Reflective Post 1

I didn't have much of a plan after handing in COP, so couldn't immediately start getting on with any extended projects. Luckily my friend was putting on a gig and said he needed a poster. I haven't really done many posters and thought t would be a good opportunity to improve at what could potentially become a more commercial application for my practice. In particular I wanted to try and improve my confidence with type, as this is something that I've always struggled to incorporate into my work and usually get really wound up by.  He sent me over a picture of an example of a poster he and the event organisers liked, which was largely a floral pattern with birds and skulls in, saying they wanted something like that but "with less skulls". Although having complete creative freedom would have been a great opportunity, I think I actually benefited from being a little tethered as I tend to succumb to option paralysis a lot. This way I didn't have to think too much.
I made three quite careful drawings of birds, loosely linking it to the fact that the gig had three bands playing, as I was coming straight off the back of COP which had got me into making quite detailed, representational drawings. I used photographs of flowers, scanning them into books, although looking back I'm not sure why I didn't draw them as well, I think probably because I didn't have a concrete plan for the visual structure of the poster, only of the elements I wanted to use, and I wanted to get on and make something. I arranged all the elements in Photoshop until I ended up with a composition I felt worked. The poster they had sent me had quite a vintage/retro feel (it was for a Grateful Dead reunion tour)  so I took this into account when considering the colour scheme and type. I didn't try anything particularly adventurous with the type, my main concern was clarity,, but I was surprised at how much I liked how it turned out.

               























they actually asked me to change the colours because they thought that colour scheme wouldn't stand out or be bold enough, and I can see where they're coming from, I also didn't consider how they're computers/printers would be calibrated differently to mine so maybe the colour choice was a little risky. In the end I sent them several alternative colour schemes and they picked one I didn't really like all that much. I was still really happy with what I created for this though, in a pretty short space of time.

Around the same time as this, I came across a competition brief from a band called 'Shadowlark' who wanted a poster designing. They provided a link to a Google Drive folder with a selection of examples of things they like, and although none of it really fell into my wheelhouse I thought I'd have a crack anyway as I had enjoyed doing the last one so much.

I took a very different approach to the 'Shadowlark' poster and actually re purposed some photography from my COP project, just playing around with colours and layering things in Photoshop. They were after a fairly clean, minimal look so I tried to take that approach. I was actually pretty happy with what I came out with although I don't feel much of it was particularly exciting or close to what I usually make. I ended up with a few that I quite liked but didn't really have a clear favourite.

Overall, the posters I made at the start of the year were not my favourite pieces of work, but I had fun making them and they were a little out of my comfort zone as well, particularly the type element which I think I managed to incorporate successfully in most instances. They also got me back into the swing of things nicely without eating up too much time. 

First 7x7