Using about 500 words of Lorum Ipsum (or other dummy text) you are going to design three different pages:

• an interview with a TV actor in a listings magazine entitled: Will Sheila tell the naked truth?

• a review of a new piece of hardware or software in a specialist computer magazine

• a book review in a newspaper’s weekend edition.

Research these types of publications and identify three different combinations of typefaces appropriate for each publication.

Now you need to invent headings and subheadings for your articles. Set these combinations so that your header is above 12pt in size, your body text is 12pt or below and subheadings sit in between in your hierarchy.

You will need to create some text to allow you to show your combinations in action. Use your text to describe your decision making process, why you think the combination works and what your intentions were.

Research

First things first, a trip into town to get some magazines. I’ll have to wait until the weekend for the newspaper. I only came back with 2 magazines due to the lack of variety.

So I hit the internet to find more examples of TV listing magazines, computer magazine and a Sunday paper book review.

TV listings layouts

99% of these seem to use bold sans–serif typefaces for their headlines usually using bright colours which are reflected throughout the article. The sub–headings are a mix of both sans and serif typefaces and are usually at least half the size of the headline and not as bold or as brightly coloured. The body type seems to be usually a serif typeface with a drop cap at the start of the first paragraph. At least 50% of each of the pages is made up of imagery and some also have secondary images to help tell the story. These publications are usually full colour and keep costs down by printing on thinner paper without any specialist finishes.

Tech magazine layouts

Nearly all of these use sans–serif fonts for the body text in varying weights and sizes. The headlines and sub–headings are also sans–serif and are usually in the same typeface as the body copy. Colour schemes are limited to 3–4 colours except for the photos of the products being reviewed. There is usually some form of infographic showing ratings for things like performance, cost and features. The imagery is not as in–your–face as the previous examples and shows the product in its best light. The design of the pages are very paired back and minimal. These are printed on thicker paper stock and usually have a more glossy finish.

Newspaper book reviews

These, with a few exceptions are all set in vertical columns using the newspaper’s standard font. They all show an mage of the book or/and the author. Some have illustrations representing aspects of the book. The headline and sub–heading fonts vary depending on the publication. The body type sometimes wraps around the image and more often than not has a drop-cap in the first paragraph. Newspapers do come with colour imagery but are mainly printed in black and white again to keep costs down.

Font combinations

The following are the font combinations that I picked to correspond with the research I had done in 72pt for the headline, 24pt for the sub–heading and 10pt for the body copy.

TV listings magazine:

Computer magazine:

Newspaper book review:

Designs

For the TV magazine I picked the 3rd of my font combinations.

I picked these because it seemed the most appropriate for the page in question. It wasn’t too in your face and was quite friendly–looking and the typefaces had enough font variations to be make the design interesting.

Following my research The page needed to be at least 50% made up of an image, so I went to Pexels.com to find a suitable image for the story. While researching I also noticed that most pages had an inset image depicting another part of the story, so I also needed to find one for that too.

I laid out my page into 4 columns and divided it in half, the top for the image and the bottom for the text. When I inserted 500 words of  8pt type it only filled 3 columns, so I had to find something to fill the 4th. I decided to make the 4th column more of a list of features and made the type bolder so it would appear as if it was a list of magazine features. I added a coloured outline to the page to tie the colour scheme together as it matched the 72pt headline and was repeated in the features column and the inset photo outline. The headline was also given a stroke to make it stand out from the background image as I had seen in my research. I also added a coloured drop cap in the body type.

For the Tech magazine I picked the second of my font combinations.

I picked these because my research had showed that nearly all the magazines I looked at used purely sans–serif typefaces/fonts in their layouts.

My research showed that these types of magazine layouts were minimalistic and contained a series of common elements. These were some glossy photos of the product, the body type wrapped around the images and at least one infographic analysing the items specs. The pages also contained a lot of whitespace.

I decided to base my article on the upcoming iPhone release. I started by setting up a 3 column page and added the 500 words of type. I then added the headline and sub–heading. These were left aligned and were smaller (36pt, 24pt and 12pt) and a lot more subtle than the previous example mirroring the width of the first column and creating a large area of whitespace at the top of the page. I then found some images of the upcoming iPhone on Pinterest.com which were suitably glossy. The main image was then placed over the type and the type was wrapped around it and the distance altered to give the image some breathing room. I placed a smaller image at the bottom of the middle column and created an infographic for the base of the 3rd. I then added some non-objective lines under the headline and at the base of the page to anchor the type in place and give a uniform feel.

