Assignment 3: A poster

For this assignment, we had to design an illustration for a poster for a music event. I chose to do this for the lake Geneva morning summer concerts that take place at the lake beach bar and restaurant ‘Bains des Paquis’ at 6am with the sunrise. They are beautiful but VERY early.

I first started brainstorming with a spider diagram to think of images and ideas that would relate.

I then used this to create a moodboard. I took advantage of work travel to go to the place itself and took lots of photos and combined this with things I found on the internet, including previous examples of illustrations for the same concert and other music concert posters.

I then produced a range of alternative thumbnails, trying out different compositions and using different elements from the spider diagram and moodboard.

I believe that the best composition was the lighthouse with the sunrise with the lakeside in the background, simple and iconic and and so produced more specific visuals, first in black and white and then including in colour and trialling text placement.

I wanted to replicate the lake and sunrise and so I decided to stick to blues and dawn yellows and oranges and more pastel than too bold to keep it quite dreamy and sleepy and not too warm either since its early morning. I then thought I should make the venue’s most iconic element, the lighthouse, a silhouette in front of this for better contrasting effect.

In my visual I included the ‘beam’ from the lighthouse even though this doesn’t exist, based on the Black and White exercise I had done previously using the same subject. However, I knew that depending on how this would look when produced, I may decide to take this out.

Inspired by the texture work of Simon Pemberton and with the desire to try a new technique, I decided to create a textured collage for the final piece also hoping that this would give it a youthful and happy mood. I therefore then tried out different materials and set ups to see how this could work as per the below.

I first used acrylic and water colours and different water colour paper of different grains to do washes: cold pressed, hot pressed, smooth and grainy. The cold pressed medium sized grain really gave a nice texture while still smooth enough to represent sky and water so I started experimenting with this in a collage, not sticking anything down, using grey or black sugar paper to create the lighthouse and lake side in silhouette. I essentially created a lot of mock-ups and I documented this with photos and then would rearrange for another trial mockup.

Before doing more I took one of my photos to also test out text using InDesign to see how it might come off. I picked a youthful chalky text for the trial as it fits well with the artisanal look of the collage. I quite like the one with the text fully across the page rather than in margins, also as it stands out better when bigger. I knew though that more testing of font would come later with the final collage.

I then created some fake manuscript paper for the light beam to introduce the musical aspect and continuing to trial lighter or stronger colours, more blues or more greys etc. to see what gave a nice effect.

I then thought that I could change the silhouettes around and make the lighthouse black to stand out more and the farther away land in the background more grey. I then took time to carefully draw the lighthouse better onto white paper so I could see it better to then trace onto black and cut out. I decided to try to also convert the lighthouse into the top part of a violin as a sneaky way to bring the music aspect back in and introduce some symbolism. I also experimented with a straighter beam rather than ripped/fluid to see what might look best. It also definitely works better with the darker blues at the top to contrast with the beam though again I knew I was going to trial it without the beam once I decided on my final texture for lake and sky.

I continued experimenting with manuscript paper for the sky also washed with crayon, pencil or acrylic though I found this too ‘busy’ and not pastel enough so decided it was best to be simple with colours.

I then got some carpet and other samples in similar colours to try out further textures.

I even raided my wardrobe!

I also raided my wardrobe! Then I tried to bring more texture and depth to the lake. I tried the carpet tiles in different ways but I found it too much and too dark. I wanted to keep the wavy colours also reflected in the lake so I went back to trying to mix the paper waves with other textures.

I used different pieces of clothing and the samples I had to recreate the ways again and tried out different colours and arrangements. Some brought in too much texture and took away from the lighthouse etc. so I was trying to find the right balance. I also decided to break down the sun reflections to be finer which I thought was more in line with the size of the sun etc.

This is how I was compiling them below and on the right I was actually wearing the long stripy skirt and decided it could be good to try, together with my sports shorts!

I used the above to also try out again with fonts as per the below but definitely found the texture too much with stripes etc

I finally settled on the below combinations and decided to stick to the normal lighthouse as I didn’t quite like the violin and felt it still needed to be the shape of the actual Bains des Paquis lighthouse for better recognition. I played around with potentially sticking down the layers and the lighthouse more but I decided I quite liked the shadows when it wasn’t stuck down except for the lighthouse since it warped the shape so I lightly placed everything with blue tack to keep it all in place to take the below final images in high res with a camera.

I then moved in the image into InDesign to be able to try some fonts out and placing of the font. The below was perhaps too infantile so I tried some more.

I also tried the font in black but I felt it darkened it too much and also wasn’t as visible as the white. I tried the chalky one and some more elegant fonts but still wasn’t too convinced.

Still not convinced by any fonts, I then googled in Dafont.com for ‘poster’ fonts and found a nice one as per the below. Then I tried out different font placings and sizes to see what was the best fit. I tried having a margin or stretching the text to the ends, smaller and bigger, and more indented to the left and in two lines. The text being too close to the sun’s reflection on the lake bothered me so I also tried smaller text but still on two lines.

I finally decided for this one: smaller text on two lines and to the left – i felt that it balanced out the rest of the shapes and forms in the image and wasn’t too overpowering of the image but was clearly visible and legible.

Final reflections:

I had a lot of fun with this exercise as it both took me out of my comfort zone and let me be really creative in a way I never have! I also realise that I work more creatively when I can physically move things around either with my hands directly or in InDesign or Photoshop etc. it allows me to play around quicker and follow my thoughts that are bouncing around rather than drawing thumbnails and not being able to catch up with the different ideas I have.

The value of also being able to research a specific place itself and go take your own photos and actually design something that is for an even you have gone to and experienced and understand also makes a lot of difference when it comes to getting inspiration and also pulling from your sensorial and emotional experience, especially when it has been positive. COVID-19 is not be great for facilitating this in most cases for now but I look forward to being to do this more when I can, it definitely gets you more involved and drawn into the work.