Inspiration

Viewing Sporting Posters

Overview

I undertook some research on the Internet to gather lots of different ideas for my sporting event poster, based on the theme of football as this was my favourite sport. First of all, I looked at some sporting posters in general to grasp an understanding of the sort of thing I needed to make. I then looked at some matchday posters from 'Manchester United' to see how they designed theirs and what techniques they used. From this, I understood that bright colours were used in the first poster to attract your attention and to make the poster look exciting. Furthermore, both posters utilised small text for the information so that the emphasis was placed more on who would have been playing. One more aspect I noticed with the second poster was that there was a faded effect with red blending into the image.

The 'Manchester United' Matchday Posters Viewed

Typography Inspiration/Research

Overview

I then undertook further research and looked at lots of different artists and designers to gain an understanding of the types of typography used within their work. I found a couple of pieces of work from David Carson and analysed them in detail and I took inspiration in the way in which he displayed his typography. From the first piece, I understood that big typography was followed by small typography to add emphasis to the piece. Regarding the second piece, I understood that sometimes the writing was spaced out for impact.

I continued to study the way in which typography was used but this time I looked at Herbert Lubalin’s pieces of work and I found one piece which used lots of different techniques, especially italics in some places. I then thought I could have used something like this in my sporting poster. From viewing this piece I understood italics were used along with sometimes bold writing to add emphasis and to make the piece stand out more, to engage the audience in a better way.

The Typography Pieces Viewed

My Sketches and Ideas

Overview

Whilst conducting my research, I noted down the important assets to take from my inspirational pieces and started to sketch some ideas down on paper to experiment with what ideas would have worked and which wouldn’t have.

Initial Ideas

Overview

With regards to the second image below, first of all, I thought I would have a background picture of a football pitch with a football in the centre and the two teams playing in different halves of the pitch. However, then I changed my idea because I thought I would try to integrate the 'Golden Section' theory into my work in a better way so I came up with the idea to the right of the original one. This idea was to have a ball curling into the goal net.

The Sketches of my Initial Ideas

Noting Important Aspects and Creating a List of Ideas

Overview

I then wrote down, on another piece of paper, all of the important techniques and assets to take from my research and put a star next to the ones which I would have integrated into my sporting event poster. As will be evident below, I divided the notes into two sections, one with the key things to take from the 'Manchester United' matchday posters and the other with general ideas taken from a variety of artists.

After compiling a list of useful ideas to take from my research and inspiration, I then created a list of ideas for my sporting event poster, a football charity match where 'Manchester United' would be playing 'Chelsea' in an attempt to raise money for 'Cancer Research UK'. I thought about information such as the venue it would have been held in and at what time and how you would have been able to access more information through the website addresses provided. I also included details of how the poster would have been presented, for example what colours and images would have been used. This was to help myself visualise all of the different parts I wanted to include in my poster.

The Notes and Ideas

Creating Initial Visual Ideas

Overview

After making a list of ideas, I then started to draw a rough sketch of my poster to gauge how it would have appeared and where everything would have been placed. I then experimented with the curl behind the ball, making half of it red with 'UNITED' text in that half and the other half being blue with 'CHELSEA' text. I also placed the 'VS' text in the middle of both halves. To add to this, I experimented with big and small text on the bottom half of the poster, spacing each of the letters out on 'VENUE' and 'TIME' to gain an understanding of how much emphasis it would have conveyed.

Furthermore, on another piece of paper I wrote down some of the information on the poster and added shadows to 'VENUE' and 'TIME' to see how much of an impact it would have had. Furthermore, I drew a picture of the football and drew a rough copy of the 'Cancer Research UK' logo inside of it to analyse how well it would have appeared if I were to do this on the actual poster.

The Sketches/Visual Ideas

My Improved Design

Overview

Here, I added to the original including a picture of a footballer which I created myself along with changes to the appearance of some of the font and layout. This was to ensure that all of the items of the poster didn’t seem excluded and that they all had some significance in this piece. This would have therefore increased the amount of harmony in my sporting event poster. Including the footballer added purpose to the curling lines behind the ball, to symbolise movement within the piece, hence adding more excitement. Again, with the 'rule of thirds', I tried to make sure it was present with the footballer to the left with the ‘for more information’ boxes at the bottom and the football with the other information to the right.

I changed the shadow around the 'CHARITY MATCH' text to a white outline instead as I thought it would have added more emphasis to the focal point of the piece. Furthermore, I created a shadow effect for some elements solely for the purpose of adding impact to the important pieces of information. Different positioning of the shadows helped to add a better sense of flow to my work. With regards to the information content at the bottom of the poster, I included some rectangles, creating a box around each piece of text. I also moved the pieces of text to the left to make the poster flow better.

The Actual Design

References for this Project

Overview

As explained previously on this page, below is a document which contains the references for this project.