PADLET WITH INSPIRATIONS :

Surprisingly, none of the examples would show the obvious inspiration for my final poster. However, I enjoyed the simplicity of all the posters. Whether I had chosen another quote instead of my own, there might have been a chance I would have more heavily taken inspiration from them. For quotations, I picked the Japanese proverb, mostly because I had the idea of referencing Japanese culture and symbolism. I also liked how the quote was roughly “symmetrical” in terms of both parts of the quote being approximately the same length. This meant that I could possibly play with symmetry in the quote.

 

BRAINSTORMING IDEAS :

From the beginning, I had already decided what my quote was from the get-go. Because of that, I could solely brainstorm ideas using “fall 7 times, stand up 8”. I started doing rough sketches, “brain-dumping” all my thoughts onto post-it notes. As seen in my pictures, I usually split up the two parts and try to make them reflect one another. I also tried to use Japanese for some of my thoughts because I wanted to remember that it was a Japanese proverb, or at least it was of Japanese origin. For a few, I tried to use natural imagery to show standing up or Japanese symbols (although pretty much none of those ideas would be used). There were a few where I played with the numbers, though figuring out how to make it feel “together” even though the different placement of the numbers in the phrase made it more challenging. In the end, my favourite ideas were:

• 1st picture: Top left
• 2nd picture: Top left, bottom left, bottom right

 

DEVELOPING DRAFT POSTERS :

I made an Affinity version of all my favourites with an additional poster of one I had thought of randomly one day. I really wanted to go with simplicity and minimalism in my posters. I only used black and white, and a maximum of 2 other colours. It was here that I received feedback about these ideas. I had a love-hate relationship with the 4th poster (top right) since I enjoyed the boldness, but I had a minimal idea about how I would imagine the final poster when I planned it. The 5th one (bottom) was something I scrapped together randomly, and I was far from proud of it.

People told me that the imagery of the Japanese flag was lovely and added a dash of colour to something that would have otherwise been in black and white. The 2nd and 3rd (the following posters) were alright, but it was hard to figure out how to make the font balanced or the leading for both, respectively. I was also suggested to do variations with a single idea since my poster was very minimalistic, reflected in my decision to further refine the 1st poster versus the others.

 

FOCUSING ON VARIATION :

I decided to do a trio of posters that focused on different proverbs or quotes from the three main East Asian countries (Japan, China and Korea, shown in the order above). Because the Chinese flag lacked the symmetry I aimed to have, I decided to focus on a Taoist proverb (with the religion being from China). I also used fonts that are used in those respective languages. Since I was writing them in English, it was somewhat despite the purpose, but I still wanted to do so because it would also add more variety. Otherwise, it may get repetitive looking at the same font.

One thing others and I noticed was that I used an off-set white instead of a pure white, so it wouldn’t blend into the background. A suggestion was to either change the background and use pure white or use pure white while still using a white background. I tried out both and compared the three.

 

WORKING OUT THE YING AND YANG:

Right off the bat, I wasn’t a fan of the changed background. It looked really strange compared to the original two, which to me, defeated the purpose of having a set. Although I didn’t have a major preference between the 2nd (original) and the 3rd design, I felt like the 3rd one was deceiving my eyes, and actually made me feel a bit dizzy after staring at it too long. It was probably because I see the yin yang symbol itself as not part of the background, despite very much being part of the background. I still stuck with the original one, but I did like working with alternatives and seeing which one was best.

 

MY FINAL THREE :

 

DESIGN ELEMENTS :

I utilized shapes and colour to be as minimal as possible to create a visually pleasing and simple design. The circle is used as it better allows the text to be understood (compared to a square, or any other shape) while maintaining the symmetry I wanted. The curved shape could also be used to substitute many other symbols, as seen how I expanded from the original Japanese proverb into several others. The font choices are Serif other than the original, which is still a traditional-looking Japanese font. I avoided using Sans Serif since I wanted it to look more “old-fashioned” and less modern in terms of type, which is something I think Sans Serif does the opposite of. I also avoided script fonts to keep the minimalistic style. I wanted the font to be small yet still properly curve around, which resulted me manipulating the leading of each individual poster (since every font looks different).

Since I’ve made a series of posters, I made sure that they were recognizably related to one another without being too repetitive (why I decided to change the fonts up near the end). Unfortunately, due to its minimalistic and 2D design, it was hard to play around with many of the elements, such as scale or texture. But besides colour and shapes, I also used negative space to create an isolated feel, as I dislike it when posters get too overwhelmingly “loud”. Although not always possible, I tried to keep symmetry a factor when choosing my quotes. I wanted both parts of the proverbs to be somewhat even since it would create a balanced feel in the poster. I found it less visually appealing when one side has overwhelmingly more text than the other.

 

IMPROVEMENTS :

I am, overall, really happy with my design and it was how I envisioned it since the beginning. Because of that, it’s hard for me to really reflect on what I could improve on. If I were to continue the series, I think playing around with the background, cropping and scaling could become a factor. Otherwise, I am more than satisfied.