As I continue to learn more about design through this course, I feel like I am getting slightly better and more confident in my designs. I am fairly new to graphic design skills but have learned a lot in this course. For my poster, I struggled to think of an idea for a design so I created a visual that I feel like I know very well. I wanted a simple design so that each element could be more thorough and intentional with the details.
I wanted to stick to the color scheme of the can so I kept the design pink and teal with black accents to highlight the name of the flavor and can’s theme. Drawing the can was very difficult because there are so many details on it but I tried to make it as realistic as I could. I really enjoy using Adobe Illustrator but this course is my first time using it so I am definitely still learning all of the tools. I kept to two fonts to match the styles on the can and highlight specific words to intentionally match their importance on the page. For the background I kept the colors simple yet on theme with the elevated gradient effect but added the flavor name repeating with some of them blurred as they reach the end of the page.
Although my poster is not an expert level design, I think each element fits perfectly and it reflects how much I have learned in this course. I intend to keep working with Illustrator and hopefully build my skills and knowledge with the tools. I like how my poster turned out and feel like I will continue to get better and even add Adobe Illustrator to my skills.
For this post, I will explain the goals of my poster, explain how successful I feel I was in accomplishing said goal, and give an analysis of my process, determine which areas best displayed my skills, show what was most difficult, and look at where I must improve.
First, I should express the purpose of this poster, as my topic choice is very niche. I chose this topic because I am an advocate of wild horse management and a long-time equestrian. Right now, our president’s Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) budget aims to not only remove the ban on American mustang slaughter but also decrease the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) budget by 25%, thus endangering the Wild Horse and Burro Program and the 64,000 wild horses and burros currently being held in captivity after having been captured from their ranges in the Herd Management Areas (HMAs). The budget will also make it easier to sell animals and remove their protected status. Finally, not only may the government “dispose of” the “excess” animals, but it also increases the probability of horses being shipped to Canada and Mexico–where they may be legally slaughtered for pet food or human consumption. Thus, this poster acts as an outlet to the frustration that I, and many other wild horse advocates, feel. My goal was to quickly and efficiently educate the public and welcome them to a public protest, where they may learn more about this issue. Even without reading the smaller text, the headline is a shock that should encourage civilians to do additional research. Because American wild horses/mustangs are generally considered national symbols of freedom and remnants of the American Wild West, I wanted to appeal not only to animal lovers (and draw attention using a horse silhouette), but also to those who care deeply about this nation (by using the flag). We usually associate America with Bald Eagles, but many also remember the wild horses running free in the West–the escaped horses of the Spanish settlers, the “mestengos”. Wild horses are in America’s DNA. My ultimate goal was to inform the public that a symbol of freedom and American history is now under attack, and we must fight back.
With respect to my design goals though, my hope was to create a dynamic, striking poster that was simple yet effective. I tend to overcomplicate everything, and I wanted to focus on a simple concept that still showed how much effort I put in. My goal was to use the rules of design correctly and make a layered, technically difficult illustration that quickly informed readers while pushing my new designing capabilities.