For the newspaper article I used my first font combination.

Following my research I decided to divide my page into 7 columns and added the 500 words of 12pt type. I based my article on one of the books I had done in a previous exercise. I then added the title at the top of the page and used 1 typeface in 3 weights which, due to it’s hierarchy you read the title, the author and the date of the article. I added an image of the book cover and the author. The title, author, publisher and price were emboldened as these were important pieces of information. I also underlined these. I added a quote and an image label in the sans–serif subheading font so that they stand out against the serif body type. The 500 words of body type didn’t fill the whole page so I added a banner at the bottom depicting the other books in the series using the same fonts for a heading and body type. I finally added the header image from the greeting cards exercise which helps to illustrate the story of the book in question.

Conclusion

This exercise has given me insight into different print genres and how they are laid out. It has made me think about how type hierarchy is used to convey particular pieces of information to the target audience. It has made me think a lot more about how type is used to guide the reader’s eye around the page. Obviously this is type as we use it in the western world. Other cultures read in different directions, so the layout of the hierarchical elements would change substantially depending on the geographical location of the audience. 500 words doesn’t always fit the page as you want it to and the size of the type, its leading, its kerning, column widths, the number of columns, border and gutter sizes, how the type is justified all have an impact on how the type fits on the page. Again, this exercise has made me more familiar with InDesign and I now have a basic understanding of how it works.

Lorem Ipsum is dummy text with more-or-less normal distribution of letters that makes it look like readable English. It has been used for many years and some desktop publishing packages now use it as their default model text.

If you don’t have it already, go to http://www.lipsum.com and generate as much as you need.

Now select one of the designs from your research that you like and think works. Using the dummy text, try and copy the layout and design as closely as possible. You will need to measure the margins and column widths. If you don’t have the exact typeface get as near as you can. If you are copying a page that includes photographs just leave 10% tinted boxes to indicate their position.

Is the type serif or sans serif? Is the text set ragged or justified? Are there spaces after paragraphs or are new paragraphs indented? How many columns are there to a page? What happens when you alter the fonts, change the alignment, adjust the leading or tracking?

Now try another, different publication from your collection.

Where to start?

Before starting this exercise I remembered that when I did my diploma I had a pica ruler for measuring type and page layouts. I tried to get hold of one like the one I used to have, but couldn’t find one. There must be an alternative! I did some research and found a Westcott C-THRU Accu Spec II Type Gauge and Specifier Set gauge and specifier set which was cheaper to get from America than the UK. When it arrived I was surprised at how easy it was to use and how useful it was for this exercise.

Source: Amazon.com

I started with June’s issue of Devon Life again and picked a double-page spread to analyse. Initially I started with measuring the page layout, the border sizes, the photo sizes and number of columns. Then using my type gauge I began measuring the type used for the different parts of the layout. While measuring the type I also had to identify which fonts were used. I used Identifont.com to try to work out which fonts were used in the layout so that I could recreate it.

The page was A4 in size and laid out in 7 columns with a 23mm border at the top and a 15mm at the bottom. The inside border was also 15mm and the outside was 8mm.

I identified the headline as a version of Baskerville that had been fairly tightly kerned and the ampersand used was from the italic version of the typeface. The sub-heading was also Baskerville. The body type wasn’t the same font, it was Times. It was set at 10pt with the leading set at 11. The drop-cap at the start of the first paragraph is in a completely different sans–serif font identified as Avenir Ultra Light. Avenir was also used for a sub-heading on the second page and also to label to photos. It is also used for a paragraph relating to a particular photo where the fonts are reversed and the serif is used for the title and the sans–serif is used for the body. All the body type was flush left and rag right and not justified at all. The headline and sub–headings were all centre alligned.

There are also some lines dividing the columns on the second page and also one that runs the width of the spread at the bottom.

I then tried another publication, the 6–monthly Spoonews which is the magazine for the charity Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby.

This spread was again A4, but this time the two pages had different layouts. The first page was again 7 columns but the second was only 3. The margins on these pages were a lot more regular with the top and bottom being 10mm and the inside and outside being 12mm.

Font identification for this magazine was a little harder than the first spread. I began by trying to identify the headline on the first page with Identifont.com. This didn’t give a definitive answer but the nearest I could match was Meta Pro Condensed. The body copy was Gill Sans which I measured at 8pt. The leading on this page was bigger than the previous publication and was set at 12pt. On the second page Gill Sans was used for the sub–heading as well. However the headline font was very difficult to match and the nearest I could find was FranklinGothic URW Ext Comp D and this was kerned tightly. The only other font used is Times for the labels in the bottom corner of the pages next to the page numbers.

