The Project
This was completed for a typography course at San José State University. The requirements of this assignment were to research key steps in the history of typography, and to gather this information together on a poster with a two–color design (excluding white). The goal was to become familiar with the importance of typography in posters, as well as focusing on hierarchy and organization.
The Process
I completed this project only using Adobe Illustrator.
I first started this project by researching the information I would use for my poster, and then sketching out an early design of how I would organize this information.
Once I had the layout set, I began designing in Illustrator, and came up with my first version as a way of visualizing all my information in this layout.
Then, I began focusing on the individual hierarchy of my design, particularly with the titles and dates of each section of information. I was mostly experimenting with color and size to change this around.
Finally, I made some minor adjustments to round out the whole design of my poster. I wanted to draw attention to the most important pieces first and then move in order of importance, so that’s where most of my attention went at the end. I ended up with a design that I felt balanced everything I was looking for.
Sketch
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Final
The Purpose
As I mentioned, one of my main goals for this poster was my focus on hierarchy. Throughout my versions, I wanted to make sure that the most important elements were noticed first, and less important elements were noticed later.
One of the things I kept coming back to was the ‟of” in my title. I didn’t want the negative space in the corner to take up too much attention, so I wanted to fill this space. However, when I did this, the word ‟of”, was seen as the most important part of the title. So, I found a way, with color, to activate this negative space, while still maintaining my desired hierarchy.
Additionally, one of the focuses of my design was the history aspect. Not only did I want to convey history through my information, but also through my font selection. So, I selected a variety of typefaces that showcase the visual history progression of type. The titles moves from Blackletter (Amador), to slab serif (Clarendon), to rational serif (Bodoni), to a geometric sans serif (Futura). Also, these fonts are used throughout the poster with the section titles being Bodoni, dates are Clarendon, and all body text is Futura.
Within each information section, I used hierarchy as well. So, the titles had the heaviest weight font and largest size, and the body text had the lightest and smallest font. Also, I used color to draw more attention to the titles and dates, but in a way where everything still blended together and didn’t draw unnecessary attention to anything.
