Category: P. Farrand

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P. Farrand Poster

FARRAND POSTER

Tyrese awesome poster
Click this image to see my design!

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.

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Magazine P. Farrand

Parker’s Magazine!

My goals for this presentation was to explore with design techniques based on the theme of the story. On my opening spread, I researched how to use the type on a path tool to create a visually stimulating piece that worked with the main image. It was really tricky to figure out, which caused the edges to not be perfect following the semicircle pattern of the tunnel. I felt accomplished since I was able to successfully use the tool in multiple parts of that spread. On my second spread, I wanted the three different train maps to feel like a train map in the process of reading. I created a path and focused on making sure it followed a reasonable path for the readers eyes to follow around the text. I feel like it works well, but the size of the left red line may end up being a bit distracting while reading.

I successfully stuck followed the three face maximum and connected my ASF to my main story with the Chalkduster font. I was especially careful on following my grid in the second spread. I tried to have each element line up perfectly to their grid lines, which made me specifically proud of the top left sign where the underground text perfectly covers the grid. I used the eyedropper tool on my cover and in my spreads to create unity, which I think helps keep a consistent and attractive theme. The grey background for the sidebar is the same color as the railroad in the opening spread image. Considering the story is focused on the development of the tube map, I thought the reader would be most interested in the evolution of the map. I wanted to design a an interesting way to see that evolution and I think it turned out to be very visually interesting.

Magazine Cover Farrand
Click image for full design!

I learned that it was incredibly helpful to plan ahead. There were a couple ideas I had for the opening spread and cover that would not have ended up successful in practice (at least in the way I tackled it on paper) and I am glad I caught that before I spent the time trying out the design. There were a couple ideas I had to bail on after giving them a crack, but it could’ve been much more. I also learned how to research my own techniques to incorporate into the design. The curved text on my opening spread could’ve been better. The time spent to get it where it ended was more than I expected, and I had to accept that it was not going to be perfect. So I think next time I should experiment with a concept a bit more before committing to it. I also noticed my text is a bit tight and uneven in places, and it may even cause my ASF to appear a bit bland. I like the idea I had, but maybe spending more time tweaking text and adding color to largely white pages could be more appealing.