Again there are a few non–type elements on the spread that are used to divide columns or frame the pages.

Conclusion

I found this exercise very useful in that I got a little more familiar with InDesign. It also gave me an insight into page layouts and that they aren’t as simple as they look. The mix of type styles, column and grid layouts, hierarchy of all the elements, the legibility of the type in regards to the kerning and leading and the addition of non–type elements to help balance the page. I’ve not really done anything like this before in regards to analysing layouts in printed publications and I found this interesting and I now feel that I have a better understanding of page layouts.

This exercise is designed to help you to look at typefaces more closely. You will need a sharp pencil, some tracing or thin paper and a ruler.

On the facing page the typeface Baskerville has been deconstructed so it only contains the strokes, serifs and bowls that are common to all the letterforms. Your task is to try and put it all back together again to read:

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

This is a pangram containing all the letters of the alphabet. It is all in lowercase.

Start by drawing your baseline, determine the x height by identifying a whole letter such as x, e or n and draw your median line. This should provide a good starting point to try and piece together all the other elements. Remember that some parts will be used more than once, for example the same stem will be used in several letters. Try and account for all the parts without leaving any stray serifs behind.

Do not worry if you get this exercise wrong, it is just a way to get used to looking at and analysing typefaces, appreciating the finer detailing of it and recognising repeat patterns, such as using the same bowl shape throughout the typeface. If you do get it wrong then you might have ended up designing your first typeface!

Having spent some time looking closely at typefaces, has your appreciation of them increased? If so in any particular aspect? Do you think that understanding more about how typefaces are constructed will be useful to you in future? Make notes in your learning log.

Construction…

I began by copying the image of the deconstructed Baskerville type.

Some of the elements of the type were pretty obvious as to what they were, the E, S, O and C. Others were not so obvious. I decided to do some more research into typographical anatomy to see if it would help me to piece the puzzle together. I came across the image below in my research and it seemed to be one of the best and most concise descriptions of the different typographic elements and their names.

Source: cucocreative

I also found this video clip that also helped identify the typographic elements pictured above.

Source: lynda.com

I started on the iPad using Procreate as I could then do this exercise and take it to work with me and do it in my spare time. I added the picture of the typeface elements onto a layer and then began tracing them on a new layer.

I started at the beginning of the sentence with the letter T. The T,H and E were pretty straight forward then I hit my first bump in the road. The bowl of the Q wasn’t as obvious as I thought and my first choice didn’t fit, it was actually the bowl of the letter D which I’d use later on.

The next tricky letter was the R and which was the right stem? It took a couple tries ti find the correct one before adding the shoulder.

Then came the W. Trying to find the right stems for the W proved somewhat tricky. Eventually I noticed the flat bottom on the base of the wider stem and this was repeated on the upturned v shape. The final pice of the W was the upstroke stem with a bracketed serif on the top. There were two to choose from, so it was a case of trial and error to find the right one. The remaining one would be used on the V later. It was at this point that I added my baseline and x–height lines. This made things much easier to align my type.

The M took a little working out. But having done the N earlier this gave me a head start as they share some characteristics.

The rest of the letters were straight forward and I eventually got to use that bowl from earlier on the D.

My Procreate video of the process.

Conclusion

This exercise was not as straight forward as I thought it would be. It did however give me an insight of the intricacies of typography and typeface design. It made it more obvious to me that once you have a few elements, they can be used and repeated to construct an entire typeface. However, certain elements have slight differences which help give typefaces their individuality.

This exercise has given me more of an appreciation of type design and I hope I can use this going forward in future exercises/assignments or even designing a typeface of my own.

Using the following words create typographical representations that present both the word and a suggestion of its meaning.

• Sad
• Safe
• Sardonic
• Saucy
• Scholarly
• Serious
• Shadow
• Shattered
• Shy
• Short
• Silly
• Sinking
• Skimpy
• Sleek
• Smart
• Snowy
• Sodden
• Soothing
• Sordid
• Sophisticated
• Speed
• Squat
• Squeeze
• Stiff
• Stodgy
• Stoned
• Style
• Supine
• Swagger
• Sweet

Start this exercise by working on A4 sheets of paper. Set the words in 48pt Helvetica Bold, print and cut out the words and then arrange them and stick them to a sheet of paper trying to capture the meaning of the word visually. Think about the composition, using the white space of the page to help you construct your meanings.

