PSA Poster Project

Amanda Wallis Winter Semester 2013

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Project 5 | PSA Poster Project

Introduction
For this project, we were to create a Public Service Announcement Poster (PSA) for the Ad Council for a current issue that we are passionate about. We were to go to the Ad Council website and choose our own topic of interest for our PSA posters. The poster we were to create needed to have compelling visual communication that also reintroduces or forces the audience to understand more deeply the concept we chose. The freedom as well as limitation to these posters was that the files as well as the poster itself was to be prepared for silk screen printing. This made it so that the posters would have to be in solid colors able to overlap in a way that could be printed for silk screening. If a photo was to be used it would need to be in half-tone dots. Requiring the posters to have silk screen printing ability gave it a unique focus and possible different direction than it would have been if not necessary to prepare for silk screening. The final posters would be 23x34.5 inches and flush mounted onto foam core.

P R O J E C T 01 S T E P 0 0 | P R O C E S S B L O G P O S T

(Paste process blog post here)

Table of Contents

2 Introduction 4 Choosing a Topic 5 Research 7 Learning Summary 8 Typography Exploration 19 Learning Summary 20 Sketches 23 Learning Summary 24 Digital Sketches 28 Chosen Direction 30 Learning Summary

31 Concept Variations and Refinements 34 Learning Summary 35 Final Poster 37 Learning Summary 38 Conclusion

PSA POS T ER PR OJ EC T | CH O OSIN G A TO PI C

Ad Council Topics of Interest: Education Reading Family and Community *Discovering Nature Energy Efficiency Hunger Prevention Newborn and Child Survival Shelter Pet Adoption Wildfire Prevention Health Childrens Oral Health Childhood Asthma Childhood Obesity Unplanned Pregnancy Prevention Safety Bullying Prevention Buzzed Driving Prevention Child Passenger Safety Texting and Driving Preventions Gay and Lesbian Bullying Prevention

Topic: Discovering Nature

PSA POS T ER PR OJ EC T | R E SE AR CH

PSA POS T ER PR OJ EC T | R E SE AR CH

Websites Explored: www.graphicdesignjunction.com http://www.zazzle.com/psa+posters http://io9.com/5977675/hobbit-psa-posters-warn-this-isyour-brain-on-the-ring http://www.2expertsdesign.com/graphics/30-best-andcreative-public-service-ads http://www.behance.net/

PSA POSTER PROJEC T | LE ARNING SUMMARY

My Experience For my topic I chose,Discovering Nature because I have two brothers that play video games a lot and take for granted the outdoors even when it is nice outside. I also dont go outside enough and with this poster I wanted to make a message that speaks to people who are plugged in all the time so that they would see my poster and the message would get across. In doing this I tried to think of elements that would tie into things that were familiar to people like socail networking, tv, video games, etc. I did some visual research to see what I could find about other posters with this same topic. I found out that there are not that many in fact, but just a few very similar ones from the Discover the Forest organization, which is the organization I am promoting my poster for. I also looked up other creative poster ideas for some inspiration and found out some really cool things about creatively tying concepts together. Challenges One of the challenges I faced during the first part of this project was coming up with just one concept. I had a big list to begin with and eventually narrowed it down to two, but I wasnt sure which one to pick. I did some sketches for both, but then it just seemed like the concepts were starting to mesh together and that it wasnt clear to me which one was which. I eventually ended up picking the one that I was already leaning toward in the beginning so it ended up working out. Thoughts While thinking of my topic and how I would visually and creatively communicate the issue it reminded me a lot of the logo project where we had to tie in two different themes into one effective logo. This project is very similar in that there will only be a very short amount of

time, just seconds that people will glance at this poster so it has to be able to read clearly right away. I want people to immediately recognize what I am trying to say when they look at my poster. That is the goal and the challenge that I have ahead in trying to figure out how to do that.

