how technical a poster design like this had to be in order to grab the attention of your audience so fast. 

Coming into this process the biggest surprise came from myself and my ability to use different elements to all work together to convey one singular message. Something that worked extremely well for me in this process was my knowledge of championship games in the sports world. My focal point, the trophy, was a product of that knowledge, as in the couple of championship games I have been apart of, claiming the trophy stands above all as the primary goal in such scenario. 

An aspect of the poster design that didn't work too well at first was the details section of this poster. At times it felt too cluttered with too many words that would make it difficult for my audience to understand the details of the event. From this I learned that simplicity is key and sometimes shortening long sentences into easy to comprehend phrases is essential in appealing to an audience quicker. 

A key detail that I included in my poster was the type I used for the main headers and subheads of the poster. I found that such type was mainly used for college sporting events so to make it easier for my audience to get some context I included that element into my design. 

That detail also led me to see the importance of color coordination and how that helps things like eye flow.  I used an all black and white color scheme for the heading and subheadings that I later changed to match with the logos in which they are shown under. In doing this, I felt will make it easier for my audience to understand what each heading was referring to. 

Going through this process of designing this poster showed me the significance of the smallest details and how one change can have a dramatic impact. My peers and professor Dr. Liu helped me see that being over the top with a design is not always the best to catch the attention of your audience. Instead of incorporating too many elements that would cause a distraction, I broke the poster down and was able to simplify it to allow my audience to have an easy eye flow and be able to focus on a focal point that they could quickly look at to figure out the message I was trying to convey. 

Storytime with a view

The poster that I created was for a weekly, nature-themed children's reading event at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Because of its proximity to campus and having visited it before, I thought to look to the Gardens for inspiration for an event and found this recurring one coming up in the spring. As someone who loves both nature, reading, and education, it was the perfect event to highlight.

"Storytime in the Garden" is a weekly event that will take place at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens on Thursdays, March 4 through April 29. It is one of the few weekly events still going on at the gardens due to the pandemic causing most to close, and will be taking place outdoors in the gardens themselves to encourage adherence to COVID-19 health and safety measures.

I approached the design knowing that I wanted to use natural, nature-inspired colors across all elements, and that I also wanted to keep the theme light. Because of this, I wound up using green, beige, and white shades for the background, text, and visual aids.

For the text itself, I used two complimentary fonts — one that was sans serif (Barlow SemiCondensed) and another that was serif (Lora). By choosing complimentary fonts and using the serif font for the title, it made it clear to the viewer where their eyes were supposed to go first. The funnel-shape of the text going down the page also drew the eye downward.

Although I have created event posters and signs before, it is not an easy process, which I knew going into this design. Creating a proper eye flow while also including the relevant information is tricky; luckily, the digital age makes it so that most events have websites that poster-viewers can be directed to for more information, which I took advantage of when trying to keep text to a minimum.

My intended audience for the poster is parents and caregivers of young children, hence the use of light colors and simple imagery. Had I used dark colors and a more visually-overwhelming display, it would have deterred parents looking for a calming afternoon event to take their children to. Instead, I made use of light colors and a minimalist design to communicate to viewers that this was a simple, calm, and inviting event.

While I intended to use a simple design and executed that well, in hindsight I still believe that I could have used design elements that were a bit more eye-catching than those I implemented. For instance, I could have included more nature elements into the art, such as a butterfly, or used a pleasant photograph of the gardens. Despite this, I believe that I still produced an appropriate poster design for the event.

Swinging into Theaters Next March: Batman the Movie

  

The process of designing my poster for the upcoming Batman movie proved to be an interesting learning experience that not only tested my artistic abilities but also helped improve them. Before, I knew very little about what qualified as good design other than its appeal to the eye. But now after learning the different design principles I understand what qualifies as good design and how to incorporate this newfound knowledge into my own projects. 

Additionally, through my design process I also learned the importance of choosing the right font. More specifically, while years of writing school essays have conditioned me to believe that Times New Roman is the only font in existence, I now understand that fonts are extremely technical and can be used for many different effects. 

Another important revelation that I had during the project was learning how different content creators are from consumers. In particular, as a consumer you never realize how much thought goes into producing media content; an effective advertisement might appear simple, but under the surface, they reveal to be incredibly sophisticated in the ways they are designed. 

Because of this, I was surprised to discover how difficult it was to make an effective design that simultaneously incorporates complex design principles but also appears simplistic to viewers.  While I previously conceived it as an effortless job, I now realize that poster designing is a very demanding job that requires lots of time and effort to be successful. 

Addressing was what worked well with my poster design, overall I believe that I effectively achieved my goals without too many regrets. As specified in my strategic document, my core concept and intended message were to indicate what the Batman movie is about — meaning that I wanted to suggest the story will focus on the caped crusader as he solves crimes caused by the mysterious Riddler — and establish its dark and gritty tone. After finishing my design, I believe my use of the background question marks, the bold title font, and the mysterious positioning of Batman's figure successfully satisfied my intentions for the poster. 