Next, I believe that I was fairly successful in my goals, and I will explain my reasoning behind my claim, as well as explain which aspect was the most difficult and why. First, I used many design techniques/rules in this class, implemented strategies written about in my last post, and remained loyal to the techniques/rules of design that we focused on this semester. Regarding techniques used, I began with a rough design that focused on the Wild Horse and Burro Program logo drawn inside a sight, with an arched headline wrapping around the sight, as well as a dark and light red-striped background and stars surrounding the sight. I moved on to craft another design mimicking James Montgomery Flagg’s “I WANT YOU”/Uncle Sam poster; the sketch had two colors offsetting the poster, navy/beige/red color scheme, sans serif font, and a simple background. However, the designs were all too busy and highlighted the American flag too much. I then tried using a photo of a flag with reduced opacity as my background, but this idea failed because the text was lost in the flag’s pattern. Thus, I improved from the last project and went through variations of my sketches, allowing myself the time to change elements; this choice (to redesign my poster multiple times) and the hours of placing, grouping, clipping, and altering the flag’s components were the most difficult parts. With the time, frustration, and inability to effectively use the flag making me feel like a bad designer, I often considered switching my topic. I moved forward though, intending to make a waving flag later in the process, and hence drew my horse’s body, mane, tail, and hooves with the pen tool and grouped them together; I created my sight by using the ellipse, rectangle, and pen tools. I then drew my flag using the star and rectangle tools and used my shape mode and pathfinder tools to merge my rectangles and join everything into a combined element. After days of figuring out how to incorporate the flag to invoke national pride and urgency towards my plight, I decided to make an opacity mask. I drew an additional ellipse, the same size as my sight and made a mask to use over my flag; once finished with reducing the flag’s opacity and setting my mustang outline in front of it, I set my sight in front of both elements. Before settling on using the mask, I also experimented with my warp, mesh, envelope distort, and lasso tools, as I initially wanted a perfect, waving flag. To further add to the illustrations, I used the texturizer to create a canvas fabric for the flag (with lighting coming from the top-left), and I added a canvas texture to my horse, complete with a small drop shadow to separate my silhouette from the flag (again with the light coming from the top left). Because I could not directly put the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program logo (copyright issues), I made my horse’s silhouette a bit like its own little version of a logo/badge–hence the repeated use of a canvas texture rather than hair/hide. Notably, the textured background is an Adobe stock photo of mustangs, but the opacity is lowered, so a beige rectangle shows through and lessens the vivid colors. Colors were chosen using the Uncle Sam poster and US flag, but because I wanted RGB and CMYK color schemes to translate easily between web images and print design, I altered the colors and made them less vivid; the scheme used beige (background), blue (flag, stroke for the horse, background), and red (lettering, sight, flag). My horse was left white, to represent purity and the flag, while the red represented blood and the flag. The blue tied the flag, background, and horse elements together but had no significant meaning. For lettering, I used Kiln Serif, because although I did not want to use a serif font on my poster, I liked the “blood spatter” look of this font, as well as the “Wanted” poster aesthetic. I used Franklin Gothic Demi Condensed for my smaller type, as it resembled the typography from the Uncle Sam poster. The lettering hopefully also added visual echoes by using the same red hue used in the sight as some of the type. For this project, I also created hierarchy and visual flow, with the large illustration set just above the center of the poster to grab attention; viewers then look up to the smaller headline, and finally back through the illustration and to the bottom of the poster (with the smallest text and information/meeting time). To use the negative space in my textured background, I made the horses run through the blank space. I also think that I created interactions in my design by reducing opacity and setting elements within/below others. Notably, the circular glyphs are supposed to create an additional visual echo. To add dynamic alignment, I set the flag’s stripes at the same diagonal angle as the rearing horse’s back. For another design strategy, I used the golden ratio/section, as the grouped headline and illustration take up 62% of the used space. Finally, I do believe that I achieved my goal, because I used many design strategies and rules, while also spending hours ensuring color would translate better between mediums (which was my issue with the magazine project). Furthermore, I believe that I followed many (though not all) of Müller-Brockmann’sideas, as my poster is readable, shows simplicity of design, abides by the three-face maximum rule, adds emphasis with a limited color pallet, imparts information quickly, and maintains symmetrical balance (while using a diagonal composition within the illustrated element). I feel that I created a meaningful design while following design rules, and I have improved my skills since the last project.