Then work digitally using any of the software you have available. Explore how you can set text at a slant, at different sizes, in different colours and fonts. Try using filters in your software for other effects.

Make notes as you work explaining your choice of representations and which ones you feel that you were most successful with.

Start…

This exercise looked quite daunting with such a long list of words, a couple of which I wasn’t sure of the meaning! So the first task was to find the meaning of the words that I was unsure of…

Once I’d done that I printed out the words in 48pt Helvetica as instructed and one by one cut out the words and arranged them on a sheet of A4 while trying to convey their meaning.

This wasn’t an easy task. Due to the restrictions of the brief I found this quite hard and later found that I had interpreted it wrongly and stuck all my words to the same sheet and therefore not getting to use the whitespace to help illustrate the words. Black mark for Craig!

However, I think that some of the of the solutions worked really well in this format. The only word I had trouble with in this part of the exercise was saucy. I couldn’t think of a way to depict the word in this format.

I think my favourites from this part of the exercise are squat and shy. I think I prefer them because they are whimsical in their outcome.

I then moved to digital.

Using both Illustrator and Photoshop I repeated the exercise and tried to depict the words using different colours, sizes, typefaces and effects.

With some of the words I just changed the typeface to depict the meaning of the word such a scholarly, sophisticated and stiff. Others had elements of the words changed such as serious, short and sardonic. Some of the words had effects applied to them in Illustrator and others had effects applied in photoshop and then imported into Illustrator.

I much preferred this part of the exercise as being able to manipulate the words digitally allowed a lot more flexibility in what can be done. I still found it challenging to depict some of these words. I feel some were more successful than others. The one I struggled with on the part was the word swagger. I ended up just using the typeface “swagger” to depict the word. Ironically the word I struggled with in the first part of this exercise was one of the more successful ones in the second.

I think my favourites from this part are short and sinking because they are both subtle and simple in their execution and depict the words very well and are still in Helvetica!

I then returned to the first part of the exercise and took the 2 outcomes I liked and returned to the original brief and placed them individually on A4. I did however cheat a little and do them digitally.

I could now see that the whitespace was an important part of the composition. I did feel a little uncomfortable warping text which I regard as a big no-no, but was necessary for this exercise. This made me realise that negative/whitespace is just as important in a design as much the design elements themselves.

For this exercise you are going to make a montage or collage with a political message. Your subject matter could be a current issue, or something that you feel strongly about such as animal rights, the treatment of elderly people in hospital or images of women in the media.

Collect images from newspapers, magazines, your own photographs or images online. Do remember that some images may be copyright – particularly anything associated with commercial companies or organisations. Create new meanings out of these extant images by juxtaposing and contrasting them. Be imaginative, playful, provocative or humorous.

If you have access to a scanner, then scan in your found images and create collages or photomontages with Photoshop. Try working with layers; exploring a variety of selection tools, such as your magic wand or magnetic lasso; utilising the cutting and pasting options – try and learn the keyboard shortcuts for these; adjusting the contrast, colour and balance of your images; and resizing elements of your photomontages. Make sure you keep your original psd photoshop file with all your layers intact and export a jpg image with your layers flattened for the final piece of artwork.

In your learning log reflect on the original meaning of the images and your subsequent collage. Write a short evaluative statement.

What is a photomontage?

Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining two or more photographs into an illusion of an unreal subject. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realised today through image-editing software. This latter technique is referred to by professionals as “compositing”, and in casual usage is often called, “photoshopping”, due to a particular software often used. A composite of related photographs to extend a view of a single scene or subject would not be labeled as a montage.

Author Oliver Grau in his book, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, notes that the creation of artificial immersive virtual reality, arising as a result of technical exploitation of new inventions, is a long-standing human practice throughout the ages. Such environments as dioramas were made of composited images.

The first and most famous mid-Victorian photomontage (then called combination printing) was “The Two Ways of Life” (1857) by Oscar Rejlander, followed shortly thereafter by the images of photographer Henry Peach Robinson such as “Fading Away” (1858). These works actively set out to challenge the then-dominant painting and theatrical tableau vivants.

Fantasy photomontage postcards were popular in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The preeminent producer in this period was the Bamforh Company, in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, and New York. The high point of its popularity came, however, during World War I, when photographers in France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Hungary produced a profusion of postcards showing soldiers on one plane and lovers, wives, children, families, or parents on another. Many of the early examples of fine-art photomontage consist of photographed elements superimposed on watercolours, a combination returned to by (e.g.) George Grosz in about 1915. He was part of the Dada movement in Berlin, which was instrumental in making montage into a modern art-form. They first coined the term “photomontage” at the end of World War I, around 1918 or 1919.

