Week 5 - Poster Assignment

Artists Statement:

The concept for my poster is to showcase the University of Toronto Ultimate team more commonly known as Torontula in their quest at the Canadian University Ultimate Championships in Edmonton, Alberta. I was striving to keep it simplistic and clean so as to be read and understood quickly. The goal was to communicate the sport of ultimate and Torontula’s trip to Edmonton. The target audience for this piece is university students who are interested in sports but have a limited knowledge of ultimate.

To achieve this goal I edited the poster together using the fireworks software by Adobe. First I needed to ensure that the use of the logo was alright. The captains of the team granted me permission to use the logo for the project. Having acquired the permission to use the logo I scanned the logo off my shorts to use for the background. I also used the lasso tool to cut out the two players.

One of the challenges that was anticipated was attempting to use the magic wand to cut out the players which is difficult due to the background of grass, which contains large numbers of colours creating difficulties for the wand tool. In order to deal with this problem I used the lasso tool to cut them out. However this then lead to another problem, because some of the outlying pixels at the border of the images had green areas which stood out against the background. To alleviate this problem I used the smudge tool and the samples the background colour and manually changed some of the pixels so it would blend better. One problem that was not anticipated was during the scanning process, it was difficult to manage the fabric and during the scan it would come out wavy. While this problem is quite trivial it took time to resolve, which I finally did by placing a notepad behind the shorts and stretching them slightly to get the flat surface that was needed.

Throughout this process I learned how the magic wand tool can be used and situations where it is not as effective such as when the background has numerous colours. I feel the poster addresses its goal because it communicates the team and the tournament details clearly. I believe it successfully addresses the target audience because it uses bright colours and the pictures are of students. Throughout the creation of this project I was challenged to use a new program and produce a poster that appeals to an audience and shows good design aspects.

Analysis:

This assignment first and foremost taught me how to use computer software to manipulate and put together a clean piece. Throughout the tutorials I learned various techniques in Fireworks which were implemented into the production of the poster. I also learned how to implement design techniques, colour choice and font technique. Also i learned to appreciate the amount of work and time that it takes to create posters even simple ones take a lot of effort and thought. The in-class critique mostly focused on the placement of the word in the top corner and how it is not placed equidistantly from the side as it is to the top. It was also suggested that the placement of the players could be changed so that the player catching the disc would be on the left side and the word "Torontula" beside them. I think these critiques show that outside opinions are vital to a good piece of work because you can see other perspective on your piece that you may not have noticed on your own