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Typographic Poster


Mistakes are opportunities.


The GoaL: Make 3 digital posters designed to attract viewers to a series of events.



The Details

Create a typography-focused visual design system that unifies the poster set without making the posters functionally identical in design. The visual system should aid rather than impede the understanding of the content of the poster and help to deliver its message. The design system should incorporate an understanding of informational hierarchy. The posters will invite viewers to attend a series of events made to explore the work of 3 inventors.

Project time: 7 weeks

The Process


 RESEARCH 


Discovery

The first part of this design process was understanding the focus of these typographical posters: the 3 inventors. A Venn diagram was used to visualize common areas. Themes of data application, navigation, and hardship perseverance were discovered.




 Exploration 


Free Play 

The goal of this exercise was to further cement that the real world is full of powerful tools to inspire and innovate design visuals. The way this was accomplished was by distorting printed words to produce dynamic text that could be used to convey meaning.


Rule-Based Play
The goal of rule-based play was to understand how setting design boundaries can expand opportunity. This was accomplished by creating draft concepts with specific rule sets in mind. The ideas concieved here fueled designs later on, though on their own were aimless. Exploration is a journey.


Sketching

Sketching is a quick and efficient way of brainstorming that allows quick ideation without digital constraints. It allows the exploration of composition strength without a significant time sink.



 DESIGN 


Digital Ideation

In the initial phases of digital ideation, multiple themes were being explored on a single person, Claudius Ptolemy, in order to solidify a design system before creating a poster set.


Making Connections was settled upon as a theme due to a common goal between the inventors. The focus became finding a way to show connections being made through typography.


The original concept for this series is that between the 3 typefaces used, a different one could be emphasized in each poster to represent the age of each inventor and show a passage of time.

This concept was scrapped due to a disassociation
with the design, and a lack of direction.

A New Direction

After a second research phase, the typeface IBM Plex was chosen due to the connection with Gladys West having worked for IBM for her invention, as well as the nature of the typeface having character and uniformity. IBM Plex Mono was chosen to help with rhythm, though other fonts in the type family were explored. A renewed focus was made on the phrase, X marks the spot, and what that could entail.



Ultimately, the third design pictured above was chosen and refined.

Claudius Ptolemy


Claudius Ptolemy used maps of landmarks of the Ecumine—the “inhabited” (western) world—and plotted them on a grid. The intention of the poster is to imply a connection to an age where technology was physical, and the unknown was understood through a lens of religion.

Gladys West


Gladys West was hired by IBM to use existing tidal and gravitational data to calculate the shape of the Earth as a geoid. As a scientist in the age of computers, Gladys’s work was empowered by the technology of her time and saw the problems she solved through a scientific lens.

Kursat Ceylan


Kursat Ceylan invented the WeWALK, a smart cane made for visually impaired people, by applying existing GPS data and designing a tool that connects blind people to their cities and surroundings. As the WEWALK invention shined a metaphoric light for visually impaired people, this poster begins to shine light on Kursat.

The Visual System

The use of IBM Plex Mono as a sole font throughout each poster gives a sense of unity between the pieces. The main feature of all 3 is the name of the inventor in large letters, and due to the nature of monospace type, grids form naturally, and rest of the type becomes based on the titular character. Type sizes and fonts were shared between common features in each poster.


 CURRENT ITERATION 





TYPOGRAPHIC POSTER: ANIMATION →


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