Type workshop Week 2 – Dot Matrix

We got set another project in our type workshop. We had to make a dot matrix alphabet. Now this is a project we got given in first year, which was a bit off-putting but I decided to go with it. It was a good refresher. The additional factor to this brief was that we had to design the dot matrix type for the ‘If….’ poster. This was pretty difficult as the poster has to reflect the nature of the film, which is pretty savage and a dot matrix alphabet is quite neat. BUT trying to make it fit is a challenge and getting a brief like this is good practice for the live briefs and commissions in the real world.

To reflect the nature of the film I decided to use the bullet holes I used in the poster as the four dots as the shape in the dot matrix alphabet.

The point of making this dot matrix alphabet was to design it for the ‘IF….’ poster. The type had to help portray the nature of the film. I chose only to use this type for the word ‘IF….’ as it just would not have looked right if used for the other statements.

Type Workshop Week 2.

We had our second workshop this week.

The project from last week was to bring in the ‘If….’ poster the size of a cinema poster. The brief was non specific of which cinema poster size, we could choose as there were many. I chose 27×41 inches.

I decided that even though I did not like the brief last time, that I would try really hard with this to try to learn something from it. The aesthetics of the type needed to reflect the nature of the film. The film is about a riot in a school, dividing the school into two sides, hence the use of the black and white background. The four dots after the word ‘IF’ are presented as bullet holes to show the violent nature of the film. I wanted to keep the poster really simple and and use lot of white (or black) space. I played around with the names at the bottom of the poster quite a bit with the intention of getting away from the generic centered names at the bottom of the page. However, I tried a lot of different ways and they all looked really forced and in my opinion, didn’t look as aesthetically pleasing as this.

Type Workshop

Today I took part in the ‘typography strategies’ workshop. I found it really difficult.

We got given a one and a half hour brief to design a poster for the 1968 film ‘If….’ using only type. It had to be greyscale in order to be photocopied to A3 to be displayed for the rest of the group to see. We were given a brief synopsis of the film beforehand. The poster had to contain the following information:

If….
Which side will you be on?
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by John Vogel
Starring Malcom McDowell

I found this brief difficult in so many ways. It was type/layout for a poster of a film I know very little about which was created in a time I know very little about. The brief is also very closed and the fact that we were only given an hour and a half scared me.

I decided to play on the four dots after the word ‘If’ as bullet points as there were four other pieces of information to be shown. ‘Which side will you be on?’ is placed in the middle to split the poster up into two halves, representing the two sides, though I don’t think it does this very well.

I am not happy with it because of the amount I struggled to produce something. I do not think it works as a film poster or reflects the nature of the film.

For next weeks workshop we have to make a full sized cinema poster (27″ x 41″) with the same brief. We can keep the posters that were done today or we can change it. I am going to change it.