The purpose of this project is to create a poster to recruit students for the Bauhaus school of design, I included the primary colors to create a “spotlight” effect.
Application(s) used: Procreate on iPad, Adobe Illustrator
About this project:
I created this poster for a class called Graphic Design History and Theory, I mostly learned about the Bauhaus movement. Besides the movement, Bauhaus was also a design school. My professor said to pretend that we are in 1920s Dessau, and we were the marketing team for the school. We had to design a poster to attract students to the program, it needs to be clear and simple, but also include all the information needed for them to take the next step when they see it. Within that, we had to select one of the programs that Bauhaus school of design offers, wood, weave, color, glass, clay, and stone.
First thoughts:
When I received the assignment, I was immediately drawn to the color program that they offer. But I had no idea how my delivery is going to be. I knew that they really focused on the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow. Which when I was thinking of that, I feel like I was limited. I like to use colors, a lot of colors, but in that time period, it was not possible to even print that many colors. So I started to do some research and I decided to start with drawing out the school main building because I enjoy illustrating the most. So I added some the basic shapes, circle, triangle and square with the basic colors on top, then for the building to show through I lowered the opacity. After that I added some catchy phrase and where the students can visit and get more information.
Then I saved it printed it, then turned it in! HA, just kidding, and it does not have the Bauhaus feel to it at all. It looks like there is too many words, and the white background makes it look cheap. At this point I was frustrated because I felt stuck and I don’t know where to go next. So I took a break, and decided to start again. Since the white background bothered me so much, in my head I was like, hmmmm if white looks cheap but what about black? People like black and I associate black with luxury so I gave it a try.
Making the background black:
I made the background black and accidentally made something that looks kinda cool, it’s almost like a spotlight effect. But! I felt like it does not show the building a lot, and it could be confusing on what it is. So I had a great idea, BLOBS! So I took away the shapes and drew some blobs so the building is peeking through, I also made use of negative space so the mind can hep to “fill in” the rest of the building. This is a great start to something greater because it has enough design on the bottom and enough room to put information on top.
The catch phrase:
I knew I had to have a catch phrase and information about the school in there, but I just could not think of a good catchphrase. I tried things like, “unleash your inner artist”, or “unleash your inner potential”, “color is in everything”, nothing was really poping. So I decided to do more research! I was really honed into the idea that essentially when you are creating an art piece, you start with a dot. it’s dots, lines then shapes. Then I remembered this quote by Wassily Kandinsky, Russian painter and art theorist, he was named as one of the pioneers of abstract art. He said “Everything starts with a dot”, when I saw that I was like YES, that is the catchphrase I need! So I added that onto the poster along with the address of the school. One of the hardest part of this was to make sure the words on the building was in ~perspective~, But I am glad it worked out.
Final piece:
After that, I felt like it needed one last finishing touch, So I decided to add a “glitch” effect on the quote.
This project was definitely a challenge, just like all projects. But I have learned that sometimes if you are stuck in a project, make drastic changes to your it, maybe you will end up with something cool.