Typography, Extra Assignment: Open House Poster 2011

11" x 17" Open House Poster

This may seem to be just an ordinary poster that promotes El Camino's  upcoming Open House (2011) event that is to take place at May 20, but there's more to it than meets the eye; actually, there was a lot of work put into it. Similar to the past projects, the elements (and/or principles) of design were applied on this poster as well. Furthermore, the typeface used for this project was Hanzel Extended Normal since it appears to be "Modern" in terms of design (it was chosen for its roundness and flexibility). The design of this poster was inspired from the Russian Constructivist Movement. This project was done on Adobe Illustrator; its actual size is 11" x 17".

When it comes to designing a poster, visual hierarchy is very important as it arranges the most essential messages before the less important ones. In this case, there is greater emphasis on the title of the poster as it is the largest in size. It has an elaborate and dynamic composition as it forces the viewers' eyes to move in different directions; it may also compel them to tilt their heads to read it. The title is regarded as the most important because it tells viewers where the event it taking place (especially what the event is). The second rank of the hierarchy is the day, date and time since they inform the viewers when the event is going to occur. Therefore, they were also enlarged and were placed along the right edge of the title. The school address, web address, phone number, information on art classes, punchlines, and other bonus/extra messages are considered to be among the lower ranks of the visual hierarchy. Thus, they are way much smaller in size. In order to avoid imitating the composition of the title (for the sake of originality), these secondary informations have been aligned right in a linear position that has been tilted to the left. This position contradicts the title's position that falls to the bottom right side of the poster. Lastly, it is very effective to only use one or two typefaces for a poster. If the designer uses more than two typefaces, the poster may become visually confusing as its viewers may not know where to look first.