Additionally, while it's difficult to unbiasedly criticize my creation, I think one aspect that fell short of my poster's design was its poor use of eye flow. While I intended the spectators to look from bottom to top - starting with the title and making their way up to the background symbols - ultimately I think the title section was ignored because it was overshadowed by Batman's figure. 

As for things I wish I did differently, my lack of artistic exploration during the design process felt like a missed opportunity. More specifically, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it early on, I missed the chance to explore other artistic avenues before settling on a final design. This exploratory phase of the design process could have potentially helped me stumble onto new ideas that I never would have considered in the first place. But other than that minor complaint, there are few aspects that I would change about my final design. 

Alpha Kappa Psi Midterm Interview

I created a poster for current members and alumni of the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi. Alpha Kappa Psi is one of the two business fraternities at Trinity University and it is the oldest and largest professional business fraternity in the country. The aim of this poster is to inform all active members and alumni of the Nu Pi chapter of AKPsi about our semesterly event; Midterm Interview.

When I started designing my poster, the first thing that I knew I wanted to have is the fraternity's symbol (the Greek letters) big enough to catch my audience's attention. Then, when thinking about what colors I wanted to use, I thought that the best way to connect with my audience was if I used the colors of Alpha Kappa Psi. Lastly, I wanted my message to be clear and easy to read, thus I chose a white background for that purpose. Overall, I think that the colors in my poster worked very well with the encompassing theme.

In the process of designing my poster, I learned that including all the elements of design can be harder than expected. Being the media content producer, one has to be aware of including all the design principles to successfully attract the audience and deliver the message. For me, it took several drafts before I was able to include all the design principles in a uniform way because I had to change some elements when I wanted to include new ones. For example, at first, I wanted to have the Greek letters in the center and then the information about the event distributed around the symbol, but that was going to make the poster look disorganized and not have a clear focal point. 

While designing the poster, one thing that surprised me was how hard it was to efficiently display the message. I found it difficult to describe the event without using a lot of words because I could not think of symbols to represent my message. Moreover, one thing that could have been done differently is to use more symbols than words. I think that my poster came out with long phrases that could be summarized in four to five words. 

Nevertheless, I believe that my poster does a good job at keeping things simple because there is not a lot going on besides the words in the text bubble. The focal point is the Alpha Kappa Psi symbol that also represents what my audience and I have in common. Since Alpha Kappa Psi is a professional business fraternity, my aim was to create a fun but simple and professional poster.

The Journey to Mars: Perseverance in Space

The poster I created was an informative poster for NASA's Mars rover, Perseverance,  February 18, 2021. I chose the subject of the Perseverance rover because I have always been interested in space and I follow each step we take in further exploring the vast unknown outside of Earth. 

Once I had decided to make my poster about the Perseverance landing I had to come up with a poster design. I chose a simple but aesthetically pleasing background of an image of Mars because that is where the landing occurred. The information describing the event was then added on the background of Mars as well as links for viewing the event and the logos of the sponsors of the event, NASA and Space.com.

From this project, I learned that it is very difficult to make a poster that is appealing visually and full of information. I also learned how to create certain texts, hyperlinks, QR codes, and I learned how to apply the information we learned in class. The Golobisky and Hagen readings as well as the Hall reading on encoding and decoding were helpful in the poster design process. 

I enjoyed the process of deciding on what event I was going to focus on and designing the layout of my poster. However, this process was not as easy as I thought it would be. As a consumer, I never paid attention to the details of a poster design. 

But now as a producer of media content, I needed to make sure all of the required information of my event was on the poster, but it was also well-spaced as to not overwhelm my audience. I also needed to make sure that the information, dates, and links would make the process of viewing the event as easy as possible for the consumer.     

Another factor that made this process more difficult for me is that I see colors in protanopia, a type of color blindness. In other classes that require me to use colors and create images, I have struggled to create effective color schemes. And as the producer of this media product, I tried very hard to make my colors work together and make the text clear to the consumer.

During this project, I was surprised to find how much work it was in formatting and creating an effective poster design. I tried multiple font types and sizes as well as color schemes to find one that worked best for my poster. I was also surprised at how little I knew about design principles in general. When reading about the spacing, color schemes, font types, images, and multiple other elements of poster design I didn't realize how hard they were to actually apply. 

Overall I feel that my poster design worked out quite well. I do not believe that there are any glaring issues that I did not correct. I believe that the background of my poster works well with the font and clearly shares the intended information. I think that the text on my poster is well spaced and doesn't overcrowd the entire image of Mars. However, some smaller issues I would like to correct would be to readjust the sponsorship logos and make them smaller as to not draw away from the message of the poster. 

