Digital Photography and Imaging / WEEK 5 - Project 2B (Poster)

20/09/2021
Esther Vanessa [0350751]
Digital Photography and Imaging
WEEK 5 - Practical

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LECTURE

Poster

• Conventional medium to convey information to the target audience
• Can be cluttered or straightforward
• The power of posters in generating awareness on an issue or conveying a brand message and luring the audience into buying products or services is immense
• Public Service Announcement
• a message in the public interest disseminated without charge, with the objective of raising awareness of, and changing public attitudes and behavior towards, a social issue 
• When working on a poster
• Research about the topic
• Study and gather all related information about your topic
• Write a summary about your topic
• Highlight key points of your summary
•  Define title, slogan, details, call for action
• Define your concept
• Create a section for each content (title, slogan, details, etc)
• Sketch your mock up poster 
• Start to develop your design projects
• Power of posters in generating awareness on an issue to lure/interact with the poster
• Creative posters where meaningful information comes wrapped with striking pictures and images

Figure 1.1 Example of PSA Poster

• Creative poster is made up of four key features
• Title
•  Descriptive indicator of the poster. SHOULD not exceed two lines of text
• Graphic
• Must appear in context with the main text (photo). Choose high resolution images (300 dpi or higher)
• Text
• Should clearly describe the message but not overloaded
• White Space
• Creates breathing room
• Layout, flow and color affect the order and style of these four key features
• Layout
• Graphic-centered layout is suggested

Figure 1.2 Graphic-centered layout poster

• Flow
• Coordinates how readers eye move around the different sections of poster
• Maintain hierarchy while displaying your message
• Color
•  Draws reader gaze and define the different sections of your poster
• Impact on your poster
• Purpose of the poster
• Depicting the idea clearly
• Conveying the message meaningfully and beautifully

Execution

Defining concept

• How to evoke viewer’s feeling, deliver strong impression?
• Use humor as sarcasm
• Use sensitive to be heartwarming

Figure 1.3 Poster Example

• Use artistic to be subtle

Figure 1.4 Poster Example

• Important to note that most mental Health PSA posters take gentle approach because target audiences are mostly vulnerable

Figure 1.5 Poster Example

Figure 1.6 Poster Example

Color Theory

• CMYK vs RGB
• CMYK primary colors for printing
• RGB used for display on screen

Figure 1.7 RGB vs CMYK

• Hue, shade, tint and tone
• Tint is a hue to which white has been added
• Tone is a hue in which black has been added
• Color Harmony
• Arrangement of colors

Figure 1.8 Color Harmonies

• Monochromatic
• On the same influence of the same color
• Analogous
• 3 colors located right next to each other on the color wheel
• Complementary
• Colors that are opposites on the color wheel
• This scheme is opposite to analogous and monochromatic since it aims to produce high contrast
• Split Complementary
• Involves the use of three colors. Start with one color, find its complement and then use the two colors on either side of it 
• Triadic
• Evenly spaced around the color wheel and tend to be very bright and dynamic
• Psychology of Color
• Colors have the ability to provoke specific emotion

Figure 1.9 Color and their corresponding emotion

• Warm vs Cool
• Warm often evoke feelings of happiness, optimism and energy
• Cool colors usually calming and soothing but can also express sadness
• Purple often used to help spark creativity as it’s a mixture of blue (calm) and red (intense)

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TASK

For the first part of making our own poster, we are assigned with our theme and we need to do research. The theme this year is staying positive during the pandemic, Mental Health PSA.

Here are the things we need to do for the first part.

1. Study and gather all related information about your topic.

2. Write a summary about your topic

3. Highlight the key points of your summary

4. Define the Title

5. Define the Slogan

6. Define the Details

7. Define the Call For Action

And here's what I end up with.

First off, the mood board of posters I will be taking inspire from.

Figure 2.1 Poster Reference

The research I came up with is the following,

Intro: Depression is more than just feeling down or having a bad day. When a sad mood lasts for a long time and interferes with normal, everyd ay functioning, you may be depressed.

Paragraph 1: Depression usually includes overwhelming amount of sadness, sometimes it comes along with anxiety. It can cause trouble in either falling asleep or sleeping too much. It would more often than not can cause trouble in concentrating and appetite.In general‚ about 1 out of every 6 adults will have depression at some time in their life. The most common symptom of depression is frequent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or self harming.