Moreover, my design had strengths and weaknesses. I believe that the horse illustration showed how much I have improved with the pen tool, and the flag’s design and position in the layers indicates that I now understand how to use design techniques. I am very proud of my illustration, and I used some tricks and strategies that we learned in class. With grouping and editing, I made my flag similarly to how we made the frets of the guitar and used the pathfinder and shape modes. I used the opacity mask similarly to how we used a mask in the handout for the “beans” poster. Yet, I will say that the horse’s right hindquarter was incredibly difficult to draw. The animal in my reference photo was at an angle where the right hind leg was wider and straighter looking than the left one. I tried to fix the issue when I drew the animal with the pen tool, but I still think that the leg was a tad “wonky”, even after redrawing it multiple times. I do think that I captured the odd curvature of the leg though, where the femur, patella, and tibia meet. Of note, with respect to the lettering, I regret my choices. I made sure that my words were the same length as the sight’s diameter, but in doing so, my type was too small for a headline. I also regret trying to use typographic mass. I initially had the “Slaughter in sight” above the sight, with “for American mustangs” below. It looked better, but the text looked too straight when close to the round sight, and after also deciding that arched text would look too whimsical on such a serious poster, I tried using typographic mass and grouped the text. I think that this was implemented poorly, as the text is too small for my headline, and the lines of text are not even in their width. While I liked the design in the moment, looking back, it looks silly. In the future, I want to work more with typography and its mass and use lettering as an art element within the poster.
Illustration is not a skill I feel very confident in. I struggled with the unit a bit and also had a few issues keeping up with the workload for outside reasons. Thankfully, I still learned quite a lot from the last two weeks. Adobe Illustrator is easy to use once you understand how it works. That does take a bit, though.
Click the image to see my design!
My poster is for a special event lecture that won’t actually be held. As much as I would love to hear an academic talk about the politics of author Franz Kafka’s work, I can’t imagine that would draw a crowd large enough to fill Shreve Auditorium. In a perfect world, it might.
My inspiration is the feeling of isolation and alienation present in Kafka’s work. This often happens to his characters at the hands of cold, bureaucratic systems that do not and have never made sense. Kafka lived in a world when industrial capitalism was brand new and he seemed to be terrified of it.
In The Metamorphosis, when the main character wakes up to discover he’s been turned in to a bug, his first thought is that he will be late for work. The man seems insane for thinking everyone will still want him to go to work. The reader will likely find it funny and an example of the character being highly anxious.
It turns out that everyone actually does still expect him to go to work. In Kafka’s mind, the world makes demands of us that are just as strange.
With this in mind, I drew a little roach and directed the eye to it with two far larger elements, including an arrow that serves as a guiding line. The text being so large is meant to make the bug feel smaller in comparison and create a feeling of insignificance. From there, your eye goes to the informational text.
I wanted Kafka’s name to be a secondary point of focus. To do this, I made each letter its own element, and then gave the characters different sizes, colors, and “warp” settings. I worry the end result might be a bit too loud, but efforts to tone it down didn’t give me much.
My color scheme started with red. I wanted that to be the background. When I needed to make other choices, Illustrator suggested the browns and off-whites. The red background was most important to me. Along with the texture, I wanted to create a kind of dirty feeling that might remind someone of rust and old houses (or roaches).
Admittedly, this involved me drawing very little. I am proud of my roach, though. I used a reference image but didn’t trace it directly, which is not something I thought I had in me. I hope that this is a satisfactory drawn element. I was, admittedly, a little stressed and afraid of the pen tool.
Because we had free reign to make anything for this poster project, I decided to create a product launch poster for my melatonin drink company, Melabee. This is a real product that I am currently working on with a team and we do expect to launch our final product in August so stay tuned!
My goal was to create a calm and dreamy atmosphere using our brand colors and symbolic imagery. The design conveys restfulness as well as anticipation for the launch. Everything was created from scratch, from each chamomile flower to the entire can, mainly using the pen tool and gradient tool to make each element come to life. No tracing or outside images were used, just reference photos of chamomile flowers and our product.
I applied design principles like balance, alignment, and contrast, so the layout guides the eye from top to bottom with clear visual hierarchy. I also used spacing to make sure every word was legible. In terms of typography, I used 3 main fonts that were already on the design of our packaging and applied it to any remaining text on the poster so that everything is cohesive.
As for my creative process, I started with a basic sketch of what my poster would look like before gathering realistic photo references for each graphic element and then drawing from scratch in Illustrator. Looking ahead, my goal is to keep experimenting with Illustrator to become more familiar with each tool, so that next time I open Illustrator to create something, the process is faster because I am more comfortable with the application.
