Type and layout assignment 1 - flow

Poster 1 research - flow and visual hierarchy

I thought of 5 ideas for posters so decided to research and develop them all and then select the best 4 ones to work up to final pieces for the brief. The audience for these posters is graphic design students like myself so I wanted to pick imagery and typefaces that I thought might appeal to them.

When reading a page that is text heavy page with little or no points of interest, the Western eye typically reads down from top left to bottom right (Gutenberg diargram). Further research suggested that the eye enters top left  and reads in an F pattern or Z pattern across the page.  Within a graphically designed page, the eye is lead by the visual hierarchy of the document.  It is up to the designer to decide on the flow which is appropriate for the piece, and direct the eye accordingly. 

Generally there should be 3 elements to a poster – headline, content and call to action. Saturated, hot colours advance, cool colours recede.  Contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity contribute to defining a hierarchy.

The rule of thirds grid, and the rule of odds, contribute to visual harmony. Placement and shapes produces movement.  Triangles are more dynamic that squares, which are more dynamic than static circles.

I considered how best to illustrate the title I had chosen, ‘let it flow’.  I could choose a font which imitates flow, eg a molten liquid style font or dripping, but these are rather obvious and did not look sharp enough.  I decided to use an image of something that flowed so I researched images for liquid, molten metal, magma, and place this into the type of the title.

I decided not to actively look at what others might have done to illustrate this concept as I didn't want to be overly influenced by them. I then collected inspiration and assets for imagery, fonts and colours.

The following are possibilities for placing into the title type. The gold image could be used if the colours are converted - either to greyscale or the colours of my palette. These images are from Flickr creative commons.

I initially thought I would use a 2 colour palette of red and black as red is a very strong colour that is the most advancing.  It fits well with the molten liquid theme (magma).  With 2 colours a strong theme will be retained, but with some latitude for lighter colours to show less important items in the visual hierarchy.  I wanted colours that linked in with the flow theme, and molten magma colours are contrasty and advancing.  I found this colour palette (magma) from Adobe Color CC which I thought would reflect my theme well.

I considered what sort of fonts would be demonstrate the feeling of the piece.  Factual, serious but slightly quirky.  I decided using a image to fill the text was suffiently quirky and wanted a bold font to showcase the image, but one with strong lines. A charge font from Hypefortype was considered, along with Age and AT Babyfat, both of which are free fonts. Either Age or AT Babyfat will be used as they both look rounded and liquid, but informational too.

The image below gave me inspiration for my design.

After collecting this material, I was ready to work on my poster design.