Poster Project

Design Hero: Lotta Nimeinen

Gathering Inspiration

As first steps to begin designing a poster for Lotta Nieminen, I compiled together images of Lotta’s work as well as photographs of her. Using Figma I put together images of her print illustration work, and her graphic design work from fashion company books. Additionally, I researched the typefaces that show up in her work and found similar ones, such as Canela, and GT Walsheim. From these photos of Lotta’s work, I used the eyedropper tool to pull out certain color swatches that I could potentially use.

Sketching

Next, I began to sketch sample poster ideas. I used different orientations and angles of Lotta’s figure to play with the composition. Specifically, I wanted to play with the way either cutout shapes or certain type elements could make sections of the poster more interesting.

One idea was taking icons and symbols in Lotta’s children’s book series like a strawberry, and have it scattered over the poster. Other key elements prevalent in Lotta’s work are crayon scribbles, and geometric shapes. I decided to take this idea and be inspired to take my own illustrative direction. On the sides, I tested some colors and possible abstract marks and shapes.

Initial Concept Drafts

For the 2 poster ideas, I used Procreate and Illustrator to practice laying out different elements. I also experimented with a light pink color scheme and a cool toned blue one. I placed some trees inspired by her Google Calendar redesign and other shapes to create balance in the composition.

Feedback

One critique from the poster draft was to use actual images from her work rather than illustrating my own interpretation, so I photoshopped elements from her cookbook series and played with layering of different parts, and adding spaces for text.

Another point to consider was inserting the text elements into the poster and not relying on the concept of lines. This is something that I learnt the importance of, by actually doing, because I realized that once text is introduced, it needs to be altered. Using type as shape in the poster is something I intend to experiment with.

Round 2

After class critique, the next steps would be to actually start building my poster in InDesign, rather than continuing to sketch using Procreate and Illustrator. One reason for this is because the it makes the quality more refined, and there is a greater sense of control with different elements.

Additionally, this would help with the color of the poster to not appear dull or muted. While the above iterations were helpful to get a feel for how to use and feature a good scope of Lotta’s work, I think that it needs more refinement, and has to be worked on to come to a sense of more fidelity.

Soft Deadline Final Poster

As I worked with inDesign, I decided to take things in a slightly different direction and go back to using the more expressive photo of Lotta because it felt more communicative of her personality in her work.

I chose to maintain the stylistic choice of covering her eyes with her colored pencil scribbles, because it ads a bit of mystery and interestingness to the figure.

I realized I needed to make callouts, so I chose more specific key works to feature. I stuck with the layering and playing with opacities to draw more attention to her portrait. Instead of triangles and standard shapes, I extracted the scribbles from her design of the Massionette brand. I think I still need to play with the scales of text however.

More Feedback

Some key improvements to work on by the end of this class would be:

• working more closely with InDesign and Illustrator tools to make cutout elements and images more crisp to the edge without sharp points or white space (working on craft)
• experimenting more with color and opacities to refine the hierarchy of point of interest for the viewer’s eye.
• Making the body text smaller to play with the space of the poster more effectively

Making Revisions

As a made more revisions to be poster I considered

• playing with type and placement once again
• trying colored letters of her name
• how to make quote standout- I added layered “post it” rectangle backgrounds so the text is more apparent.
• hanging the quote
• showing Lotta’s smile but still covering one eye
• Improving contrast and vibrancy and changing opacities

Final Poster and Reflection

From this project I thought what was particularly challenging was working straight in InDesign without a sense of direction. As a result, sketching, and then maybe using Figma or other faster tools to map out composition will be helpful in the future before moving into InDesign. Because InDesign affords more technical control I was sometimes a bit stuck but I kept working to change the small things that were bothering. I think this final version is definitely more vibrant and readable, but there can maybe me room to play with titles better.