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | T Y P O G R A P H Y E X P L O R AT I O N

Myriad Pro

ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRS TUVWXYZabc defghijklmn opqrstuvwx yz12345678 9 0 & @ . , ? ! ( )

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Bold Condensed

AEGQSabefsy&248
Regular

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Italic

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Semibold

AEGQSabefsy&248
Semibold Italic

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Bold

AEGQSabefsy&248
Bold Italic

AEGQSabefsy&248

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Arial

ABCDEFGH IJKLMNOP QRSTUVWX YZabcdefg hijklmnopq rstuvwxyz1 234567890 &@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248

Bold Italic Bold Italic

Regular

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Bookman Old Style

A B C D E F G HIJKLMNO P Q R S T U V WXYZabcd efghijklm n o p q r s t u v w x y z 1 2 3 4567890& @.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

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Bold Italic Bold Italic

Regular

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Century Gothic

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQ RSTUVWXYZ abcdefgh ijklmnopq rstuvwxyz1 234567890 &@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248

Bold Italic Bold Italic

Regular

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Edmonsans

ABCDEFGH I J K L M N O P QRSTUVWX YZabcdefg hijklmnopq rstuvwxyz1 234567890 &@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Regular

AEGQSabefsy&248
Italic

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Bold Italic Bold

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Franklin Gothic Book

ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRS TUVWXYZabc defghijklmn opqrstuvwxy z123456789 0&@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248

Bold Italic Bold Italic

Regular

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Futura

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQ RSTUVWXY Zabcdefghi jklmnopqrs tuvwxyz12 34567890 &@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248

Bold Italic Bold Italic Bold

Italic

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | T Y P O G R A P H Y E X P L O R AT I O N

Gill Sans MT

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQR ST UVW XY Z a bcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwx yz123456789 0 & @ .,? ! ( )

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Regular

AEGQSabefsy&248
Italic

AEGQSabefsy&248
Bold

AEGQSabefsy&248
Bold Italic

AEGQSabefsy&248

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | T Y P O G R A P H Y E X P L O R AT I O N

Helvetica LT Std

ABCDEFGH IJKLMNOP QRSTUVWX YZabcdefg hijklmnopq rstuvwxyz1 234567890 & @ ., ? ! ( )

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Roman

AEGQSabefsy&248

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | T Y P O G R A P H Y E X P L O R AT I O N

Impact

ABCDEFGHIJKL MNOPQRSTUVW XYZabcdefghi jklmnopqrstu vwxyz1234567 890&@.,?!()

AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248 AEGQSabefsy&248

Bold Italic Bold Italic

Regular

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | T Y P O G R A P H Y E X P L O R AT I O N

Helvetica Neue LT Std

ABCDEFGH IJKLMNOP QRSTUVWX YZabcdefg hijklmnopq rstuvwxyz1 234567890 &@.,?!()

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Regular

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Regular

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PSA POSTER PROJEC T | LE ARNING SUMMARY

My Experience I did a lot of typography exploration and went through the fonts that I thought looked the most clean and modern; a lot of sans serif fonts. Because I want my poster to focus more on what people will recognize as media and then get the message rather than try to force the forest on them in that moment of a glance that my poster has for their attention, I would like to use more modern looking fonts to represent that. I dont want to make it look fancy with serif fonts, but rather just give my message to them crisp and straight with crisp and straight fonts. I believe these kind of fonts will represent my concept better and get across the message that I want for my poster. Challenges Because Im not exactly sure what my poster will be about yet, I am having trouble narrowing my font choices. Thats why I went through so many because I knew generally what I was looking for, but not specifically. I went through all the fonts that I liked and thought might be a good fit for the type of feel I wanted my poster to be. Another thing that is a challenge for me is that I dont know where my typography is going to be, what it will say or if I will have any typography at all for my main graphic. I might be dealing with just the subtext. Despite that, I think that I have a good number of usable fonts to work with no matter where the type will go and what it will say. Thoughts Another reason I went through so many fonts is that I was thinking about this as a typography project. Going through so many fonts like this really helped me to see each letter and layout and I felt like I considered each in a deeper way than I would if I was just going through fonts one by one to see if it looked good or not. With this

collection of fonts that Ive researched I can go back and see which ones it was that I picked instead of just guessing. This gives me a more productive layout to work with and I know that it will help me better choose the right font for my poster.