Paragraph 2: To best way to heal from depression is to go to therapy and talk to professional, take time off and reflect, spend time with the closest people. Remind yourself that you are not alone and there’s always people that are willing to help.

Summary: Depression is more common than you think and it’s more than just a period of sadness. Depression is usually accompanied by suicidal tendencies. Despite that, you can still heal from depression by going to therapy and talk to professional.

Afterwards, we use the key points from our summary to create composition

Figure 2.2 Key points from research

Mr. Fauzi then consulted with us and selected which points we should use in the poster. 

Title : FOLLOW THE LIGHTS

Slogan : We are all in this together

Details : Telephone counseling

Call For Action : There's someone who cares for you

We are then given a green light to go ahead with our poster execution. We first start by sketching each section of the composition.

Here is what I came up with, 

Figure 2.3 Title Sketches

Figure 2.4 Slogan Sketches

Figure 2.5 Call for action Sketches

Lastly, we are asked to do 2 sketches for our mock up poster, it doesn't have to be final.

Figure 2.6 Mock up Posters

During consultation hour, Sir Fauzi expressed that the first mock up poster is very interesting and I should go ahead and create it in Photoshop.

I first took a picture of a friend (picture taken by myself) and created selection with quick selection tool to remove the background. 

Figure 2.7 Removing background 

I also created the Title in illustrator using their tool to create suitable typography.

Figure 2.8 Creating Typography

Figure 2.9 Executing the poster

Figure 2.10 First Draft Result

When I started working on this, I  soon realize I could not execute the slogan on cheek photo edit since my friend's cheek is pretty covered by her hair. Nevertheless, I still try to recreate it first. I am not satisfied with it therefore I took another picture from a different friend and try to execute the same plan.

Figure 2.11 Friend's picture

From then on I use the select and mask option and selected the part of the picture I want to use and copied it to another canvas in which I'll be working on my poster on.

Figure 2.12 Selecting picture

Figure 2.13 Process

I use the spot healing tool to try and improve the skin texture to create suitable base for the slogan I'm going to be putting on top of her cheeks. I also played around with the hue and saturation to fix the color of the picture. I did not forget to clean up 

To try and put the slogan on her face, I'll be using warp tool which can be used after rasterizing the text layer. Afterwards, I try to choose a suitable blending mode to the text layer which is Overlay. 

Figure 2.14 Warping process

Figure 2.15 Overlay blending mode

I repeated the same process for the slogan.

Figure 2.16 Text wrapping for the slogan

I then process the other writings I'm putting on this poster. During this, I realize that rasterizing the type layer is affecting the quality of the writings. So while working on these, I kept in mind to just keep the layer as a type layer instead of rasterizing it.

Figure 2.17 Final version

Here is the result of the poster. 

Figure 2.18 Final result 

However Sir Fauzi feel like it's lacking, so I created a new poster based on what he sent on Pinterest. 

Here is my sketch based on what I get. 

Figure 2.19 Sketch

I then took a picture of my older brother, with a rather plain background with a better angle and crop.

Figure 2.20 Initial Photograph

For imaging, I decided to change the photograph to black and white, I used the adjustment layer in Photoshop for this, and chose infrared for the adjustment mode as it is the best choice for me. 

Figure 2.21 Progress

Afterwards, I also tried around with the typography, and followed up with the initial sketches. I specifically chooses monospace font for the minimalist look.

Figure 2.22 Progress

I also used Illustrator for the main title as I do feel like it's lacking a little bit. Not to forget, I also added paper texture in the background so the poster doesn't feel too flat.

Final result

Figure 2.23 Final Poster Result

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FEEDBACK

Week 6 

• It is better to use Follow the Light instead of You can find the light
• "We are all in this together" is the best out of 3 for slogan

Week 7

• First mock up poster is good. 

Week 9

• Poster result is lacking, could've done more.

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REFLECTION

Working on the poster is interesting, I want to try to create something that could evoke emotion from the viewers. I also want it to fall under the more minimalist look. I wish I could've done more things to the final poster however I don't want to go overboard with the imaging as it would ruin the whole poster.