For my design, my goal was to create something simple yet memorable. I had an idea to create a boba tea poster themed after Boba Fett (Disney don’t come for me) – and obviously the date had to be May the 4th. The drink is a matcha bubble tea to simulate the color of Boba Fett’s helmet, with a red label in the shape of the front of it. The gray straw to the side is meant to look like the helmet antenna. I chose to use a neutral color background to allow the drink to pop out better, with a sort of darker “shadow” V shape to point the viewers eyes towards the middle. The font is a font used in the Mandalorian series – another callback to the Star Wars and Boba Fett theme. The font for the drink title is the largest to leave the biggest impression on the viewer, with the date being the second largest, since that is also of importance. One of my biggest difficulties in making this design was making the graphic of the drink, since I am still a little unfamiliar with Illustrator. Creating the cutouts for the tapioca pearls especially gave me a bit of pain. In the end though, I was able to successfully complete what I set out to do and I am satisfied with the result.
I had a few different goals for this project. Two of the main ones were to create a poster revolved around an interest of mine and to utilize skills that I learned in class. My final product met these goals in a few different ways. I centered my poster around the new Wicked movie coming out and this movie I am extremely interested in. I also utilized skills by using various tools which included the pen, gradient, eye dropper, star, and ellipse tools. I also utilized some text effects. To me the most successful and difficult part of my design were my drawings. I really struggled with the pen tool at first, so these drawings were not easy for me. However, I really enjoy the finished product. In the future, I think I need to work on adding more intricate details to my design.
My concept for this project was inspired by the movie La La Land, which I recently re-watched. At the end of the movie, one of the main characters, Sebastian, opens up his own jazz club – a lifelong dream of his. The aesthetics and musical themes of the movie make it one of my favorites, so I decided I wanted to create a poster for Sebastian’s jazz club, Seb’s.
Sebastian plays the piano, and it is the central instrument of the movie. I wanted to incorporate that in my design, as well as the cityscape of Los Angeles, where the movie takes place. Thinking about the shapes of piano keys, I realized I wanted to create a design where the black keys on the piano could form the shadows of the city skyline, integrating both elements within each other. It was challenging at first to figure out how exactly I wanted to execute that vision, though.
What really helped me was creating multiple thumbnail sketches that allowed me to try out different angles and variations. When I first started my blank document, I also went straight to the piano keys first and played around with a few different features to see how they might be able to be warped or manipulated. Establishing the alignment of the keys with the buildings and making the layout aesthetically pleasing was definitely my biggest challenge. I wanted to make sure that my vision came across. That is why I also applied a slight gaussian blur to the black keys of the piano to make them appear more like shadows. I found that also making the piano keys a slight off-white color helped tie the composition together better.
I really enjoyed trying out different variations of shapes and colors with the buildings and windows of the city skyline. I used the shape tools in Illustrator to help, and also layered more buildings in the background with reduced opacity to add depth to the image. I kept the buildings in the foreground black to emphasize the piano’s keys, but added in purples, pinks, and blues in the background to create an analogous color scheme. Overall, I am definitely pleased with how this part turned out.
While the movie has its own logo for Seb’s, I knew that we needed to create our own original designs for this project, so I designed my own variation of the logo using the pen tool. The original logo has a music note for the apostrophe in “Seb’s,” and I wanted to keep that element in some way. So, I added it into the “b,” and created a tail at the top to make the letter reminiscent of an eighth note. I really enjoyed the process of making the logo appear neon, where I copied and pasted-in-place the design multiple times with gradually increasing amounts of gaussian blur. Not only does the logo appear as a neon sign in the movie, but I wanted it to act as a sort of “moon” in my design, providing the light source from which the shadows – the keys – originate from. That is why I also placed it a bit to the left of my design, since the “shadows” veer to the right.
For the rest of the typography, I chose a font that felt both bold and refined to maintain that “Hollywood” feel. I added my headline on the right of the logo to create visual balance, and included the secondary information in smaller text beneath that. I also created a dark gradient for my background to make the text seem even brighter and to represent a darkening night sky.
