Development story part 4: Final decision and change of tagline (proposal)

Development Part 4

In my last post, I provided you with imagery that showed a basic insight of what the poster will feature in terms of colour, composition and imagery. Out of the three ideas, I thought of applying a heart to represent heart of science . However, the feedback given from a female peer suggested that the tagline did not make sense and would not appeal to the female audience. With that in mind, I produced another brainstorm that ask me questions of women like, their preferences and what would appeal them to science. Here is the image that helped.

Doing this work resulted in me applying a more suitable tagline. I took a decision to include this tagline: Enjoyment, Passion,  Fulfilment. These three words will make the visual language bold because they would  suggest to the female audience that science is a topic where women can enjoy and achieve.  As for the passion, this would suggest that the topic has interesting topics that can easily get people to participate. This tagline would also enhance the impact of the heart because those three words are associated with the object, thus conveying the message more effectively. On the bottom of the page, I will include this content, Inspired?, Join A Level Science,  to make the female audience feel that the poster is addressing to them, therefore, I would force them to take a course of action immediately. 

Proposal summary

Overall I am pleased with the decisions that I take to develop in order meet the brief  which is creating a science poster that encourages college female student to take A Level science. 

This poster will promote all 3 topics in science. I feel that science is a vast subject that have loads of interesting elements, such as experiments, therefore, basing my design on attracting woman to only biology would have been a struggle.  
 
As for the aim, I intend for the poster to convey a message that promotes science as a subject where people enjoy their learning and achieve essential and interesting skills for their career. This concept is relevant because ideally science should a place where everybody should be able to suceed and fulfil their life. 

Imagery 

As for the imagery,  the overall poster will include the following illustrations: a woman and iconic signifiers associated with science, such as the heart and test tubes. I decided to  include the Steampunk style into the design of the illustrations to make the visual language feel unusual and captivating.  The use of cogs, wheels and wings are often used on posters and artwork with this theme to draw the audience to the main image.  

The main image that signifies passion will be the heart. On the denotation level, the heart suggests that science as a topic enables female students to enjoy their learning, be proud of what they have achieved, to contribute with the class and find a new skills set. This message's aim is to get young female students to get inspired by this and explore science as an career path. 

Another major iconic signifier will be very young  and elegant female scientist wearing vibrant clothing. This illustration aims to enable the poster to  address to female students effectively. Although the clothing features cogs and wheels, she is wearing a science coat, therefore, it makes the dress code appropriate. Including a very young female(17-19) rather than a middle aged professional woman makes a bigger impact to the young demographic because students are more inspired by people who are at a similar age. 

To make it clear that it is about science, objects associated with the overall topic are included. This includes microscopes, animals and elements to make the science them obvious. 

The imagery featured is inspired by Chris Bacholo's drawings because cartoon designed characters look very elegant. 

colour scheme 

In brief, the colours chosen are elegant and symbolises artistic and mechanical colours of Steampunk.  On design inspirations, there was a Steampunk image filled with gold, green white, red and orange  I liked the scheme because the green, red and orange really stand out from the background and cause the overall design to look very elegant, which would appeal to the female audience. 

There was also another image featuring a woman with Steampunk clothes. It featured brown the woman holding a gold gun and wearing a brown leather dress. As the first colour scheme did not feel mechanical, I decided to include the colour scheme of this on onto the final design. The brown on this image is more darker and has a more of a rich feel. Applying this colour on to the illustrations would make the drawings look more Victorian I suppose, which gives a more vintage feel. Brown is often used in the Steampunk work because it creates a big contrast when gold is applied a font of the colour.

This summary will explain the purpose for each colour.

Light green and  turquoise- This colour will be used on the background to create a large contrast between the background and foreground imagery. This would enable the audience to maintain their focus on the science/Steampunk illustrations that stand out.

Gold, yellow and orange

These are the chosen colours for the typography. As mentioned on the previous articles, I intend to produce mechanical text that symbolises Steampunk. The poster features gold highlights  and orange to represent the mid tones.  Combining these two colours will make the text that features highlights to make the pipe effect look realistic. The lighting effects will ensure that the tagline would be in the centre of attention as well.

Red. 

As red is a strong colour, I will attempt to use this on the scientific objects to make them look more noticeable. This colour is appropriate because it represents the colour of a human heart. 

