Remember that poster project that I mentioned a while back? The one with the dog? Yes, that project just ended. From the beginning of the semester (January 18th) until yesterday (February 21st), when I handed it in. It will be sent off to an art contest and if it wins, will be auctioned off at the Penfield Children's Center 's annual croquet ball. Normally we are not given this much time for a single project but, due to mass amounts of snow and the client not being able to meet with the class when they had planned, we were granted a lot of extra time. Because we had so much time to work on it, the poster also had the opportunity to go through many, many, many changes and three critiques. Now, normally I am not one to complain about having too much time (quite the opposite, actually) and while I will say that it was an excellent learning experience to actually interact with a real client, this got to such the overwhelming point that I was ready to hand anything just to be done! Even now, while I am proud of the outcome, it feels overworked and I never want to lay eyes on it again. So, as a final fairwell and a bit of venting, I give you my Croquet Ball poster in its many shapes and forms.
First we have the tight sketch, color samples and a bit of rough type. At this point I really thought I was on to something and was going for a sort of "retro" asthetic.
I was told to abandoned the curved type and stick to the more blocked out version above. Also to try and do something more drastic and unexpected with the colors. Okay, fine, that sort of throws my original "retro" idea out of the window but hey, time to try something new. Still optimistic, I changed the colors around and added the rest of the text for the poster in a similar style to the tag-line which brought about what you see below.
The critique with the client went well but they hated the text--it was too big and looked like a magazine cover instead of an artsy poster. Then they were not nearly as amused as I was by the fact that the font I was using is actually called "impact" (yes, yes, also famous for lolcats captions...I still thought I was being amusing). The color of the grass was also an issue as it looked "too dead" and blended into the sky too much. "I know it's cliche but, why don't you try just making the sky blue and the grass green?" So much for bold and unexpected colors. Not only that but the illustration needed something else to it and the dog was getting a bit lost in the picture plane. Fair enough. Then I sketched out a new version and threw together some new colors.
Finally, I thought, I am almost done. I brightened the colors, fixed the text and made the dog bigger and more interesting. Almost there! ...Sadly, this was not the case. I wish I still had a copy of the color sample that I sent to my teacher and was told that it looked like "the Golden Girls or the inside of a Taco Bell". Ouch. So I abandoned the odd colors. While the font was widely accepted with just a few minor adjustments, the colors were (once again) "too expected" (GAH!!!) and the dog still did not take up enough of the picture or make it interesting enough on its own. It was suggested that I add a rotund figure chasing after him with a mallet for comedic effect. That or more animals. As I was not quite comfortable with the first option, I opted for the second and, while fighting the urge to hurl my computer out of a window, added some other long animals. At this point had completely abandoned my original idea and was ready to hand in whatever I could turn out in a weekend.
And there you have it: the finished poster! Mind you, this was after thinking I had lost my most recent, most finished file and would have to start from scratch the morning it was due. I almost started crying. Fortunately, I have awesome beyond awesome friends and the file was waiting on the computer at school when I got there that morning. -sigh- What a marathon of a project.
As I have said, I am still pleased with the outcome and this was quite the learning experience. Never the less, it was not gained without a lot of hard work and frustration and I believe that deserves a good rant (that and I thought it would be interesting to my few readers to show the process of a piece from beginning to end). Just a taste, I expect, of what is to come as a professional commercial artists. . Just a taste, I expect, of what is to come as a professional commercial artists.
-Megan
