Task 2 Evaluation

Task 2: design a A4 Promotional Poster for Canning College marketing department to promote a program available at Canning College. Choose between: Year 12 – TEE, STAT, Flying Start, Pathways to Office Employment, Certificate IV Commerce, Short Courses, and Diploma of Commerce.

I chose to design my poster for Flying Start because I have prior back ground knowledge and personal experience to help guide me in what would be the best means attracting possible students. After making this decision I had to research ways in which to make a poster appealing to viewers; I read about Elements of Design, Principles of Design, and what the course entails this year.

From this point I started the designing part of the design process. I drew various concept sketches. The first of these was a basic set out of how things would sit on the page. (as seen bellow)

 

From this concept sketch I decided what information will appear on the poster. I decided I’d have a catchy heading, “Have you ever wanted a second chance?”, as a rhetorical question to force the viewer to think. These words are college corporate colour red to catch attention and set a colour theme for the rest of poster. I then choose that a smaller heading, in college corporate colour grey, under that which would answer the question saying, “Flying Start at Canning College: Your second chance at education”. Basically the idea behind this is to allow the reader to know what the poster is about. Using the word “Your”, personalises the Flying Start program to the reader. As the progress went on I eventually used the way the titles sit as a form of invisible leading line leading the eye to the information bellow.

On the poster I knew I needed information about what the Flying Start program is. So I used another rhetorical question which I had to answer, “What is Flying Start?”. By answering this question I explain a lot of the information needed about Flying Start to attract my target audience. As the process went on I typed the information about Flying Start. I used words like ‘oppertunity’, ‘enhancement’, ‘personal development’, ‘academic development’, ‘enjoyable’, ‘pleasure’, and ‘challenge’. All these words have connotations that make them appealing to viewers. The words are positive and reassuring that the program they are discussing is a good program. I put the heading in corporate red and the information is corporate grey to keep with my colour theme. Also repetitive colours keep viewers interested. The information targets the audience by saying the level of education that flying start achieves, therefore possible students would usually be bellow that level. Phrases like “further peoples education” demonstrates that Flying Start students are usually those students who did not make it to this level of education.

Straight from my original concept design I knew I wanted a picture on the top right under the heading. Ideas for what this picture would be and even what shape it would be changed in every design. On my original concept sketch the photograph was going to be students studying on benches with smiles on their faces. This demonstrated Canning College as an open, cheerful studying environment. I then thought maybe I should use a graduation photo to give a since of Flying Start being completable and success obtainable. Upon later thought I realised this is too cliché and too common so I decided against it. In the end I decided to use a photo of students in class studying. This choice was made for me as the day I had chosen to take photos the weather had turned bad on. The picture shows the target audience being a broad audience of males and females. I had a choice between a circular image and a rectangular image. The picture I took in my opinion looked better has a circle. When the picture was a square the man in the picture looked left out, however, as a circle he seems drawn into the picture.

To be honest what would be on the poster was never really changed throughout my concept sketches. I kept the same basic ideas and just moved them around until they balanced.  I made sure the subjects available in the course of study are on the poster so that viewers know if the Flying Start program is right for them from the start. This didn’t change through out my design process other than if it should be on the left side of the poster or the right. I tried making it symmetrical by moving the start of the Semester 2 column in the Bridging For TEE section under the Semester 1 subjects making the amount of words of each side even. However, this looked unorganised, so I went back to the original idea of having them separated into semesters.

The student testimonial was not changed much other than it’s background colour. The layout of this part had always had the words on the left and photo on the right. Originally I was planing to have no background so the testimonial would not stand out because I did not see it as that important. however upon further thought I realised people prefer opinions of those who have completed the course. So I used just a white background, but this did not stand out enough so I changed my idea so that it was a red background to make it come out at the viewer causing them to read it with a sense of it being important. The photo of Samantha will make possible students see the face of someone that has been through the course that they are considering. Therefore giving a sense of reality to the poster.

I planed to have an image down the bottom from the start. It needed to be there to give a sense of balance. For this I had the choice of a graduation photo, a college building, more studying students, or students just enjoying themselves. The image originally only sat in the left corner above the contact details; but the middle under where Bridging For TEE Semester 1 column ended there was a gap that seemed too empty and as thought it needed something. So I decided to extend the picture to fill this gap. I chose a picture of students on lunch. The picture shows the students smiling, sitting around a bench and more benches and students in the back ground. The smiling shows represents the college as a happy, friendly environment. Where the grass and pavement meet acts as a leading line leading the eye through the picture around all the tables. The image is a life picture and does not look posed. It gives a sense of realism to the poster. The picture also demonstrates the target audience as male and female, young, and from all cultures.

At the bottom of the poster is the contact information. This does not change in any on the designs. College logo on the left, government logo on the right, both balancing each other and giving symmetry to the picture. The words are neatly placed with the same distance from the logos on each side. The contact details act as a call to action. The question “Want more information?” asks readers to think about it and giving the contact information shows that it is easy to find out more.

The background had 2 ideas, idea 1 college logo stretched to fit, idea 2 black background. In the end I settled for my first idea because the plain back ground looked too plain. The logo was done with a water mark effect of faded into the background. It doesn’t stand out too much but adds the needed touch to prevents a plain appearance.

The final touches was shadow effect on the photos to give it a 3D feel or realistic. Originally I was only going to do this on the photos, but that made the student testimonial blend back into it’s surroundings. So I put the drop shadows effect on the red background also. I made the shadow larger to make it stand out more. I also curved the edges on the boxes because it looked to sharp. The curves edges give a nicer feel to the image and softens it.

Bellow is the poster re-sampled to a smaller size. (well a photograph of my poster because WordPress is being a pain)