By completing this project I have become more aware of what design elements are used in a poster, how much time and effort goes into a poster design, and what makes a high-quality vs a low-quality design. I am very pleased with the process and final product of this project.

LIVE! at Floore's Country Store

The poster I created was an advertisement for a Jon Wolfe concert at John T. Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, Texas. The goal was to encourage local San Antonio residents who love live Texas Country music to attend the event. Another sub-goal was to promote a “normal” lifestyle activity during the pandemic while also encouraging the practice of safety measures. 
 
One of the main things I learned from this process is that having your end consumer in mind is critical in conveying your message effectively. You almost have to abandon your own eyes and create that poster as if you were the stranger who would walk across this creation. You have to think in the terms “how would someone react” when deciding on every detail. It is different being on the side of creating the content because the length of time you have put into the creation of the design is all meant for someone to try to grasp your message in five seconds. I believe if you have not conveyed your message within 5 seconds your consumer is left confused and uninterested. That was one of the more difficult things for me during this project. I wanted to add enough information so that the consumer would have all they need to attend the event, but I did not want to overwhelm them by making them read too much. That is why I allotted to provide them just the essential information but provide it in a vibrant manner so it wouldn’t bore the eyes. I believe the thing that went well the best was the eye-catching image of Jon Wolfe himself. The photo had very vibrant colors that would catch any eye and it sent the message I wanted right off the bat. I wanted the consumer to feel nostalgic about how it felt to be at a live event with shining lights and loud crowd chants. 
 
One of the things I think I could have done better, and perhaps the most challenging part, was how to make the headline of Jon Wolfe fit with the rest of the design. At first, I placed the headline at the top in all white thinking that the white would be easy enough to read although I was very uncertain about it. Then while editing I realized the photo had already provided me support in terms of eye movement with including the hand gesture of pointing to the sky. I decided to place the new headline there and make it all black. However, I was still left uncertain on whether the new headline flowed with the rest of the design or if it was the oddball element in the poster. 

Hot Chicken Sandwich, Anyone??

For my media poster, I chose to create an ad for the soft opening of a restaurant. I initially wanted to make one for my sister’s restaurant, but I eventually settled down on the restaurant Bird-n-Bun because their opening is much more recent.

Because my poster is advertising the soft opening event of a restaurant, I wanted to have the food be the focal point, then utilize special discounts to entice customers. On the right hand side of my poster, I elected to use a photo with many menu items from Bird-n-Bun. I photoshopped the photo to rearrange the food to accommodate the text on the right and fill the background with the same warm cream color that I sampled from their social media sites. I feel like the photo works well because it makes it immediately obvious what kind of restaurant Bird-n-Bun is. It also naturally directs the eye downwards. I intentionally made all the space in the restaurant logo transparent so the food can peek out from behind the logo and add some needed dimension to an otherwise very flat design. I chose to use a sans-serif font throughout my poster because I wanted to convey the modern/contemporary feel of the restaurant while still keeping the information easy to read. I think my call to action items on the bottom are especially relevant in the time of the pandemic. The QR code allows interested customers to look at the menu before getting to the restaurant to put in an order in person. They are also informed of the option to place their order through four different delivery partners.

If I were to spend some more time making my poster better, I think I’d try to find a better way to organize the body of text. Currently everything is centered to the left, which makes the soft opening promotions stick out a little further than I’d like and make the text look a little un-uniform. I would also spend more time in photoshop making all the delivery service logos a uniform size to make the overall look cleaner. Lastly, I’d probably move the text to the left a little bit more to create a more uniformly bordered look.

This project taught me that the time/ effort spent on designing a poster and viewing a poster is immensely disproportionate. I have a much better understanding of what constitutes good design and how good design efficiently conveys information. I now realize that information can be gleaned from the poster in seconds because of deliberate and thoughtful design and not because designing these posters is easy, which helped me appreciate good design even more.

Making an Ad is Not as Easy as it Seems

 

I learned many things from completing the ad for the Trinity Art Exhibition :The MINI. Before completing this ad, I assumed that the person making the flyer had an easy job just putting the necessary information on an ad and making it look pleasing. But I quickly realized that this is not true. The production side of the process is actually very tedious. 

when I created my first draft of the flyer I thought that It was going to be quick and easy to make and that I would be done with it within 30 minutes. This definitely was not the case. Once I put down the necessary information (or what I deemed as necessary information at the time), I noticed that my ad didn’t look polished and professional. I looked at it for some time to try and figure out why it had turned out this way.

stumped I turned in my rough draft not really sure on how to improve it. It wasn’t until I went back and reread the course material on semiotics and the principles of design that I saw ways to fix my flyer. This is when I noticed that I had too much text that people would not be interested in reading. The last thing that helped me improve my flyer was the in-class design workshop. Hearing other people’s opinions on what I did well and what I could refine helped me to complete my final draft. I saw a major difference from the first draft to the final draft because of the changes I made based on their feedback. 

