Witness the Future - Initial Ideas

These initial poster designs demonstrate the experimentation process that was undertaken in coming up with poster designs. Fig 1 and 2 show the initial process of mocking up the pattern with ‘WTF’ in a bold sans serif typeface, with the other information underneath. Blue and purple gradients and layers were experimented with for the pattern, however after trying this out, it was clear just once colour would look better, purple was chosen as the colour because it reminiscent of the style, and purple is the colour that penguin books used to categorise there sci fi series so it fit quite nicely. Another factor that was decided after these designs were made was that the main type needed to be a little more exciting, perhaps with a retro and/or sci fi aesthetic. Also the body type needed to be a bit more simple and readable. 

Fig. 3 shows the introduction of ‘Kalisto Lined’ being used as a main typeface, this turned out really well as its reminiscent of sci fi but not too stylised and also the lined quality gives it a bit of texture making sure it doesn’t stand out too much and seem out of place. A blue gradient was added to the black background to give it a more environmental sky like quality, this was interesting to try and didn’t look too bad but ultimately it wasn’t used because the poster looked better simply focusing on the pattern and form and not putting it in an environmental context. 

Fig.4 is where a grid/box was used to close in the pattern, allowing the type to go underneath, this definitely worked as a visual system and gave the poster a bit more structure. In fig. 5, a different pattern was tested out with higher frequency waves; its interaction with the type produced cool results, suggesting that it was winding around the letterforms, giving it a 3D quality, however they pattern was a bit too dense and took attention away from other elements of the poster. 

Fig. 6 shows experimentation with imagery, while the metallic arm is quite contemporary and fits well with the theme, compositionally it didn’t fit with simple pattern and type of the poster and stuck out a bit. Lastly in fig. 7, the purple was substituted for a bright green which also has a bit of a sci-fi feel, reminiscent of the matrix. Ultimately it was decided that the purple worked better as it didn’t contrast the black as much and was better rationalised in the concept. One thing that did work on this poster however was the bottom box, encircling the type and giving the poster more structure and order.