Technique Development ⬆️
Defining the project:
For this project, I need to create a lyric poster for one of the songs I enjoy. The objective is to experiment with lettering and learn the role of typography in graphics design. Through the development of this project, I hope to hone my understanding of the design element of type. By exploring fonts, sizes, and arrangements, I hope to create a lyric poster that is both visually pleasing and demonstrates an adequate amount of skill.
Inspiration Padlet: I was most inspired by the orange album cover color scheme and the Fall+champagne colors color scheme. I think it conveyed the mood of the song very effectively. In addition, I was inspired by the poster of a festival in Macau. I really liked the way they combined typography and illustrations.
Link to song:
Final product:
My poster emphasized the element of type and the principle of contrast. The element of type is reflected in the selection of font and arrangement of letters. The song, in general, is very calm, which is why I chose to use mainly neutral colors. However, in order to emphasize certain words that link to the theme of the song, I used a contrasting bright orange to appeal to the viewer’s eyes. Broken glass is added to connect the poster to the meaning of the lyric: “Your heart was glass I dropped it”. The connection between the meaning of the lyrics and the poster can further enhance the communication of the mood of the song. In addition, I used two different fonts to represent the two contrasting emotions in the lyrics. I used the font “Dear Sunshine” for the verse: “Your heart was glass…” because the font resembles hand-written fonts, which is something really personal, like the story the verse is telling. On the contrary, I chose to use a script/cursive font for the lyrics: “Champagne problems”. Champagne problems refer to the problems that are complex to an individual but not cumbersome to society. The script font reflects the complex part of the definition and the sinking motion of the letters reflects the helpless and resigned tone of the verse.
The process of song selection: I chose my song based on the color scheme I wanted to follow. I wanted to follow a fall color scheme consisting of mainly red, orange, yellow, and green. I thought of the artist Taylor Swift and her two albums Folklore and Evermore as I think both albums consist of songs that depict the autumn season very well. I eventually settled on the song Champagne Problems.
I created numerous rough sketches of potential arrangements of the letters,
I made four more detailed sketches and chose to combine two of them to make my final project. I wanted my poster to show correlation to the lyrical meaning of the song as well as have typography that reflects the song’s style.
Feedback: I received feedback both from a classmate and the teacher. The first two pieces of feedbacks were feedback received in the earlier stages of the project. Due to the fact that my initial design is hand-drawn in ProCreate, the typographical elements I later added in affinity seem to contrast the style, making it less appealing to the audience. I proceeded to refine the drawing and traced the different parts using the pen tool to create a digital version of the wine glass. In addition, I added text in the background to emphasize the element of type more in my poster. In the later stages, Mr. Griffin gave me the suggestion to emphasize certain words using different colors. I sampled multiple color schemes from Adobe color and found the color scheme that best contrasts my background to emphasize words.