Now that some time has passed, looking at my flyer the one thing I would like to change is the photo. I would make the photo slightly bigger so that I wouldn’t have as much empty space at the bottom. Other than this I am still content with the ad that I made.

 Through this project I learned that It is very different being on the production side of the process rather than the consumer side. There is a lot of thought that goes into making an ad that the consumer does not realize. The producer takes into consideration every little aspect, the background color, font color and size, information on the ad, and so much more. They compose an ad that is short and simple and that will catch the viewer’s attention while providing the essential information they need for the product, service, or event they are trying to promote.

Overall, I think that this assignment opened my eyes to see how much thought and effort goes into making ads. I understand that small choices such as color and the text that is included, can make a difference in how well composed the ad is. From now on I will look at ads in a new way. I won’t just merely glance and not give it any thought, now I will look at an ad and think about what choices the producer consciously made to make this ad successful and eye-catching.

Grand Opening: Visit the Newest Burger Boy this Summer

I have grown up eating Burger Boy, so it was really enjoyable and fun making a poster for the company's newest location opening. Creating a poster for this big event taught me a lot about the ins and outs of adobe photoshop and the importance of putting graphic design theory into practice. My ensuing reflection will cover the learning experience I gained from this project.

After my initial poster creation, I thought I had the perfect design, but boy was I wrong. The constructive class period we had reviewing posters made this notion very apparent and taught me many crucial lessons to improve my design.

The first key lesson I drew from the class was that less truly is more. While it's important to put key information in a poster, information overload dissuades the viewer from consuming your poster. I was therefore dealing with such a problem.

Apparent in my final design, I changed my poster to be minimal in its contents. I scratched two food photos, a slogan, and a description of the featured item on the menu. Despite taking away so many elements, it's clear my revised poster still conveys plenty of information, only now attracts, and maintains, the viewer's attention.

Another key idea that I learned from this project was the importance of eye flow. Initially, I made all the relevant information big in the hopes it would get my point across. Again, such an idea was flawed and scrutinized in class as the viewer couldn't focus on only one item and move to the next in a nice way. 

In order to combat this, I took the advice of Dr. Liu and enlarged the Burger Boy logo, making it the focal point. Such a change allowed me to use the point of the logo as a visual cue to organize the eye flow of the viewer. Therefore, I also learned the importance of utilizing what you have to the best of its ability.

Finally, this project taught me the significance color adds to a poster. Initially, I thought red was a great color to utilize as it could emphasize text I wanted to stand out. Such an idea was flawed as this color did not pair nicely with the background and thus caused an eye strain on the viewer.

I combatted this issue by simply using colors that agreed with the color scheme. While changing the headline to white may have prevented it from standing out, it improved its readability (thus getting the point across better) and resulted in a better aesthetic of the poster as a whole.

Working on this poster taught me that revisions are crucial. While it's not an essay, assessing my work for graphic design is still important as improvements can always be made. Such a notion was exemplified in the many things I changed from my initial poster to the one that is now pictured above.

Have You Ever Wondered About What Can Kill You?

My poster was for the Death by Natural Causes Exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I chose to make a poster for that exhibit because it gave me an opportunity to play with a wide range of potential symbols for death and its causes.

I think the symbols I chose ended up working well. They aren't overused, like a gravestone or coffin, and they're eye-catching.

One of my main concerns when designing the poster was the focal point and eye flow. I think my focal point is clear, and it is one of the best parts of my work.

However, the rest of the composition was a lot more difficult to figure out. I was happy with the placement of my title and my spider, so my struggle came with placing my text. My concerns were empty space and balance. For instance, when I put my copy to the right of the poster, there was too much trapped negative space between my text and the spider and it was right heavy.

Putting my copy in the middle of the page made it so that my poster is balanced and doesn't have any trapped negative space, but I still think I might have been able to improve its positioning. My title and spider have a good eye flow, following the rule of thirds, but my copy doesn't follow that rule.

I have my spider pointing towards my copy, so I do have an attempt at creating eye flow between my title and copy. However, I'm not convinced that the eye flow as natural as it can be.

For instance, my eyes flit from my title to the spider to the copy, and that eye motion requires a back and forth motion across the page. It would have been interesting to create a more fluid eye motion, maybe a circular pattern, around the page, but at least there is a clear path that the eyes are supposed to follow.

For me, one of the hardest parts of designing the poster was the copy. I wanted to describe the exhibit and how to purchase it. However, I had to realize that giving all the information isn't the purpose of the poster. The purpose of the poster is to grab people's attention and get them to want to learn more about the exhibit on their own.

The idea that people are only going to spend a few seconds looking at the poster was something that I hadn't considered when first designing my poster, so I had a good amount of text on it. I think that my final use of copy is much better now though, since I got the feedback on how to limit it, and in the future, I will continue to have a lot less copy on my posters.