The other major exponents of photomontages were John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann, and Johannes Baader. Individual photographs combined together to create a new subject or visual image proved to be a powerful tool for the Dadists protesting World War I and the interests that they believed inspired the war. Photomontage survived Dada and was a technique inherited and used by European Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí. The world’s first retrospective show of photomontage was held in Germany in 1931. A later term coined in Europe was, “photocollage”, which usually referred to large and ambitious works that added typography, brushwork, or even objects stuck to the photomontage.

Parallel to the Germans, Russian Constructivist artists such as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, and the husband-and-wife team of Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina created pioneering photomontage work as propaganda, such as the journal USSR in Construction, for the Soviet government. In the education sphere, media arts director Rene Acevedo and Adrian Brannan have left their mark on art classrooms the world over.

Following his exile to Mexico in the late 1930s, Spanish Civil War activist and montage artist, Joseph Renau, compiled his acclaimed, Fata Morgana USA: the American Way of Life, a book of photomontage images highly critical of Americana and North American “consumer culture”. His contemporary, Lola Alvarez Bravo, experimented with photomontage on life and social issues in Mexican cities.

In Argentina during the late 1940s, the German exile, Grete Stern, began to contribute photomontage work on the theme of Sueños (Dreams), as part of a regular psychoanalytical article in the magazine, Idilio.

The pioneering techniques of early photomontage artists were co-opted by the advertising industry from the late 1920s onward.

Techniques

Other methods for combining images are also called photomontage, such as Victorian “combination printing”, the printing of more than one negative on a single piece of printing paper, front-projection and computer montage techniques. Much as a collage is composed of multiple facets, artists also combine montage techniques. A series of black and white “photomontage projections” by Romare Bearden (1912–1988) is an example. His method began with compositions of paper, paint, and photographs put on boards measuring 8½ × 11 inches. Bearden fixed the imagery with an emulsion that he then applied with hand roller. Subsequently, he photographed and enlarged them. The nineteenth century tradition of physically joining multiple images into a composite and photographing the results prevailed in press photography and offset lithography until the widespread use of digital image editing.

Contemporary photograph editors in magazines now create “paste-ups” digitally. Creating a photomontage has, for the most part, become easier with the advent of computer software such as Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photopaint, Pixelmator, Paint.NET, or GIMP. These programs make the changes digitally, allowing for faster workflow and more precise results. They also mitigate mistakes by allowing the artist to “undo” errors. Yet some artists are pushing the boundaries of digital image editing to create extremely time-intensive compositions that rival the demands of the traditional arts. The current trend is to create images that combine painting, theatre, illustration, and graphics in a seamless photographic whole.

Source: History of graphic design

From my research and looking in Graphic Design a History by Stephen J Eskilson, photomontages seemed to be used extensively for political propaganda purposes by predominantly eastern–block countries including the Bauhaus School’s take on the rise of Nazi Germany.

My only other frame of reference for photomontage is Terry Gilliam’s animated exerts from Monty Pythons Flying Circus.

My choice of political message…

Brexit would have been the obvious choice at this particular moment in time. I even picked up a copy of the Metro and Evening Standard on a trip to London as I thought they would give me lots of usable images. However, I wasn’t inspired by Brexit as a subject as I think that like most people I was a bit bored of the whole debacle!

As an avid scuba diver I’m passionate about the health of our oceans and their inhabitants and particularly sharks. I am a follower of both the Shark Trust and BiteBack and like to raise awareness of the plight of a misunderstood and exploited creature. So I chose to use this as the basis for my poster.

Mind map

Once decided, I mind mapped shark conservation. This threw up ideas from charities involved in conservation, shark finning, shark species, JAWS and even Baby Shark!

Baby Shark aside, I wanted to create something that would generate a bit of shock and awe and I knew that some of the imagery I would be using would be quite graphic. A couple of quick sketches while mind–mapping brought up the imagery of shark fin soup and an oriental–style soup spoon. This then threw up the idea of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup. This could be reimagined as shark fin soup somehow.

The Steven Spielberg film JAWS is held largely responsible for the modern day vilification and fear of sharks. This was instigated through the brilliant marketing campaign for the film in 1975 in which warning signs were placed on beaches before the film’s release and a massive TV advertising campaign was used to full effect and set the benchmark for future movie advertising and is said to have started the trend for the “summer blockbuster”.

