D&AD poster brief

Not only our first brief of the 3rd year, but the first competition brief at that!

This was a poster brief, a quick one, for the D&AD North Lecture number 3 - GBH is 12. 

To get inspiration and to get to grips with what D&AD would be looking for in a poster, I looked at some previous posters that they have used. 

They all have a recurring theme, the posters are bold, punchy and to the point. Bright colours and simple typography. This gave me a much better idea about the kind of thing that I needed to produce.

I started out thinking about how I could visually represent the north... compass needles, arrows pointing upwards... etc. I looked at some images that I could draw inspiration from and started producing different rough sketches and ideas of what I could do (the images I have drawn inspiration from are on my DC blog).

This was my initial sketch idea for the spectrum/refraction design that I decided to run with. It was very much based on the 'Dark Side of the Moon' album cover by Pink Floyd.
I wanted to produce the refraction effect of the light through a 3D object by making the arrow look like a glass object with a straight line of light shining through it.

After making the arrow look 3D with a combination of gradients and glows, it was then time to separate the bottom into a spectrum of light... equally. 

This proved harder said than done. 

With the type, I decided to use a clear typeface... Helvetica. Sans-serif to add a contemporary modern feel to the poster, and the colours of the D&AD logo (which I chose to inverse). 

I used a combination of bold, light and regular and different sizes to get the type right. Type is not my strongest point as a designer so decided to leave it simple and to the point. 

This is the final poster I handed in. I am happy with the result, it is not necessarily my personal style but it answers the brief, it was good to experiment with different techniques and type solutions that I haven't really focussed on working with for a while.

Following this, we had a crit where we posted all the posters on the walls and then critted each other's work. From the feedback from this, the poster below is the one I sent to D&AD.

I altered the text, adding some bits of information that I had left out... and matched up the colours with the D&AD logo. I also moved the text down on the poster to make the layout look more appropriate.