Exhibition Poster // Design Development

After the Crit where we presented our three different concepts, I got the feedback that most people prefer the '3132480 Minutes of frame' concept and out of the few sketches I provided for this concept the one below created the biggest positive reaction

This visual concept is inspired by the face of a flip clock, but instead of the actual time being represented, the minutes in 2 months will be displayed to link the visuals to the concept of time.
I agreed with the crit feedback suggesting that it remains quite a simple piece with lots of space, this is both to draw the attention straight to the name of the exhibition Plus I personally have learnt that space is a lot of the time more visually appealing than cluttered designs.

As the numbers on the flip clock faces will be one of the main aspects of the design I searched through a number of fonts until I came across a set of digits that look similar to that on a generic flip clock.

Obviously having looked at many examples of flip clocks it is apparent that there is no specific typeface used for all clock (this is what I expected) the typeface chosen relates closely to the target audience of each individaul flip clock design. However there does seem to be a font that is used more commonly throughout flip clock designs which is actually one of the most popular fonts in the world

Helvetica Bold

I started the design process by creating a simple vector representation of a flip clock placed vertically on the art board. This is where the 132480 will be placed.

The individual face's for the digits of a flip clock are quite a unique and recognisable shape. All that is needed is the outer shape of the panel with the digit centered in the middle.

 once I had created the 6 faces, I then placed each number centrally on each frame which I think already creates a nice and simple representation of a flip clock visual.

 After the didgets were placed correctly and the correct size, i created outlines for the text and used the Path finder tool to merge the two shapes so they become one outlines shape. This will allow me to easily laser cut the design so the production stage of this brief really won't take long at all.

 I repeated this process with the remaining digits and at this point I am happy with how it is looking, I have come to the conclusion that as the production of this poster mostly revolves around the stock I use to laser cut with then all of the colour and finishes will be provided by the material rather than printed elements.

We were told that it is not really necessary to have a huge amount of information on this poster, so I would really if possible like to keep it as simple as possible, and just include the name of the exhibition and nothing else.  This would help aid my 'simple' visual approach and will also allow me to keep most of the surrounding border free of messy body copy.

I seem to have a favorite font at the minute which I keep on using for several of the breifs, this is because I really like big solid bold sans text, I think it looks great, is legible and readable. Obviously this type face would not be appropriate for many projects but I have found Gotham Ultra to be a nice solid font which suits the shape and layout of the other design elements on this poster.

Again once I was happy with the text i had chosen i did the same as i did for the digits and created outlines which is necessary for the laser cutter. In this case I will be taking the actual cut letters to make the design instead of the negative areas.
 I am not yet sure how I am going to accurately stick each element into the exact layout, it is possible I will have to re draw the grid dimensions onto my background that the design will be stuck to. Or I will try to create some form of paper template guide to help me re create the design as accurately as possible.

I am really liking the layout of this poster so far, and I am really looking forward to the production process of this brief as well as choosing what stocks to use as this is one of the key elements to the completed poster.

After messing around with the layout a little i produced this outcome, which was initially me just keeping the layout consistent with the center of the page. but then after sitting and looking I realised that this now also looks like an exclamation mark, which is a sign to grab attention, which links well to the promotional element of the brief.

Finally I added in the outer layer of my initial clock design, as i felt this completed the visuals well and also gives the design a 'Frame' which related to the name and the actual frame each winning design will be placed in.