I began to collate a Pinterest board of images that I thought would help convey the poster’s message.

I didn’t only want to show images of shark finning or purely images from JAWS. I wanted to also illustrate the fact that there are a lot more common ways of being killed rather than by sharks e.g. vending machines; selfies; cows; toasters! I wanted to show the scale of shark finning around the globe, so some form of info/type would be involved.

I then printed out some of the images and tried arranging them in different ways to find a layout that worked as my tutor had advised me to do more physical work before turning to digital. This helped in being able to visualise my ideas and how the different elements worked together in different positions and sizes. It also enabled me to see which elements worked and which didn’t.

Once I’d decided on a rough layout it was time to jump into Photoshop.

The main element of my design was the image of Robert Shaw from the movie JAWS. I desaturated this image and upped the contrast and brightness to make it easier to remove the background using the quick selection tool. Initially I wanted to create a duotone effect similar to one of the images on my Pinterest board. This didn’t seem to fit into the theme I was going for and it looked better left in black and white. I did accidentally create a kind of coloured drop shadow effect while experimenting which I quite liked and the colour led to the overall red/magenta theme of the poster that help depict the brutality of the subject.

Behind Mr Shaw I wanted to create a can of shark fin soup using Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup image as inspiration. I first imported the soup can and removed the text using the magic eraser tool and then replacing it with a similar typeface stating the flavour as shark-fin. Then I placed the image of the shark fin on to the can and duplicated the front of the can by creating a selection of it and copying it. I placed this directly on top of the original can image and the shark fin giving the impression that the fin was inside the can. I then added 3 layers of blood drip to give them a 3 dimensional look. I exaggerated the colours and shading on the can and fin by adding shadows and using the dodge and burn tools to emphasise the highlights and shading.

The poster needed a background. I decided upon a suitably scaremongering newspaper headline that was aiding the vilification of sharks. Once added I added a colour balance filter to give it a warmer appearance and to tie it into the other parts of the poster.

Things were starting to come together. But I felt that it needed some text to help with understanding the message of the poster. I also wanted to add a JAWS quote or two. I chose the most famous JAWS quote: “we’re gonna need another boat!” and I also wanted to include some facts and figures that I had gathered during my research. To continue the shock and awe theme of the poster I wanted to illustrate the number of sharks killed each year. This would be the focal point of the poster and needed to be front and centre. This would be what people would read first so needed to be bold and eye-catching. I kept the red theme but knocked back the opacity slightly so that it blended in with the rest of the poster and didn’t seem like a stand–alone element. The JAWS quote was just a bit of fun and didn’t need the same hierarchical standing as the facts and figures, so it was given a smaller part in the poster but still in the same typeface so that it related to the other type.

It still needed something else as the top of the poster seemed a bit empty and needed something to balance it out. I somehow wanted to include the fact that more people are killed by vending machines than sharks every year. I found a warning sign depicting someone being crushed by a vending machine and added some text to make the point clearer which I then overlaid a texture to soften it a bit and help it blend into the rest of the poster.

I still thought that there was too much empty space at the top of the image so I added a shark jaw bone to the background just to break up the large area of empty background. Again, I added shadows and emphasised the highlight to make it stand out from the background.

At this point I was very happy with the image and mocked it up to give it a realistic look. I used the same poster mockup that I used previously on the Occam’s Razor exercise.

Conclusion

To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this exercise and felt quite apprehensive and way out of my comfort zone. After a slow start to this exercise I really got into it and once I’d decided on a cause that I felt strongly about I really began to enjoy it, which I think shows in the final image.

I think that the type played a large part in clarifying the poster’s meaning as without the type this wouldn’t be as clear. The type on the vending machine sign was also necessary as the relevance of it would have been unclear. The colour scheme of the poster works in being eye–catching and shocking. Altering the colour balance of the relevant layers helped to create an overall cohesive image. Using a limited colour palette helped with keeping the separate elements of the poster cohesive and working as a single image. Playing with the composition in an analogue way helped in the development of the final poster and I intend to use it more going forward.

During this exercise I had to get into the habit of labelling my layers properly as there were going to be quite a few and it could get complicated and confusing which layer I was working on.

Feedback

The general consensus amongst the the people I asked for feedback was that it was a strong image and it portrayed the chosen subject in a clear way. Some confusion about the JAWS references were raised, but once the reason behind using the imagery was explained it clarified the relevance and how they related to the cause.