About the Client:
Wisconsin ArtsWest 43 is an annual juried art exhibition held by the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Submissions are open to working artists and students in Wisconsin ranging from age 18 and older. The exhibition has been virtual due to COVID-19.
These posters were created among others to be a promotional source for the library to inform the community and artists about the upcoming event. Judges picked a few posters out of all the submissions to use for their exhibit promotion.
The Challenge:
My main task was to design and refine two different posters for the exhibition within the month before the submission was due. These posters needed to deliver the information about the event in a way that was memorable and clear to follow.
Early-Stage Sketches:
These sketches were my initial ideas for the two ArtsWest posters. I started out by brainstorming keywords associated with the event and its delivery. I was able to determine what I wanted to avoid and focus on using these keywords to research and sketch out ideas.
I wanted these posters to focus on how the exhibition connects communities members and artists alike. Since the event was virtual, my ideas were centered on continuing to show the community connection but in a virtual setting. These sketches show various ideas that stemmed from these keywords associated with the ArtsWest 43 exhibition event.
This step of the design process allowed me to test out a few ideas I had and put them on paper before jumping into the digital phase. I was able to make notes about appearance and how I envisioned certain aspects to look once the end products were completed.
Digital Mockups:
After solidifying my ideas and layouts of my posters, I began to create digital mockups of them in Photoshop. As you can see, the finalized designs are very different from my initial sketches. These ideas and sketches changed over time as multiple discussions with other student designers and my professor took place.
The overall original ideas for the two posted drastically changed after a discussion with my professor that lead to merging my ideas with other features, especially with the color swatch poster. Although the poster is not bad, I still like the initial concept I had for it and might go back and recreate it how I originally envisioned it. I think it would have ended up fitting the event better as it would have focused on merging the community connection aspect and the virtual platform of the event together.