My experience with coming up with the right copy for my poster illustrates the difference between being a content producer and a content consumer. When reading posters in the past, I haven't liked ones with too much text, but when I was first designing my poster, it was like I completely forgot that experience.

The content creator will always have certain design ideas that will make sense from the creator's perspective because they'll know what they're trying to get across. However, this is where focusing on the audience is really important. The content creator has to encode their intentions for their audience and their audience's circumstances and not just do what makes sense to them.

How Not to Design a Poster: Seventy Five

I am particularly passionate about music remixes and remix artists, so when we were assigned to create an advertisement poster for an event of our choosing, I immediately chose to advertise the recent release of Seventy Five, a remix album I personally enjoy. 

During the creation of my poster, I realized that choosing to advertise a community-driven project like Seventy Five had the advantage of having readily available artistic resources like the album cover and banner, which I choose to incorporate into my poster design to provide some much needed color as well as contrast to the comparatively mute body of the poster. As for the body itself, I firstly applied a slight tilt to all of the elements and left-aligned the poster information to avoid centering everything. Additionally, I choose to use muted colors and a sans-serif font, Oswald, for the body to keep the information easy on the eyes. Finally, I took some creative license to make the body a bit more visually interesting by applying a slight drop shadow to all elements in the poster, and using a decorative font, Black Ops 1, to ensure the aesthetic of the headline was consistent with that of the “75” in the album cover. 

While I still stand by many of these design decisions, there are a few that I have grown to dislike. For example, while incorporating the album art into the poster proved to be convenient, I now realized that any and all semiotics that could be derived from my poster are actually coming from the album art rather than my own design choices, not to mention how my over-reliance on the vibrancy of the art ruined any semblance of a focal point and eye-flow that the poster might have had otherwise. I also feel I could have done a better job with both my font choice for the headline and my choice of wording for the call-to-arms, as while I attempted to match the aesthetic and message of the album cover, my choices ended up feeling rather tacky in hindsight. 

Looking back, my single greatest takeaway from this project is just how difficult it is to design a graphic that not only looks good, but simultaneously conveys a message as clearly as possible. Comparing what I did right to what I did wrong, it is clear that I could have avoided many of these mistakes by not relying so heavily on pre-existing artistic assets to convey the poster’s message, and instead taking the time to better incorporate the art into the overall poster design.

All-Star Weekend is Here!

My poster design was created for All-Star weekend on March 7. It also commemorated Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi as they are now a focal point of the the All-Star game in their honor. The poster's target audience was intended for basketball fans, as well as for casual sports viewers.

While working on the poster, it surprised me how more simple posters can often send louder messages than complex posters. I tooled around with several ideas before deciding on a simple look with as minimal wording as possible. 

I thought the signifiers I chose for the poster ended up working well. I chose to use Kobe and Gigi as the focal point because of how they are now integrated into All-Star weekend, and chose the "Kobe infinity 8 logo" as it expresses "Kobe forever" in the terms of a simple but effective picture. 

For what I could've done differently, I believe the picture with Kobe could've been formatted better so that Kobe's whole head was in the picture instead of just the bottom part. 

By being a media content producer, it forces you to think about a number of things. First, you have to realize what your audience will be, and tailor the poster to meet their needs. Likely, they'll only have a couple of seconds to skim over the poster, so you must ensure it can be read quickly. You also want to control the eye flow for the poster correctly and doesn't make your eyes look all over the poster. It is also of high importance to choose the correct formatting options to make the poster appealing to its audience. 

Being a media content producer, however, can be very different than being a consumer. When being a producer, you have to focus on the reasons above, but when being a consumer you just have to focus on if the poster applies to you, and if you should follow its call to action. 

Lastly, I also learned how semiotics can play an important role in posters. Many posters will often have important pictures that relate to the topics being discussed, but the great posters will have connotations associated with those pictures. 

While there will always be room for improvement, I feel proud of the poster I created, as well as the message it provided. Between the signifiers I chose, the formatting that was implemented, and diction chosen I feel I accomplished the goal of creating a successful poster design.

Nachos For Everyone!!!!

For my media poster, I decided to make an advertisement for Nacho Hour here at Trinity University. I wanted to spread the word to all Trinity students to let them know when and where this event takes place.

When making the poster I really tried to make it as simple as possible while still being very effective in getting the information across. This event is a relatively simple and laidback event, and I wanted the poster to reflect that. I choose to only include the necessary information which is the time and place of the event as well as a call to action.

With there being such little information on my poster, I had to make my focal point very clear. I wanted to make this very obvious for the viewer so I even designed it to where there would be lines directed the viewer's eyes directly to the plate of nachos.

I think my choice of color really helped make the poster flow. The matching colors really make the poster look aesthetically pleasing. The background colors matching the plate of nachos really ties the whole poster together without making the poster look messy.