 PSA POS T ER PROJ EC T | SK E TCHE S

 PSA POS T ER PROJ EC T | SK E TCHE S

 PSA POS T ER PROJ EC T | SK E TCHE S

 PSA POSTER PROJEC T | LE ARNING SUMMARY

My Experience Sketching was a really interesting experience for me and I felt like I really learned a lot and had a lot of great ideas. Some ideas were strange and I didnt think they would work for a poster at all, but I drew them anyway. Not limiting myself to the direction I wanted to go with this really helped me to let my imagination run my project. I tried to think of things that would look cool visually and things that might make people want to do a double take. I focussed a lot of my sketches toward the social media because that is a lot of the reason that people dont go outside, or else they are outside but not enjoying it because they are on their laptops or phones and are oblivious to the nature around them. I wanted to present a call to action with my poster and some of the ideas I had were to relate computers to drugs, and to show that in a way we have two different identities. I wanted to show that we are becoming slaves to social media and are blind to the nature around us. Challenges The challenges I faced with sketching was just coming up with interesting concepts that communicated clearly at a first glance. This is what the sketching phase is for, getting out ideas and then working on tying them together, but it felt like I had so many ideas but just not ones that quite fit together the way I wanted them to. I wanted my overall design to be simple and clever. Creative and to the point. The ideas I was coming up with in my sketching were almost there, but not quite the way I wanted them. Another thing was coming up with a clever saying or a tagline that would best fit my concept. That was something I would need to work on for whatever direction I decided to go. Thoughts

Going back and looking at my sketches helped me get a better understanding of what was on my mind and in which direction I wanted to go with my poster. It really helped me to gather my thoughts and come up with some ideas for my digital sketches. Although I wasnt sure yet what direction I wanted to go in, sketching my ideas out helped me to narrow down what I wanted to do in the end with my poster.

P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | D I G I TA L S K E T C H E S

GET A LIFE
UNPLUG. GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY.

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | D I G I TA L S K E T C H E S

Hike

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | D I G I TA L S K E T C H E S

Find out what theyre

tweeting

about

outside.

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | D I G I TA L S K E T C H E S

 PSA POSTER PROJEC T | CHOSEN DIREC TION

Chosen Direction

Hike

 PSA POS T ER PROJ EC T | CH OSEN D IR EC T I O N

Adjustment Notes: -Thickness of walking stick -Finish the picture with an entire person than just a hand -Mouse clicking the like button -Make Variations -Smaller button -Find balance in the white space -Put some dialog/text -look for solutions

PSA POSTER PROJEC T | LE ARNING SUMMARY

My Experience When making my digital sketches it really put things into perspective for me and I could better see just how my final poster might turn out in the end. I found that I really liked white space and that I could make my poster look really good with it if I did it right. I noticed that all my digital sketches had that same look of white space around the edges. I knew that with a good visual and strong type, my poster could turn out looking really good. I ended up choosing my like, hike idea because it was the strongest concept out of all my digital sketches. It communicated clearly right away and it was something that people recognize. I ended up choosing Helvetica Neue LT Std for my font choice because that is the closest font that matched the like button for facebook. I wanted my poster to be consistant with the font that would show for my graphic so I am deciding to use a few variations of Helvetica Neue LT Std for my additional text as well. Challenges I didnt have many challenges with making my digital sketches, but maybe just deciding which drawn sketches I wanted to make digitalized. Some of the drawn sketches that I would have done digitalized werent completed ideas and I didnt feel that it would be beneficial for me to make them digitalized without a clear concept in mind. The digital sketches I chose to do all had some kind of a point to them and I felt like I was able to work with them better and that they could be refind and moved on to the next stage of my poster process. Thoughts I really like the direction from my digital compositions that I chose to work on and refind for my final poster. I think that its something that communicates clearly and will be recognizeable when looking at it for

only a second. Also this poster design idea goes along with the social media direction that I wanted to achieve in making this poster. Another thought is that because this design has such a simple and standard color theme, I think it is a good design to be able to prepare for a silk screen print. I like this design because it is not too complicated and it easily communicated what I want it to for my poster about Discovering the Forest.