Brown, Gold, green white and pink

These are the primary colours that going to be featured on the female scientist.  An elegant pink will be included into the design to ensure that the art work look like something from the age of Victoria, which across as vintage.  To ensure the scientist looks Victorian, brown will be included to the following clothing: leather straps, leather on the goggles and dress. 

Typography

As for the text, the poster will only feature custom made text developed by me. Although the traditional text on Dafont.com featured historic designs, I wanted something geometrical to make the vector based feature a metal texture to symbolise Steam technology, a main characteristic of Steampunk. Overall, including this attribute into the design will result in the design having the Steampunk feel. 

At the last moment, I decided to include this called Stay Punx in order to make the text geometrical. This will enable the metal effect to look very effective due to this feature.   

Composition

In terms of composition, the text will be wrapped around the female to ensure the tagline becomes one of the main focal points. This idea was bought to the final design because I want convey a clear words that refers to the imagery. As the scale of the woman, the image will take up 1/3 to a 1/2 of the poster to ensure that the canvas has enough room for the other elements, such as text to fit into. 

I also want to compel the audience to the read the text immediately. To achieve this, curly smoke will be included in order guide the viewers' eyes through the text. 

As for the negative space for the side of the woman, I will include another image relating to science and text. Using all available space will not reduce  the advert's impact.



References
:http://fallenpixel.net/steampunk-pioneer 
http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/artist-spotlight/artist-spotlight-jennifer-mei/
http://inklabgeek.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/steampunk-typography/
http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/posters.html
http://www.dafont.com/search.php?q=stay+punx

Today update and aim

After this intense week, I thought of updating you on what I am currently doing. There will be a series of post that demonstrates my software techniques used in Illustrator. There will be another addition to design story because I alternated the tagline a bit. This will include a brainstorm that helped me to think what female students like and inspire to. I have also considered the factors that discourage woman to take science.   

See my update tomorrow

Part 3 of design story: mock ups and change of taglines

Mock up sketches

To give a clear overview of what my poster should feature, I originally showed  my peers of two examples of the poster design. However since that point, I have developed more ideas to improve their design and new concepts. These are very basic and do not represent the final product.

This is now the first concept.

A sketch with layout and tagline that I will not be
using. 

As for the alterations, I have included another tagline that is straight to the point and emotional. The new tagline is Don't let the heart of Science die. This powerful tagline will accompany an image of a mechanical heart producing steam. This signifies that science will die if there are no new students that come to take science. This message also conveys that people of tomorrow will die if this happens. To appeal to a female audience, the poster will still feature a female scientist.

A simple overall of what poster will try to promote.

Sign: A science poster

Signfiers:
Damaged heart
Woman
Steam
Tagline
medicine



Denotation

Advert stresses to students, particularly females, if they want science to live, they need take topic

Connotation
Medicine shows that students are the cure
Smoke shows that the heart is damaged
Tagline: emotional  (metaphor)

Second concept

On the other end of the scale, I created a new idea promoting science as a subject that is really interesting and fun to students. To achieve this, I thought of a tagline that suggest that all 3 sub topics in science allows students to explore interesting things. This would include changing a flower to change colour, create steam as a power source for a machine and inspecting animals, such as butterflies. The imagery would include a planet to fit with tagline.

Sign: A science poster

Signfiers:
Bright colours
Woman
Experiments
Tagline
Planets

Denotation

A fun looking advert that suggest science is a very interesting topic to enter due to the experiments.

Connotation
To suggests to students that science allows them to explore new horizons, leading to an interesting career.
Always evolving.
Tagline is a metaphor that makes the message look captivating

Third idea

The third poster includes a concept that promotes science as powerful. This is represented by a steampunk like balloons, test tubes and other science equipment exiting the metal heart. This gives a sneak preview to students science is always evolving and being part of the industry would be an interesting experience.

Sign: A science poster

Signfiers:
Heart
Woman
Transportation
Tagline
equipment

Denotation

A sketch with another possible layout design

A powerful advert showing students a possible career if they take the course

Connotation
'Power of Science'  makes science courses sound interesting to explore. Choosing the course would allow female and male college students to gain advance skills for their career. 
Tagline is a metaphor that makes the message look captivating