This experience being a content producer as suppose to a content consumer was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Whenever I see other posters I am so quick to judge because honestly it doesn't look very hard. That was until I tried myself. There is so much thought that goes into each and every little decision. Just one bad decision on the design can make the poster very unpleasant to the eye.

One thing that didn't go very well was that it was hard to find a real life pictures of nachos that I was easily able to make work within my poster. I wanted to a very appetizing picture of nachos as the vocal point but it was very difficult to find that fit my layout. 

Another challenge I came across was that I found it difficult to decide on what to leave out of the poster. Like I said earlier, I wanted to keep it really simple but there was also more information that I initially had in there. It was hard but I knew I had to cut out some information to achieve "less is more".

This process really helped me better appreciate media design more. It helped me understand how deliberate each decision really is and allowed me to better understand the rationale behind those good decisions.

Trinity vs. Southwestern: The IH-35 Showdown

 

For my Poster Design project, I created an ad that calls on viewers to watch the Trinity men's soccer team's game against Southwestern live on the Tiger Network. This has been one of my favorite projects throughout my collegiate experience because it has allowed me to gain a new perspective that I had never before had the opportunity to position myself in. Taking on the role as an ad producer taught me a lot about what goes on in the decision making process that is creating an efficient ad. I was able to learn firsthand how difficult it is to accommodate and include as many design principles as possible into one ad.  

This is also the main difference between taking on the role of a media content producer and just being a media content consumer. When you are the producer, you have the responsibility of taking into account so many different elements that could impact the influence that your poster ad has on its audience. You are no longer just enjoying or ignoring the content, you are now the one responsible for the result of your audience either enjoying or ignoring the content and how effective the call to action will prove to be. This is the reason why the implementation of design principles and semiotics is vital to your final poster design outcome. 

I decided to incorporate a singular large focal point by using the rule of thirds which we covered in our class readings. This worked very well as it is the first thing that people turn their eyes to when they look at this ad, grabbing the initial attention of the viewers. Followed by this, is the clear direction of eye flow that is being presented in two different ways. Firstly, the hand of the focal point subject is reaching out and pointing towards the call to action which is where the audience is intended to look next. In addition to this, the break in the transition of background colors where the white turns to maroon, creates a pointed arrow leading to the call to action as well. This was another element that worked well for me in my design process and outcome. My uses of color were also contributing factors to the efficacy of my ad, as the maroon background for the light gray colored lettering worked great to display visibility and readability, while also creating contrast.

If I could change anything about the design of my poster ad, it would have to be the photoshop work that was done on the image of the soccer player that makes up the focal point. I think using a real photoshopping application software on my laptop would have proven to be a better method than the one I used to crop out the picture of the player from the original image in the first place. Having cleaner cut edges, along with an actual round circumference of the soccer ball would have made the ad look more clean and legitimate and could improve the efficacy of my ad.

Behind Anthropocene

I was very excited to create a print ad for the play Anthropocene because I am very interested in film and theater. I am constantly looking for new plays or films to watch, and the first thing I look for is the poster for that play or film. Being able to be a media producer for a subject I am interested in was very fun for me to do. 

I looked for inspiration from other posters that I have seen of Broadway plays and big Hollywood films. I wanted my poster to capture the attention of the viewer and instantly give him/her a sense of what the play was going to be like. It was also very important for me to show the emotions that the characters in the play were feeling through the poster. In order for me to achieve this I used several design principles and tools. 

An example of this, is the use of color and its effect on the viewer. I used dark colors for the background to convey the mysteriousness and darkness of the play. I contrasted that background with the color blue which is associated with sensitivity, imagination, wisdom, and intelligence. This color symbolizes her journey of finding purpose while transmitting to the audience that this is an emotional play. 

The whole background of my poster is the face of the main character, which is a woman who is dealing with a lot of pain and confusion in her life. I wanted for the audience to be attracted to my poster and to connect with the main character from the beginning. It was very important for me that my poster was easy to read and follow. In order to achieve this I had a good eye flow from top to bottom where the audience is able to gather information about the event in an orderly fashion. 

I had one typeface that is elegant and easy to read, and I had a good balance of positive and negative space. All of these elements worked together to attract an audience and give them a sense of what the play is like. If you want to know more about Anthropocene and Trinity University's Theater Program click here.

What I learned from this process is that behind every ad and poster, there is a lot of reflection and analysis. It is important for media content producers to have the design principles in mind in order to convey their message effectively. Every element has its purpose and if used correctly, they can attract the right audience, and deliver a clear message. 

SPURS vs. MAVS: A Battle For Texas

The poster I created was an advertisement for an NBA basketball game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Dallas Mavericks. Due to there being no fans in attendance at these games, the poster sought to encourage fans to watch the game on NBATV. 

