DV2100 Graphic Design - "Quotes" Poster

For this assignment we had to design a purely typographic poster around a quote given to us from a lucky dip, using a typeface relevant to our given quote. My own poster was based on the Woody Allen quote, "Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday." - a line which originates from Allen's early fame as a stand-up comedian, where he made monologues based on his own brand of observational humour whilst playing the character of an intellectual yet insecure neurotic. Allen would later become more revered as the director of many classic films, most famously 'Annie Hall' and Manhattan', and continues to direct movies to this day (the latest being 2013's 'Blue Jasmine').

For my poster I used the 'Windsor' font due to its appearance in the title cards featured in most of Allen's films (from 1977's 'Annie Hall' and onwards); it is a very minimalistic design, consisting of a plain black background with white centred title. These title cards are probably as famous as the movies they are featured in, and I personally like how simple yet visually appealing the design is. Another aspect about Woody Allen that inspired my project was how his films are frequently set in New York, being the city he was born and grew up in, so I decided to recreate the NY skyline using only repetitions of the chosen quote.

Research Object: Clipper Tea packaging

I’ve always really liked the brand design for Clipper tea ever since I saw an advert for it last year. Each kind of tea is represented by its own unique artwork and colour scheme, and is designed in a way that both looks good and easily grabs the viewer’s attention. The hand-drawn illustrations are also really vivid and attractive, and manage to blend in unexpectedly well with the strong typography – it reminds me of something out of a children’s storybook.

The success of the Clipper packaging is thanks to Big Fish, the design company behind the brand’s appearance, who according to their aim “only choose to work on projects that we have a personal belief in and that we would be consumers of ourselves”. They were asked to rebrand Clipper tea in 2008, and set up a blind tasting in order to see what message they could get out of the drink’s taste. Describing the brand as “natural, fair & delicious” Big Fish managed to create a design that reflected that statement. The artwork on the packaging was intended to stand out both at home and on the supermarket shelf, and in that respect I genuinely believe Clipper has achieved that goal.

Research Object: 'THE ISLAND: London Series' by Stephen Walter

I first discovered Stephen Walter’s complex series of drawings ‘The Island’ through its repeated use on the covers of Ben Aaronvitch’s ‘Rivers of London’ novels, and was immediately fascinated by how much detail was put into portraying every little part of the City in such a striking way. I wanted to know more about this piece, and discovered upon research that Walter’s drawings were not commissioned specifically for the book covers but in fact had been created a few years before, between the years of 2006 and 2008.

‘The Island’ is made up of 34 Archival Inkjet Prints consisting of the main picture of London as a whole, and its 33 separate boroughs. It was created using graphite on paper, and the full drawing is as long as 101x153cm. Stephen Walter – who lives and works in London – designed this map as a parody of historical ones from the past, aiming to look at the City’s secrets, undercurrents and vastness whilst also challenging the spectator’s initial views. According to his official website, ‘The Island’ “purposely innocent and acidic, trivial and serious… as much about the personality of its viewer than it is about of my own… it acts as a mirror.”

Research Object: The Beatles 'Revolver' by Klaus Voormann

Klaus Voormann was an undeniably creative and talented person – being a musician, record producer, and even winning Grammy Awards. But he is probably most known for designing artwork for popular bands, most famous of them all being the frount cover for the Beatles record ‘Revolver’. This happens to be one of my favourite album covers.

I love the collage effect and how Voormann’s line drawings of each band member are mixed with the pictures taken by Robert Whitaker (who produced many photographs of the Beatles during 1964 and 1966), as well as the plain black-and-white colour scheme. It’s also worth noting how despite the insane amount of detail with the tiny photos surrounding the thorough illustrations everything looks unexpectedly simple from a visual standpoint. These elements help give the artwork a very strong and memorable look.

Voormann would revisit his classic cover design decades later when using it alongside various other images of Beatles albums in another memorable music artwork: ‘The Beatles Anthology’ compilation series. Both of these pieces use a heavy amount of collage in their creation and, in my personal opinion, it is rather unsurprising to see how clearly the latter work is influenced by Voormann’s previous creation.

Research Object: Penguin Books

The covers of Penguin books are classics, with their simplistic use of typography, colour and clear layout structure. A concept devised by Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, who considered illustrated covers at the time to be trashy and maintained that his book jackets follow a plain horizontal grid. Each genre was represented by its own colour dominating the frount cover: fiction was orange, biographies were blue and crime was green.

Penguin’s creed for distinctive cover design would continue to be followed by Jan Tschichold and Germano Facetti during the 1940s and 1960s respectively. Tschichold had a firm belief in typographic systems and was responsible for the most iconic features of Penguin Books: he designed the original template of the title and author’s name separated by a line, adapted the Penguin logo into different variations, and produced a set of Composition Rules so each cover would maintain the same design. Twenty years later Facetti gave Penguin Books an edgy and contemporary reinvention, with brighter colours and visually exciting images.

Penguin's design is similar in approach to what I go for in my own work - clear, balanced and informative. Penguin has held the test of time, something that I am aware that I need to achieve!