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | CO N C E P T VA R I AT I O N S A N D R E F I N E M E N T S

Hike

Hike

Hike

Hike

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | CO N C E P T VA R I AT I O N S A N D R E F I N E M E N T S

Hike

Hike

Get Involved
Get Involved
http://www.discovertheforest.org/ http://www.fs.fed.us/

http://www.discovertheforest.org/ http://www.fs.fed.us/

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | CO N C E P T VA R I AT I O N S A N D R E F I N E M E N T S

Hike

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | L E A R N I N G S U M M A R Y

My Experience When refining my poster idea I went through and tried many different variations. A lot of it was just experimentation, but I also had a few different inspirations and feedback/critique to try a few things. I tried making the like button bigger/smaller, in/out of a box, shorter walking stick/longer walking stick, just to see how it might better communicate and that my message would be more effective. I also tried adding mud tracks on my last variation to give it a little something more as suggested by my teacher. I gave it a try, but taking a step back and looking at the tracks trying to think as a person who was looking at the poster for the first time, I realized that it might take a second before they understood what was going on in the big picture. Also, when asking my roommate what she thought she told me that they didnt look like mud tracks so I decided to let them go. It was worth a try though. Challenges The challenge I had with making my digital sketch variations and refinements was that I wasnt sure what to do with the white space around my poster. I wanted to make sure that I made my graphic the right size so that it looked purposely places inside the white space rather that looking too small for it, or too large. It was hard for me to decide between two of my ideas and I liked the larger hand without the button box almost as much as the smaller hand in the button box. Thoughts For my final decision I ended up choosing the hand with the walking stick inside of the box that fit smaller in the white space rather than the large one with the like button below the hand. I chose this direction because upon getting feedback/critique and opinions from others I

realized that everything looked a little more complete when placed inside of the box rather than having the elements of one graphic spread around the poster. The larger hand without a border looked nice, but the like button below it was not evenly proportioned to it and overall just created an awkward spacing issue. However I needed that element to complete the poster so I couldnt just get rid of it, therefore I found it the best decision to choose the more complete of the two posters and went with the smaller like hike button for my final poster.

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | F I N A L P O S T E R

Poster layers prepared for silk screening

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | F I N A L P O S T E R

Hike

Unplug.
DiscoverTheForest.org www.fs.fed.us

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | L E A R N I N G S U M M A R Y

My Experience Preparing my final poster for silk screen printing was an interesting experience. I felt like everything was much more organized and clean looking when I finished my final poster file. Challenges The challenge for me in finalizing my poster was to prepare my Illustrator file for silk screen printing. I am used to working with just one layer usually so to go in a create new layers for specific colors of my artwork definitely took some thinking. First I numbered how many layers I would need for each color and then I went in and started grouping things together. Some adjustments had to be made so that everything would layer the right way and still look the way I wanted it too. I made sure that I paid attention to trapping so that the file was really ready for silk screen printing. To do this I also needed to multiply my layers so that the layers would show through each other. Thoughts When looking at the final file and even the print out, it looks like it was prepared for silk screening and it was intersting to see and notice the layers and how they blended together when multiplied together. This was interesting because it made me realized just how it would look if my poster was to actually be silk screened. I have a better appreciation now for people who silk screen and especially people who prepare silk screen files. I cant imagine preparing a file with more than maybe 10 colors to have to work with. It took a little bit of time, but I now undertand how silk screening works and how to prepare my files from light colors to dark colors in preparation for silk screening.

 P S A P O S T E R P R O J E C T | CO N C L U S I O N

Project 5 | PSA Poster Project

Conclusion
I think the parts of this project that helped me the most were the sketching phases, digital and hand drawn. I was able to get out my best ideas by just putting my thoughts onto a page. In this project I was able to revisit the skills I learned in the logo project about how to creatively and visually create something that tied together more than one element that people could understand right away from just a glance. I think I achieved just that in creating a poster that is clever, simple and easy to understand just at a glance. I also learned how to incorporate my thinking in a different way by having to create my poster project in preparation for silk screen printing. This focussed my thinking and learning so that I could come up with concepts that would work for me in this way. Not only did I create a poster that could be silk screened, but was able to learn how to set up my Illustrator file in preparation for a silk screening. I really learned a lot with this poster project and had a unique opportunity to learn about silk screening giving me a greater appreciation for the silk screening process that I might not have had if we ended up doing this poster project in a different way.