Posters such as this one are very common to advertise NBA games, but with no fans in attendance, these posters have become increasingly important. While I was used to seeing posters advertising NBA games, I did not understand the difficulties in creating one that was particularly effective. 

During a time where fans are not allowed at the games, fans must be able to get all the information they need to be able to watch the game. This is the motivation I used for my poster. The star players, date of the game, time of the game, and how to watch it were crucial elements of the design. 

What I learned, however, is that even if you are able to include all the important information, it does not mean the poster is attractive or effective. This meant including a multitude of design elements in the hopes that it would make the poster more appealing. I learned that including all the necessary information and design elements was only half the challenge, with the other half demanding the poster look good and be effective. 

Upon finalizing this poster, I not only found how much I took for granted as a consumer, but how unwarranted my past criticisms of other posters have been as well. After finishing my poster, I found it much harder to critique than posters I did not create. 

As a media content producer, you start with an idea and build it from scratch, working with and resolving all the challenges along the way. As a consumer, however, you only see the end result. This makes it easier for the consumer to be critical as they do not understand the work required to make an effective poster. 

When creating the poster, I found it surprising how difficult it was to use the full space of the poster in a way that did not create more challenges. For example, every image and text box I used had to be altered once I made a change to the poster. More specifically, balancing the height of the two main images of the players in relation to the message and focal point of the poster was particularly difficult. 

With two large photos taking up the top two-thirds of the space, it made identifying and establishing a focal point even more challenging. On the contrary, using those two photos allowed me to narrow down my negative space and simplify the overall design. The resulting simplistic design aided the general flow of the poster but limited the effect of other design principles. If I were to make changes, I would shrink the photos of the two players, allowing for the emphasis to be more on how to watch the game, not who is playing in the game.

Kappa Kappa Delta 2nd Round Announcement

My poster design was for the organization Kappa Kappa Delta. Kappa Kappa Delta is a social fraternity on Trinity University campus, and the poster’s objective is to inform the individuals looking to join the fraternity about the upcoming virtual rush event.

While deciding the color scheme for the poster I did some research into what colors represent. Through this research I learned how different colors can trigger different emotions and have various meanings. For example, the color blue can create a sense of calmness. Along with the emotional effects of the color, blue also denotes feelings of loyalty and wisdom which are founding ideals of the fraternity.

Throughout the process of creating the poster I realized some of the differences between being the media content producer versus the consumer. The producer has to know the important aspect of creating a visually appealing and effective poster by incorporating the different elements of design like color, location, and style. In comparison the consumer only has to find the work visually appealing. The goal is not for the consumer to understand why. It is merely to attract the consumer so that the message of the poster can be conveyed.

While designing the poster one thing that surprised me was how difficult it was to arrange the textboxes and the images to create a pattern that looks nice and creates good eye flow. It seems easy at first but creating proper eye flow requires multiple different elements. The first being the correct placement of the information and images on the poster. Once that has been done, the producer must consider the size of all elements of the poster because you want to draw the consumer to certain information of the poster using the different fonts, colors, and sizes.

I thought that the color scheme of the poster worked well. The royal blue photos and text had a visually appealing color scheme that also made the text standout in comparison to the white background. By using the royal blue color the poster also was a good representation of the fraternity because our colors are royal blue, grey, and white.

One element that would have been a good addition to the poster was a background displaying some of the current members of Kappa Kappa Delta. I believe that this would have been a great way to familiarize some of the consumers of the poster with the current members so that they would recognize the actives when bumping into them on campus or in the dining areas.

Baking a Sale

     

I decided to make a bake sale poster for my poster project. It is much different being the one who creates content versus being the one who consumes it. As a consumer, all you really have to do is look for information when presented with a poster. The hardest part about this is if the poster is poorly made and you have to search for the information. Overall, it is an easy job that does not usually have much thought put into it. As a producer, your job becomes exponentially harder. You need to think about where the information should be placed so that the consumer can easily find said information. You need to think about where to place your images, how to arrange the poster so that the line of sight moves in a natural way, and you have to make it pleasant to look at overall. 

It surprised me how difficult making the poster would be. I went through four drafts before I decided on my final design. I tried using gradients, squares, gradient squares, and several versions of the images of baked goods before I settled on the final components of my design. I think a lot of the components of my poster worked well. I am especially proud of the cookie image, which I designed myself in photoshop. I feel that it looks close enough to an actual cookie that it does not stand out too much that it was made by an amateur. I also think that the pink and yellow circles work very well for the effect that I intended to display. I wanted it to look fun and a little bit childish, and I think that these colors help make it that way. I thought that the smaller yellow circle on the poster worked especially well in separating the prices and items from the rest of the information on the poster. It created a visual barrier that made the menu stand out more and was more distinct than just putting up a bullet-point list in the middle of the poster.

