Student Design Gallery

This semester at UVa, I’ve been teaching a course on Typography and Graphic Design—it has been an awesome experience. I mean, it’s been rough, and I definitely could have done a better job in a lot of ways. But, I’ve had a blast regardless.

I’ll share the lesson materials and student work if people are interested—let me know!

Anyway, on Wednesday the 6th of May (a little over week before I graduate!!) I’m hosting a design gallery at OpenGrounds to show off some of the student work. And what does someone do when they’re a hosting an event for college students? They make a Facebook event, of course. And what does someone do when they make a Facebook event? They make a poster/flyer for the event.

Wait… I’m alone on that one?

Well—I shouldn’t be. Every legitimate event needs a legitimate flyer.

So, I decided to create a little something-something. I started with the text, which is what I always start with:

Student Design Gallery

OpenGrounds

May 6th

6:30–8:30

Whew! Okay, next I looked at what is really important here, and tried to fit this information in the AIDA model (which you can learn more about in this post on designing landing pages).

The title is the most important piece, then the details should supplicate to that. Before hopping on my computer though, I took out my notebook and jotted down a number of ideas.

WP_20150427_002

I knew I wanted to accentuate the title, so I made it large. I knew I wanted a graphic, but wasn’t sure what kind. And I knew I wanted the other info to supplicate, so maybe a second color?

Student Design Gallery

After a lot of messing around, I decided on the design from the bottom left of my sketches. At first glance, someone might say that the triangle is ornamental (and don’t you hate ornament, Lucas?) Well, yes I do, but no it’s not. The triangle is useful in a couple ways.

  1. It grabs the potential viewer’s attention—hardly an irrelevant function.
  2. It diverts the user’s eye towards the title text, which would otherwise have an uncomfortable position at the bottom left. People naturally look from top left to bottom right, so having the triangle start in the top left grabs the viewer’s gaze, and directs it down to the bottom left.
  3. It points right, as well. Remember, this image is being used on Facebook. Pointing off to the right actually points towards the comments area on a photo.

I’m taking this design and building it out for the gallery itself—still in the ideation phase there, though.

 

 

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