Tile Poster Pages

In order to get a sense of how your Project Five poster sizes up, you could print a 100% size file to the plotter. But there are other ways.

Use Illustrator or Adobe Acrobat to print your poster as tiles.

This method will print your poster full size, but it prints to letter-size or tabloid-size paper, and you can see your poster come together by taping each sheet together.

In Illustrator, follow this procedure:

1. Print your poster
2. In the General dialog find Scaling
   Change Scaling from Do Not Scale to Tile Full Pages
3. Set the overlap to be approx. 0.50 to 1.00 inches so you have enough space to overlap your sheets

You can also print to tiled pages in Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Pro, following these instructions.

Project Five

Design a brochure, a.k.a. conference manual, that conference attendees can use for guidance during the events. This conference manual will be for the conference you created in Project Four.

Final work due Thursday Nov. 30, the last day of class. See the class calendar for in-progress reviews and other milestones.

• Audience: your conference attendees from Project Five
• Purpose: inform and guide users through the conference, making them aware of current and upcoming events
• Format: may be printed, such as a folded brochure; or may be digital such as an app
• Printed brochures must be handed in on Nov. 30 as printed mock-ups
• Digital brochures must be created as a series of screens, and need not be rendered as functioning apps nor websites; may be either a website, web app, or mobile app
• Size: open, but if printed, must have at least 6 individual panels
• Imagery: created by you
• Supporting Text: Design Thinking pages 132-140

Work at a Glance

1. Define brochure content, collect and/or write content
2. Outline content and organize it for your layout
3. Define typography to use, carrying over from your poster
4. Create layouts using a grid
5. Refine and revise as needed
6. Deliver final printed (mocked-up) or digital (app or web-based) brochure at our last class, Nov. 30

Evaluation: worth 100 points total

• 20 Craft & Technique: use of materials, execution of work, reproduction and technical quality
• 30 Design Composition: unity and variety, hierarchy, layout and presentation of information, overall originality, making it "on brand" with poster
• 30 Concept & Design Thinking: research, appropriate concept, theme and "total brand packaging"
• 20 Presentation & Professionalism: following directions and meeting deadlines, understanding of the project and solutions

Goals:

• to apply everything you have learned up to this point in the semester to a comprehensive design project: typographic hierarchy, unity and variety, brand identity, style as message 
• to create an additional design component for a prior project
• to utilize one design component's "look and feel" and apply it to a secondary design component

Exercise 5

Objective: Students will identify no less than 5 items that would be "give aways" at their Project 4 conference. These should be physical things, such as mugs, bags, totes, bookmarks, etc.

At our Nov. 16 class, students will present those 5 items to the class, in list form.

Students will also need to collect text and image content that will be used in a conference manual, a.k.a. brochure, for conference attendees to use and guide them through the events. The brochure's format and specfiications, which are part of Project Five, will be detailed at a later date.

Evaluation: worth 30 points total

• 20 Professional Engagement: presentation of ideas, meeting requirements, oral presentation of information
• 10 Execution: inclusion of minimum content (and beyond), quality of content, organization of information

Goals:

• to identify potential promotion items
• to collect and gather content to be used in a brochure for Project Five

Project Four

Design two posters, a front and back, that promote a conference or event that you have created. 

Final work due Thursday Nov. 9. See the class calendar for in-progress reviews and other milestones.

Work at a Glance

1. Invent a conference, that may be local, regional, national, or international.
2. Define the conference’s events, purpose, guest speakers, and duration (days, weekend, or weeks).
3. Create a persuasive poster, that is attention-getting, spurring the viewer to learn more about the conference and/or attend the conference.
4. Format the poster for printing at the RVRC plotter, delivering your final designs (front and back) as a high-quality print formatted PDF.

Defining the Conference. Conduct extensive, independent research to learn about world events, business events, humanitarian, and/or art events. Your conference may be for any one of those areas or a combination. Explore mindmapping and concept boarding to get your thoughts visualized and begin to organize them, searching for a trajectory or destination, identifying or creating your conference. Create 2 Creative Briefs and 2 Concept Boards (as moodboard or mindmap or concept board) before moving to the design phase.

Creative Brief, Required Reading:

1. Mastering the Creative Brief
2. Creative Brief Must-Haves
3. Simple Yet Effective Creative Briefs

Making Your Poster. Creative and rendering methods are wide open for this project, although the final project must include the following:

• 2 Posters, a two-sided poster with a large visual on one side and a more information-rich piece of content on the back
• Size: 18-inches by 24-inches, folds down to 9-inches by 6-inches as a self-mailer
• Folded-Format: the folded format is important, but the content does not need to fit into the 6-by-9 cells of the folded format, so do not feel like you must lock that content into those rectangles (although you could if your concept warranted it)
• Imagery: created by you
• Copy: minimum 50 words on the poster backside, authored by you, providing more information about the event

Your poster's front-side, the presentation side, can use type and image, be all type, or be mostly image with a little type. See some examples here, at PRINT magazine. And stylistically, be sure the style promotes the message and event. Don't use style just for the sake of style, just because you like it. Use style with a purpose.


Process & Design, Required Reading:

• Graphic Design Thinking pages 16-21 and 140-165
• Stop, Think, Go, Do! chapters 3, 5 and 7

Image resolution and image quality are important. So make sure your images are of good quality, without any pixels or pixel-noise present in the final printed file.

Final Submission. All posters will need to be formatted as PDFs with .125-inch bleed around all edges. Save to our Turnstile_2 folder on or before our Nov. 9 deadline.

