Poster

Design Strategy:

The non- profit that I chose to design my poster for is an annual carwash held by Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority that benefits Reading Is Fundamental. RIF is a national non-profit organization that helps to put an end to illiteracy by donating books and other materials to children in need, as well as offering services to help them learn to read. Since RIF is geared towards children, I wanted my poster to reflect that. I chose to use the bucket, sponge, and soap bubbles as these are all indexical icons of a carwash and go along with my headline, “Wash Away Illiteracy”. By using live trace, I was able to make the primary visual look child friendly, almost as if a child had drawn it. This visual is the largest thing on the poster, yet my type headline is still large enough that they work together to balance each other out. I rotated the words “help wash away” so that they tilt toward and lead the eye to the word “illiteracy”. I made “illiteracy” 8 pt large than the other words in the headline since it is what RIF aims to prevent, so I wanted it to stand out just a little more. The soap bubbles that begin at the entry point of the poster and are used down through the bottom, provide visual gestalt to lead the eye down the page. Since my visual is focused on the event rather than the non-profit, I wanted to incorporate the non-profit in some way besides the RIF logo at the bottom right corner. To do this I chose to make the letter “K’s” in “Kappa Karwash” look like open books with book bindings as the stem and pages forming the legs. Overall, the childlike feel of my poster appeals to my demographic who are those who want to help out a cause that benefits children.

Choice of Typeface:

I only used one single typeface family on my poster, ITC Legacy Sans Std, as to not overwhelm the overall design. Since my non-profit is about preventing illiteracy and helping children to read, I wanted the typeface to be a simple and easy to read san serif font. I chose ITC Legacy Sans Std for just that reason, but also because the curvature at the tips of the leg of the letter “R” made the typeface more interesting. I used ultra for my header and book throughout the rest of the text.

Color:

To go along with the child-like theme of my poster, I chose to use primary colors, except for the gray color of the bucket handle and obviously the black text. The yellow color of the typeface leads the eye down to the yellow sponge, at which point you see the red bucket and follow the red down to the event name, and then to the RIF symbol at the exit point of the page. This use of color creates visual gestalt throughout the poster.