Graphic Design 1
Black History Month Poster Design
In Graphic Design 1 we were given a project that served two purposes. This project got us to engage in a detailed and advanced process of poster design. It also got us to engage in and examine the rich history of black figures in Mississippi's history. This project functions as an engagement in research, historical and conceptual, that will inform and sculpt the poster design under a set of visual restrictions.
I made a poster for this project about Margaret Walker and her many accomplishments. In my research, I found that she was the first African American to win the Yale younger poets award and many other literary achievements. So for my poster, this is what I chose to focus on. I wanted to pay homage to these accomplishments; I also wanted to show the reach that her writing had on people. The pages expand from the book and look never-ending; I did this to show that the effect her writing has on people is infinite. The lines of the books also serve another purpose; embedded in between the lines are bits of text. One of these bits of text is a quote from Margaret Walker, which I felt captured her personality, and the other lines come from the name of a poem she wrote. I wanted to keep the color palette simple, so the only use of a bright color comes from a book by Margaret Walker called Jubilee. I found three different covers for this book and noticed that they all shared this orange color. The typeface used for her name in the poster also comes from one of these three book covers.
