- What did you learn?
In this third project, I learned the organization and arrangement skills of larger paragraphs of text over a design template and the importance of presenting information to viewers in a legible way with easily identifiable sections that the viewer can move through. To accomplish this in my own project, I started by using the letters of “GOTHAM” as large blocks that could naturally separate the landscape into sections. Once I fitted each letter to an area, I was able to input the essay prompts and arrange them accordingly.
- What was easy?
For me, I was inspired by the work of Tobias Frere-Jones, the creator of the Gotham font, so coming up with a design and color scheme was the easiest part of making the poster. I searched some of Frere-Jones’s work online and found things like the Obama election posters from 2008, as well as some of Frere-Jones’s solo work presenting Gotham.
- What was challenging?
The challenging part of this project was eliminating hyphenations that came as a result of having a bounding box for text passages. For instance, one of the bounding boxes I created is constrained to the diagonal leg of the “A” in the top right of the poster, and this hard, diagonal line ended up creating a lot of hyphens. To compensate for this, I tried different alignments for the text, and decided the right alignment would work best. I also used some soft returns to get rid of the hyphens that did not fix automatically.
- How could your submission be improved?
One of the problems I ran into during this project was having equal columns and consistent font size for the content. This is because of the abstract, or geometric nature of the poster created by the large letters that fit around the border of the frame. I think I might have been able to make the sections more equal, but once I had used the pathfinder, I had trouble moving around those large letters as they all became one polygon.
- How can the professor improve the assignment in the future?
This assignment was really enjoyable to work through, and I especially appreciated the opportunity to employ some writing skills in a design project. In the future, the only feedback I could offer is maybe having us create a magazine page or a booklet to change up the form in which we present our final pieces.
- How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?
In my future design career, I could definitely see myself working on a project similar to this; a project that entails: gathering information on a topic, creating a design, and using the principles of typography to present that content in an interesting way. I think I have a newfound appreciation for typography and its challenges, so I definitely am interested in using these skills for future work.
- How did a specific reading, video or example inspire or help you?
The Obama election posters as well as Tobias Frere-Jones’s work helped me conceptualize this project, and here are some examples of his work that I took ideas from and made my own:
