There’s really something magical about posters.
In a way, posters remind me of poetry in motion. A way to connect through Word, through image, through placement and and intent! I love posters and I love their applications in the world. From movies to advertisements to events and everything in between, if I could simply illustrate posters for the rest of my life I probably would.
So imagine my excitement when the next assignment was poster creation!
After writing my brief for the assignment, I knew that I would be taking my initial inspiration from illustrative posters. Despite my end result taking different turns, this is where my heart lies in all of the best ways. Finding how to harmoniously merge idea with illustration with format. It’s wild! Here are some of my favourites and where I took most of my inspiration from for form, colour and content.
Visual conception can be a difficult thing to tackle. I find that there are always ideas that could work better, or ideas that you want to use that just might not fit the right mood, or it may be directed at the wrong audience. Knowing who you’re creating for and why is always the first hurdle of creating a poster or really any design. There is nuance behind every decision. In this instance, my audiences were prospective students of Medicine Hat College and the citizens and communities living in and around Medicine Hat that may be ignorant towards the plight of the art communities living and thriving in their spaces. For both of these posters, context was one of the most important indicators of mood and relevance. A simple word change, or the addition or taking away of something as benign as the wires on a keyboard really changed a lot about what was being said. Are you plugged in? Are you present? Are you detached, or are you simply ahead of the times, actively accessing new technology as an artist and designer, no longer tethered to the synchronicity of daily practice–?
There were so many questions to answer and so many visual elements to tackle. None was more important or meaningful as the last, as all marks made had a purpose at one point in time, though the meaning would be different to each person, with each interpretation holding its own weight and value.
I truly love the consumption of art, and we could talk about the effects all day long, but we’ll leave that for a different time. Instead let’s focus on how I tackled these problems myself with my process.
Getting started wasn’t too difficult this time around. I had a lot of ideas for the first poster designated for Medicine Hat College and the Arts&Design program. There were ideas that I liked more, ideas that I liked less and of course things that I would love to pursue in the future. My initial idea was to go with the first one pictured. However, this was something that I knew I would want to take my time illustrating.
My next favourite was the Model Citizen which was definitely where my hands went. There’s always something so magical about a good pun, and one that really makes you think. I liked that it was an idea that I could push with colour and line and just be kind of uncomfortable about it all with.
Oh! And, just for fun, here is a 60 second speed paint of me creating the illustrations for this piece! I hope you enjoy it.
The next poster was a little more difficult for me. I didn’t have as many ideas, and more over, it felt nearly impossible to understand, or grasp my head around the concept. Tackling the problem of a withering community, a lack or care for the arts, a desperate attempt to engage in people with what they would do in a world without art-?
All of that was a lot.
It felt a lot more personal to me. There was a simple notion behind it, but at first, my mind actively pushed against that notion. Death of Art in Medicine Hat. I tried to take a positive spin on it, and while I liked that spin, I knew in my heart that it was not the right path to take for such a hard and grim situation. There was a more powerful means with which to tackle this ever-present problem.
I began to think about what I would be without art. I thought about how others may not understand just what art is–what it touches and how it feels and the impact that it makes on their lives every single day.
How empty that would feel.
How we would have nothing at all.
To hold, to create, to feel and really truly engage with ourselves.
In order to connect this idea with Medicine Hat specifically, I used the Garamond typeface. Garamond is the typeface that is officially used by Medicine Hat in the town logo and general design applications in formal usage. It’s a beautiful typeface with an elegant serif. I am particularly fond of how the lowercase r seems to flick outwards. The outlined text indicates a lack of something. A missing piece. It rests in a stark contrast with the vast emptiness of the page surrounding it, anchored only by the logo and iconography at the bottom of the poster.
There were other renditions of this poster, of course. However, this one felt the most real to me. The most meaningful.
Here are a few others though, to cap this documentation off.
Mellvetica 