Astro-Beat Collective: Poster

The poster for an event may be considered to be the most important element as it promotes the event as a whole, gives an instant impression of the style and also it is something that will be seen by the most people. The visual of the style will then drive how the social media will look, the tickets will be presented and all of the little bits needed to promote a music event. 

This part of the design process took the most amount of time and required constant feedback from the clients in order to ensure that the development was along the same lines in which they had originally envisioned. 

Visual literacy

The visual literacy initially focused on the space-themed music posters and the different approaches that had already been taken.

• 1 main visual focus
• limited colour palette
• 3d type
• information about the event very small at the bottom, outside of image border
• could be screen printed
• colour scheme reflective of the album
• the image could be printed on its own and sold as a poster 
• white background

• limited colour palette
• the text is small and not a focus
• the image focused
• a dark border

• an image within a border
• limited colour palette
• dark 
• no information about the event, purely visually promoting the musicians

• geometric focus with overlapping
• visually, lots going on
• diagonal text for the title
• real life imagery mixed with computerised patterns
• space background
• black with one other main colour
• text not the main focus

• the central image in a diamond shape
• surrounding of text is interesting
• focus on text, but that pushes the eyes towards the central image
• limited colour palette
• text all one colour and all other elements monotone

Content

It was important to get an exact list from the client what was needed on the event poster in order for the promotion of the event to be successful. 

• Henge
• Morpher
• Location: Hyde Park Book Club
• Date: 02.03.2018
• Price: £8 adv // £10 otd
• Logos: Astro-Beat Collective, HPBC, Hannah Rice Designs

Artwork that could be the focus

It was discussed that Henge as the main focus was something that was now deemed a requirement because they are a much more well-known act, increasing the chance of ticket sales. 

I was given some visuals that are most commonly associated with Henge as a band, so I thought about how these could be incorporated into some poster design ideas. 

Initial ideas

Based on visual literacy and initial discussions I have had with the Collective, I have developed 3 initial ideas to see which concept and visual style will be the best to use for the final outcome. 

Idea 1 follows a very minimal approach, with the illustration as the focus on the poster, lots of white space and small text for the event information. This concept relies on the recognition of the figure by the fans of Henge and then just general appreciation of all other people that would be considered to be a target audience for this event. The limited colour palette works well, but if this was to be developed the use of one colour could compliment the visuals of this poster and ensure that important aspects such as the band names are highlighted to the target audience. To improve this idea, I would increase the size of the Astro-Beat logo and decrease the size of the figure to make it appear as though the planet is in the sky above the figure. This would make it more of a visual story in comparison to this initial idea. 

Idea 2 has a completely different approach to idea 1, taking a Henge image and making that the whole background of a poster. The colours used in this initial idea are not what I would use, they are to illustrate how the image would be one colour and then the text another. The colour palette would be decided on in a later part of the design process. Research into posters, especially space-related music ones, showed that a full bleed image as the background of a poster was a popular design choice. The use of a border to contain the image within or to enable the text to become a separate element on the poster could be developed as part of the design to further improve it. 

Idea 3 again has the most well know image related to Henge as the main focus, but it is offset to the right of the page and then placed behind a coloured box which holds the names of the musicians that are performing at the event. To ensure that the image was the main focus as well as the names of the musicians, the coloured box sizing and positioning ensured that the text had to be rotated to fit. This drew attention to the text more so than if it was placed in a standard, horizontal way. 

Idea 1

Idea 2

Idea 3

Colour scheme

The Collective had suggested that the colours red, blue or gold were the colours of which they would consider to be the most relevant to use as part of the identity. Gold was taken out of the equation as the budget would not facilitate for printing to be produced with gold ink and foiling is not consistent for a large number of identical posters that the Collective were needing to produce.

The colour red that will be used on the poster was taken from the Hyde Park Book Club logo and muted slightly.

Development

Taking idea 2 and idea 3, the development began by having the image as a full page in the colour red that was taken from the Hyde Park Book Club branding. Initially, it was thought that the Astro Beat Logo could be slightly faded at the top of the page so that it was a prominent part of the design but also not the main focus. It was soon decided that it just looked like an unintentional design choice and did not fit in with the rest of the content on the poster. 

The hierarchy of the content on the poster needed to be considered, ensuring that the musicians were the main focus and then the information such as the venue etc. was there but not so large. The lines across the page divided up the sections of information, ensuring that the focus stayed with he musicians names. The lines are the same red but with a higher opacity so that they appear darker when overlaid. 

The limited colour palette works well as the colour scheme for this particular event is not as important as the artwork provided by Henge. 

Throughout the whole design process, I was able to get feedback from the Collective to ensure I was developing in a way that they were happy with. The feedback highlighted that the phrase in the logo did not need to be there as it was actually the name of the event rather than part of the overall Collective. They also reminded me that I needed to make space for the logos that needed to be included. The development would need to try and make the information more of a focus, maybe through changing the size of location, this could be achieved. 

This development shows the increased text size, but I do not think it is the most effective. The developments will need to continue to look at the hierarchy and how a contrast between sizes can be established, but still ensuring that the title is the main focus. The section of information was then moved up slightly so that the logos could be added at the bottom. This poster worked, but something wasn't quite how I had intended.

Referring back to the research I had done I decided to try having a white border around the image and then a larger white section at the bottom to keep the information completely separate from the rest of the poster. 

The new layout was preferred by the Collective, so rearranging of the content was all that needed to be done in order to improve the final outcome. It was once again suggested that the information needed to be a little larger so that it was evident, but still not the main focus. The posters will be read from a distance so the target audience will need to get an idea as to what the event is about before they then will go onto social media and try to find it. 

Experimentation with the different layouts for information took place in order to check which was the best solution. The developments looked at the splitting up of the text to spread it across the bottom of the page, but this looked messy and may come across too confusing for the audience when trying to easily find out exactly what the event is. Going back to the original text layout, but with a little more finalising it was decided ad confirmed by the Collective that this layout worked well. 

It was the placement of the two logos that seemed to be the most difficult as visually they ended up being to much of a focus and distraction when placed on the white area. Initially they were place in the bottom right hand corner with the intention that they would be discrete. This didn't look right and it set the fairly symmetrical design off sync, so the positioning of these needed to be changed. I tested having them one on each side at the bottom to see if this balanced out the overall design visual, the screenshots above show this. It did not work as it still looked out of place in comparison to the rest of the content at the bottom of the page.

Feedback from a peer lead crit gave me the idea to change the logos to white and then place them as part of the main body of artwork. This worked well as it was obvious that they were not part of the image, but they were a lot more discrete in comparison to the previous developments. 

Final poster