MED4110 Visual Design Free Practice

To improve my skills and develop my learning, I have created some designs outside of the portfolio elements and directed study tasks. I designed a poster for "Nature Photographer of the Year" and a flyer for "Bus Stop Diversity".

Above is a mockup showing my poster design for "Nature Photographer of the Year", a photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Although not an actual exhibition, I took inspiration from their Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.

I chose an A3 poster size, so that it would be big, bold, and eye-catching. I edited my own photograph on Photoshop, and imported it as a TIFF into indesign. I wanted the poster to have an element of photography, so that it related to what the poster was advertising. I decided to have to image in the background, but mirror it like a kaleidoscope view. I like how the image is blue, green, yellow and brown, because it suits "nature". Blue suggests strength and openness, green suggests mother nature and growth, yellow suggests energy and brown suggests warmth and nature. 

I chose a font called "White wood" because it was a sans-serif font with curved corners, which I think represents the curves and natural shapes in nature. At the same time I wanted it to be bold, so I put the text in bold and in black, with a white drop shadow so that it wouldn't get lost in the background. I centred the text to make it balanced, and it works well with the symmetry of the background. I like how to black of the text contrasts with the light colours in the background. 

Above is a mockup showing the flyer I designed for "Bus Stop Diversity" which is a media product for an event that BCU media students are putting on for the module Professional Media Practice.

I chose to recreate the recognisable bus and tube sign in London, which is a circle with a line through it. I made this white so I could overlay text on it, and then filled the background blue. I chose blue because it suggests trust, strength, spirit, openness and communication, which I feel represents diversity well and will also feel inviting to the viewer, so that they will want to go to the event. The circle shape also suggests love, positivity, community and friendship, which again represents the idea of diversity. 

I used the font helvetica, so that it was easy to read and modern. I changed the font size as it went down the page, to show the order of information. I centred the text so that it created a balance on the page.

I added the Custard Factory and Birmingham City University's, to show where the event is/what institution is involved. It also acts as free advertisement for these places. 

I made the bottom half of the flyer transparent because I thought it was a nice design touch, and it also connotes the idea of every one being different and diverse.

What I would improve about this design is perhaps the two logos. Because they are not the same height, it loses the balance symmetry  slightly and that bothers me.