The project 1 brief outlines that we should create a Type Specimen poster to showcase a typeface, which should be selected by choosing a designer from a given list and choosing one of their fonts. It should be designed for an iPad pro screen including a small amount of text or background information that supports the chosen typeface.
After carefully choosing my font and conducting extensive research, I was ready to begin brainstorming ideas for my specimen poster. I began sketching out a number of design ideas on paper. I had a few rough ideas for what I would like to produce with my poster, so sketching out these plans and getting them onto paper allowed me to take a step back and think more carefully about what design I would like to go with.
I produced a wide range of sketches. When I began, I didn’t have a specific design in mind, hence ending up with such a range volume of these. Although this process was time consuming and a little tedious, I am glad I spent a while at this stage as it helped me to form my final sketches that hekped me with my final design. I ended up with so many that I had to go through an elimination process in order to chose which to mode forwards to digitalising. However, I feel that my scrapped designs were valuable and give insight into the thought process.
Chosen sketches
Sketch 1
Sketch 2
Sketch 3
I then began the process of digitalising my sketches. I initially produced them and then black and white, then further experimented using colours until I was satisfied with an outcome to base my final design on.
The first poster I designed shows the letters in Bodoni falling diagonally across the screen. Init9ially, my plan was to show these as interconnected with each other, connected by the serifs at each corner. I stuck to this idea for a while, producing a series of different colour and compositions using this idea. I added a very low opacity drop shadow to give a greater sense of depth.
However, after a while I accepted that although I still loved this idea, Bodoni’s serifs were not long enough to clearly show that they are connected in this way. In fact, this led to some of the letters overlap and being too vertical for my liking. Therefore, I opted for redrafting this design to show the letters falling across the screen.
I was much happier with this result. This was the first colour scheme that I used for this and absolutely loves how it turned out. I discovered that vibrancy is an excellent tool in posters for grabbing attention and really making it stand out. This was a pivotal turning point of my project, as I had previously been ‘playing it safe’ and sticking to muted colours.
My final design stayed similar to this, however I did go with a slightly more vibrant blue as this really helped the text to stand out, as well as having a greater colour contrast ratio. I added a border to give it some more going on, as it felt a bit empty around the edges. I also added the creator Giambattista Bodoni’s name and a brief overview of the font’s history so that the poster would be informative.
Final outcome