All in all, I really enjoyed the creative freedom we had with this project, and it was a unique challenge to come up with an original design. Navigating Illustrator has definitely gotten easier because of this project, and despite certain technical or design challenges, they were really rewarding to overcome. I am really happy with the final product.
The most successful part of my design was the illustration I drew of Tyrese Haliburton. I was proud of my use of the pen tool. Although this illustration is not perfect (especially with a couple noticeable bumps on the basketball), I feel like it was a huge improvement in smoothness from the guitar. I also liked how I positioned him on the poster. I expect viewers to land on his face, and the direction of his jumpshot then guides the viewer to the important text about the time of the event. The text is then spaced out to guide the viewer into reading the statistic on his chest which incorporates my illustration into the text and largely prints the most important details about what the event is. In the future, I would plan to have more space on the right side of the page to display that text, as I admit it looked very scrunched.
The most difficult part of the project was creating and utilizing the Haliburton illustration. It was primarily fun, but I did struggled immensely with coloring and placement on the final poster since it seemed I was stuck between choosing a good looking quote in the bottom right or utilizing the leading that the illustration provides by looking at important text. I actually screwed up my use of the pen tool when making Haliburton by not creating closed shapes. I ended up having to import the illustration into Photoshop to use the magic wand tool for coloring, and then export it back to Illustrator. I do think if I planned a bit more on paper, I could’ve avoided my utilization issue, and if I had gone slower with the drawing I could’ve caught my illustration issue too.
I need to work on planning ahead. I really like my poster, and I wanted to avoid overwhelming the design. I like simple design. I think if I had put more intention into ideas in the planning process though, I could’ve had an even better piece. I knew I wanted to utilize the number on Haliburton’s jersey for dynamic text on the poster and also take advantage of his jumpshot for leading the viewer, but it does seem like my poster runs out of ideas after that. Next time, I want to flesh out every element instead of having a couple good ideas and trying to run with it. Overall I am happy with how it turned out, but I know with more prep I could have done even better.
My goal with this poster was to capture a cozy, playful vibe that feels like an invitation to a pet-friendly gallery show. I focused on two tumbling cats to signal fun right away and kept the layout clean so the event details stay clear. A cream-to-honey gradient sets a warm stage, while a bright honey-orange highlight on the date line draws the eye. All artwork is original vector; I used a single 1-pt charcoal stroke to keep every element consistent. The toughest part was balancing “cute” with readability—my early drafts were too busy, so I trimmed extra paw prints and recentred the text block. Next time I’d explore variable-weight lettering for the headline and add a light paper texture earlier in the process to avoid late-stage color tweaks.
My poster goal was to market the beauty of the Philippine Blue Angelfish and raise awareness to a 40% off deal. This fake event would be on a timely basis showing the limited-time offer marked in a bold and easy to read format. I had an aim that the poster should be modern and minimal and have a good flow.I started by drawing one of my own angelfish in Adobe illustrator, so that the design could be viewed as more personal and real. I focused on leading lines in the fins to assist in guiding the eye on the picture. I colored the drawing using a monochromatic color scheme created by adobe. Then I imported the drawing to Photoshop to clean it up and save it as a PSD file. The reason why I did this was to make the final layout in InDesign,where I concentrated on the type and spacing (I find it the easiest here). Among the deliberate decisions, one was to make the shape of a triangle, which also makes a sort of a directional flow towards the upright title, thus contributing to defining the visual background of the whole composition. I think that the most powerful aspect of the work is that headline, as it identifies the piece immediately. Vertical composition, the shape of a triangle, and directional lines on the fish form a natural flow that the viewer can follow. It renders the design to be harmonious and self-assuredThe greatest difficulty was how far to take on the visual detail without overloading the statement. I was inclined to minimalism, and in the future, I would like to develop and incorporate some sort of soft texture or even some background images to enhance the composition with the layout remaining open. All in all, I am proud of the poster. This project allowed me to develop my skills in combining several tools and programs, such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, in a single workflow, and realize that well-thought choices can direct the experience the viewers have.