While I think that a lot of what was on my poster worked well, I do think that there were a couple things that could have been better. In particular the image I made of a brownie. I had tried to find a stock image or clipart of a brownie, but for whatever reason, none of the images had transparent backgrounds, and photoshop was having a fit over me wanting to eliminate the background, so I had to make my own. I realize that artistic ability is not required for these projects, but I still felt a bit bad putting an image of a brown square down for my image of a brownie. I also feel that my secondary text could have been better, it felt like it was lacking something, I’m not certain what it was specifically, so I could not fix it.

Here's an Out of the Park Idea: Watch Trinity Take on TLU

For my media poster, I decided to promote a Trinity University softball game. To do this, I wanted to come up with an idea that was very clearly about softball, but was not the cliché image of a giant softball with information on it. I also wanted to incorporate elements pointing towards the fact that the games are available to watch online only. 

To incorporate the idea of online games, I decided to make my poster appear as if it is a camera. Then, to get the point of softball across, I decided to make a softball look as if it is hitting the camera, shattering it. 

While I really liked the concept I ended up coming up with, it was a much harder feat to come up with a poster idea than I imagined. One of the hardest parts of being the creator rather than the consumer was trying to think of an idea that had not been overused, but still got my point across effectively. 

I do believe that the color scheme turned out well, the contrast of the darker clothing on the player standing out against the background but still not taking attention away from the softball. I think the text also stands out, and I like that I chose to minimize the amount of text I used, helping the poster be less cluttered. 

Less really is more when it comes to an event poster such as this. In general, I really liked the idea I came up with for my concept, and I think my poster turned out well, but there are definitely parts I would like to improve. 

To improve my poster, I would first of all improve my photoshop skills. The cut-out of the player as well as the cut-out of the ball have sloppy edges. The uneven seams of those photos give a somewhat disjointed feel to those parts of the poster. I also wish I could make the camera look more realistic since, as of right now, you have to use context clues to figure out what it is. 

Going along with this idea, I wish that the crack in the camera looked less like random lines and more like actual glass being shattered. Finally, when I import my poster into certain forums, it sometimes looks blurry, which makes the words harder to read. This indicates I should have maybe made the font bigger.

In the future, I would perhaps change my design around so that the "Trinity Vs TLU" is the focal point instead of the softball. I would also incorporate either a clearer photo of the player or add a Trinity Softball logo below some of the text.

From this project, I learned how to successfully create a poster using specific design elements. Before reading Golombisky, I would have just "gone with my gut" when creating a poster. However, now I know how to effectively use design principles. 

The principles that I focused on the most included the principle of the law of thirds, the idea that a cluttered poster is too much on the eyes, and the idea that one should avoid "tacky" errors such as too much punctuation. 

Had I not learned these principles, I am sure that my poster would have turned out much more cluttered, having too many words and too many exclamation points. I am glad that I will no longer make these errors, and I am grateful for the fact that our posters were shown in class so that they could be critiqued.

This process helped me think more about how to bring my design together effectively. With others' opinions, I was able to learn more about the positives and negatives of my design process, helping me create what I hope is an effective poster. 

#Water2Me: World Water Day March 2021

This year's World Water Day  theme is all about sharing with the world what water means to you. My design project poster is a call to action that encourages the viewer to participate in the social media campaign by using the hashtag "Water2Me," and sharing what they value most about water. 

In creating my poster, I was surprised to learn what elements do and do not work to draw a viewers attention. For instance, in my first draft I thought it would be best to employ the use of a dark background with bright text in order to make the information on the poster stand out. However I would later learn that this particular effect would be too jarring to the viewer and ultimately steer them away from my poster. Instead, I opted for a more toned down background and font color in hopes of helping anyone who reads my poster to understand the central idea better. 

The next draft of my poster, although much better than the last, had some minor design flaws that were easily resolved in the editing process. This included cutting down the number of words on the poster in order to effectively get my message across, while choosing a font color that was suitable for the background I was using. The background for my poster was one of the elements that needed the least alteration as it was an image very relevant to the central theme. Some of my initial text was redundant and reiterated things that were implied by the image and logo. It was decided that the more important text elements of the poster was the fact about access to water in the world and the explicit call to action in the second sentence.

I formatted my poster in such a way that the viewer's eyes would jump from element to element in a chronological manner. From the logo in the top left corner that immediately tells them what they are about to learn about, their eye would then travel to the image of the child holding the bottle of water. This image not only provides further context for the event, but it appeals to the viewer's emotions as it is a representation of a vulnerable population that most people wish to protect. From there their eyes would go straight to the text, which provides more information on the subject just in case the viewer was still unsure about the main idea. I made sure not to center the text as this would prevent the reader from being able to find the natural visual flow.

Although this process was a lot of trial and error, I feel that I was able to create an effective and informative poster that could be viewed by any audience. In implementing the various design elements that we have discussed in class to create a clear and cohesive poster, I was able to inform my audience about the importance of this year's World Water Day.