Inauguration Poster

[scottysprings]

Hey all, at about 8pm last night I was commissioned to design a poster for the broadcast of the Inauguration tomorrow at my school. I was really pressed for time being I only had a few hours to work on it but I think it came out nice. As an afterthought, I would've done without the shadowed text. My original intention was to have the text on a canvas-like background but I was left with a major empty spot in the middle between the text. In came the capital building. Yeah well I'm just looking for some feedback from more of the experienced or professional designers. What do you think?

[gordie_delini]

*sigh* where to begin. 1) Lose the bevels and shadows on the border. 2) Too many colors. Simprify. 3) Try to find a decent article on Visual Hierarchy.

Right now the whole poster just runs together - there's no visual weight to any of the text. Here's a brief idea of visual hierarchy: What's most important about the poster? Is it the event, the location, the date, time? Determine that, and render that accordingly. What's next important? Render that somehow different than the most important so that it's still prominent, but not as prominent. And so on and so forth.

With a poster you have about 4 seconds to grab someone's attention. Ask yourself, "If I were walking down the street and saw this poster, would I pay it any attention?" For me, the answer is no. The visual of the Capitol Building is uninspired and distracting from the type. The event is about the inauguration - play that up - illustrate or stylize the Capitol decorated for the event. Or better yet, show the man himself. After all, it is about him being sworn in. Once again, what's going to grab someone's attention? Is it large type with something unusual written? Is it color?

I would recommend studying poster artists and finding common traits among them. Shepard Fairey is an excellent example (and rather apropos for the project). He did the now-famous Obama "Change" poster that you've seen and seen imitated everywhere. Look at his other work though, and you'll see how well he communicates his ideas in a poster medium.

As far as a tight deadline? Welcome to the industry, son. It only gets worse from there.

[BBTV]

Too much passive voice for my taste.

[scottysprings]

*sigh* where to begin. 1) Lose the bevels and shadows on the border. 2) Too many colors. Simprify. 3) Try to find a decent article on Visual Hierarchy.

Right now the whole poster just runs together - there's no visual weight to any of the text. Here's a brief idea of visual hierarchy: What's most important about the poster? Is it the event, the location, the date, time? Determine that, and render that accordingly. What's next important? Render that somehow different than the most important so that it's still prominent, but not as prominent. And so on and so forth.

With a poster you have about 4 seconds to grab someone's attention. Ask yourself, "If I were walking down the street and saw this poster, would I pay it any attention?" For me, the answer is no. The visual of the Capitol Building is uninspired and distracting from the type. The event is about the inauguration - play that up - illustrate or stylize the Capitol decorated for the event. Or better yet, show the man himself. After all, it is about him being sworn in. Once again, what's going to grab someone's attention? Is it large type with something unusual written? Is it color?

I would recommend studying poster artists and finding common traits among them. Shepard Fairey is an excellent example (and rather apropos for the project). He did the now-famous Obama "Change" poster that you've seen and seen imitated everywhere. Look at his other work though, and you'll see how well he communicates his ideas in a poster medium.

As far as a tight deadline? Welcome to the industry, son. It only gets worse from there.

I realized I should've dropped the shadowing right after I sent it over to my friend. As for the colors, I only used two, the navy and the red. Are you recommending just one? How would you recommend incorporating Obama into the design? I tried a couple if configurations but none of them looked good to me. I understand deadlines are a part of life, but again, it's not like poster design is something I've done before so I didn't really have time to research the topic. Thanks for the pointers.

Too much passive voice for my taste.

The text wording wasn't my choice.