Welcome Sign - Version 4

This is now the final version of the Welcome Sign. Minor changes were made, particularly with the font choice to fit in with the overall branding, some drop shadows, an added web address for the exhibition's website, and the way the 3D logo and anaglyphic effect was applied. To get the colours of the anaglyphic effect to properly match the red and cyan colours of 3D glasses, I had to change Illustrator's colour settings from CMYK to RGB, and got nice, brighter colours as a result of editing this setting:


Overall, I'm very happy with the way this has turned out. I was given good feedback for this from other members of the graphics teams, with at least one saying that it really felt like the 3D effect was there. Maybe the effect actually works, maybe it doesn't, I have no way of knowing since I haven't been able to test the effect. I tried following a web tutorial on how to apply the effect properly, but some problems I came across with said tutorial stopped me in my tracks, so I had to improvise.

It was also suggested to me that I make a sign that says "Thank you for visiting" to those who are leaving the exhibition. For this, I essentially flipped all of the elements of the poster around while also making some small changes to the text:

Welcome Sign - Version 3

After showing my welcome sign to other members of the graphics team as well as to the lecturer, it was suggested that I change the format to landscape instead of portrait, and give it a white background while also making it fit with the branding of the final poster design that was chosen. I made these changes to my design and this is what I have now:



It's certainly more interesting than it was before, and I must admit I'm happy with the way it looks. This is, however, not going to be the final version of the design as I plan to make some more adjustments to really make it stand out.

Welcome Sign - Version 2

Shortly after producing the initial version of the Welcome Sign, I knew there were some things that needed to change to make it better, so I made a second version of it. The first being that it was quite monochromatic, like my losing poster design, so I decided to add the anaglyphic effect to the logo. This idea will probably be carried over to a future version of this design once I've gotten feedback for it:

Welcome Sign - Version 1

Following the Poster development, I was assigned the task of putting together a welcome sign. This I felt didn't really need too much doing to it at first, since it's only really there to serve its purpose for five seconds before the person looking at it enters the exhibition.

With this cynical mindset of mine, I quickly put together this design making use of the 3D logo created for the exhibition, while bringing forward my idea of a red "3" and a blue "D" for the text. This design isn't final, and I will more than likely make some big changes to the overall look and feel once I've gotten feedback for it. It's a bit bland, but for something serving the purpose that it is serving, I think it's a good enough start.

Poster Concepts

The Graphics team that I am a part of for this exhibition recently held a poster competition - in actual fact, that was the very first thing we discussed as soon as the team was formed. After our designs were all completed we held a voting ballot with the whole lecture group, or at least those who were present, from which the final poster was chosen.

Mine didn't win, but I'll go through the process of my design here:



For my design, I wanted to try out a fairly simple, text-based design. Using white text on a dark blue background - chosen to match the University's navy blue - I felt this would be pleasing on the eye. The large "3rD" makes use of a red 3 and a light blue "D", playing on the fact that anaglyphic 3D glasses usually have red for the left eye and blue for the right. I chose to capitalise the D in "3rd" for a unique effect, having it read as "3rd" while also playing on the exhibition theme being based on 3D.

A second variation of this poster was produced, and for this one I instead applied a faux anaglyphic effect to a white 3 and D, as a subtle way of conveying the theme, on the same coloured background:



When both designs were shown to other group members in the classroom, the dark blue background wasn't too well received, as the brighter Mac monitor made it look purplish. My monitor at home makes the colours on screen look slightly dimmer than they really are for some reason, and that didn't help. With this idea not being as well received, I chose to instead have black text on a white background, and see if that turned out any better:



The "R" inbetween the 3 and D was capitalised, as suggested by another student in the graphics team. Along with this change I also added the University's logo to the top of the poster. With this change, I feel that the poster lost what I hoped made it eye-catching in the first place; however, at least one other student noticed the anaglyphic effect when it was shown on the screen. Overall, I don't feel that using a white background was the best idea - especially with my design being quite simplistic compared to other team members - and thus it only got one vote from the other students present when we held the voting. Perhaps I simplified my design too much and thus made it boring?

In retrospect, I think having the red 3 and the blue D on the white background would have been a much better design choice for me to go with, as something like that is more likely to grab the attention of passers-by than just black with an effect that may not be noticeable.