Evaluation: worth 100 points total

• 10 Craft & Technique: use of materials, execution of work, reproduction and technical quality
• 40 Design Composition: unity and variety, hierarchy, layout and presentation of information, overall originality and resonance of posters and images created for poster
• 30 Concept & Design Thinking: research, appropriate concept, use of creative brief and moodboard(s)
• 20 Presentation & Professionalism: following directions and meeting deadlines, understanding of the project and solutions

Goals:

• to conduct research and brainstorm to help define a design problem
• to develop a concept and articulate it via a concept abstract
• to explore physical thinking and unconventional tools as ways to give form to concepts and develop the visual vernacular
• to design an evocative and unique poster that commands attention and resonates

Exercise 4

Objective: Identify 3 poster designers, only one of them may be from the U.S.A. and the other two must be from outside the U.S.A. At least one poster designer must be from outside of North America and South America.

Provide 3 examples of each poster designer's work to show in class on Thursday Oct. 19 in preparation for your own presentation on Tuesday Oct. 24.

Once your posters and poster designers have been approved, prepare a lecture to give to class on Tuesday Oct. 24. Each poster designer in your lecture must include:

1. date the poster was created and/or released, show 3 posters per poster designer
2. a description of each poster in your own words, including how it was made, the concept/message, and any inspiration the designer actually used
3. in your own words, explain what art and/or design history movement(s) or work(s) are similar in look and feel to each poster design
4. state why each of the posters works based on your own assessment of the design and message

Compose your presentation as a single PDF for display on the RVRC's iMac overhead display. Upload your PDF presentation to our Turnstile_2 folder at the start of class Tuesday Oct. 24.

Evaluation: worth 30 points total

• 10 Professional Engagement: presentation of ideas, meeting requirements, oral presentation of information
• 20 Execution: inclusion of minimum content (and beyond), assessment of work shown and your opinions about works shown, quality of content, organization of information in visual aids shown (3 posters for each of your 3 designers)

Goals:

• to research posters and poster designers 
• to develop a better understanding of how posters work

Project Three

Design a 6-page article, 3 spreads in all, using your chosen magazine and assigned article. Your creative brief should guide your work, serving as both a spark and a road map.

• Publication: chosen by student
• Length: 6-page article, 3 spreads in all
• Size: based on chosen publication
• Imagery: found imagery (minimum requirement), created imagery is encouraged but should be appropriate and high quality
• Written Copy: entire story (article) should be included and used, spell checked, and typeset; use headlines, subheads, photo captions, folios, etc.; a minimum of three pull quotes is required

Explore your magazine and get to know it from the perspective of both a reader and an art director charged with designing each page, each article, and the entire magazine from cover to cover. For this project, you will design a 3-spread article, all while keeping the magazine's total design in mind. Your article design should stay true to the magazine, but provide enough of a unique approach as to feel fresh and exciting. Make something new, but too new. Don't be bound by its existing conventions, but don't take too big of a risk with it visually that it looks like a completely different publication.

Evaluation: worth 100 points total

• 15 Craft & Technique: use of materials, execution of work, reproduction and technical quality
• 30 Design Composition: unity and variety, typographic hierarchy, layout and presentation of information, use of the grid
• 30 Concept & Design Thinking: research, appropriate concept, planning, use of creative brief
• 25 Presentation & Professionalism: following directions, meeting deadlines, understanding of the project and solutions

Final deadline Tues. Oct. 10, submitted as a PDF in spreads to Turnstile_2.

Goals:

• to apply the lessons from Project 1, namely typographic hierarchy in a one page layout, to a more comprehensive design project
• to utilize research that fuels a creative brief
• to learn about publication design by studying an existing magazine
• to design a layout for an existing magazine, and use 2D fundamentals for your composition
• to create a design with unity and variety, of image and text

Exercise 3

Objective: To define your creative goals for Project 3, setting the stage for your concept and art direction that will be part of your 6-page article design, 3 spreads in all.

Select one magazine from the list below that you will use for your Project 3 layouts.

• Fast Company
• W
• Elle
• Smithsonian
• Interview

Develop a creative brief (p. 56–59, Lupton's Graphic Design Thinking) to articulate a concept and design direction for your selected magazine, and the overall look and feel for your feature article. Your creative brief should include the following (at minimum):

1. Bring a copy of the magazine to our Sept. 28 class. It should have been published within the last 2 years.
   
2. Publication Info: What information about the publication itself is important to know? Readership, angle, graphic standards, etc.
3. Feature Article Info: How do feature articles look and feel compared to other running articles? What do they do differently with images and typography? Brief summary, title, key points, angle, etc.
4. Communication Objectives: Does the magazine and its articles inform, advocate, entertain, something else?
5. Selected Article: Students much identify a feature-length article, and have it ready to share with class on Sept. 28
6. Concept: What is the idea you have for representing this article? Must outline at least 2 separate concepts and potential directions for each. This could include a concept abstract/statement, keywords, moodboards, potential titles, etc.
7. Art Direction: What direction do you have for the content and execution for the artwork, splash page, photographs? Read kit of parts, pg 126–131, Lupton's Graphic Design Thinking, supporting art, etc. This could include inspiration boards, thumbnail sketches, etc.

Evaluation: worth 30 points total

• 10 Professional Engagement: presentation of ideas, participation in class, meeting requirements
• 20 Execution: inclusion of minimum content, quality of content including spelling and grammar of written work

Due Thurs. Sept. 28: students bring 1 feature-length article, to fit a 6-page layout, found online or in their printed magazine, article's text must eventually be formatted as a digital Word document, Google Doc, Rich Text Format, or other word processing file for use in Project 3
Due Thurs. Sept. 28: written content for items 1–7 above, saved as PDF to Turnstile_2

Goals:

• to learn about a creative brief through a hands-on exploration of a selected magazine
• to evaluate a design artifact, the student's chosen magazine, and use that evaluation to spur their own layout