Letterpress Triptych Concept and Process

The concept of my triptych series was to convey the good, the bad, and the ugly of my life in college. The social scene is what I believe to be one of the most fun aspects of college, so for "the good", I chose to illustrate a classic college drinking game, beer pong. For "the bad", I drew a stack of books as a representation of classes and studying, which always seems to interfere with the fun stuff, and for "the ugly" I illustrated a diploma because personally, I would like to stay in college for as long as I can! As an element of interest and playfulness, I used the drawings as letter forms within each word. Deciphering what the word spells out is slightly ambiguous, which is intentional because I did not want it to be blatantly obvious. The style of the illustrations helps with the ambiguity due to the loose, blind-contour-esque line drawings. Moreover, I wanted to have a vintage feel to the series, so I used a pencil to draw the illustrations and chose to print on a tan, textured paper with a burnt brick ink color.  The imperfect prints of the wood block letters helped further enhance the worn, vintage look I was striving for.

For each piece, I simply arranged the wood block letters to my liking, inked them, placed my paper on top, and ran it through the letterpress. Once dry, I drew my illustrations with pencil and cropped each work to 9" x 8".

Letterpress Triptych Project: Sketches

Our final project for GD1 came quickly. For this assignment, we were asked to create a triptych that utilized the letterpress, which were essentially the requirements. With only three days to complete the project, we were required to think of a concept in a short amount of time. Due to the broad nature and short deadline of this assignment, I became extremely stressed and confused about what to do. As a designer, I love adhering to guidelines and have trouble when I am given full creative capacity. Seeing my frustration, Ange suggested I create guidelines for myself and build a concept off of my own limitations. So, I decided that in my triptych I would only be able to use one color for the letterpress, my images had to be my own illustrations, and the size of each piece would be roughly 9 x 8. Like many other projects, I began to find inspiration for my concept on the internet. I googled "things in threes", which sparked many ideas. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of "the good, the bad, and the ugly". I thought it would be fun to choose a subject and then illustrate what I perceived as good, bad, and ugly of the subject. College was one idea that readily came to mind seeing that the semester is ending and exams, papers, and projects are a few things I definitely dislike about school. Without much time to mull over a solid concept, I chose to run with this idea. I started to think of images that would relate to each word. I instantly thought party cups could symbolize "the good" since everyone loves the party aspect of college. Books could represent classes and studying, or "the bad". Finally, I thought a diploma could illustrate "the ugly" because who actually wants to graduate and go into the real world?! When I chose all the images I wanted to use for each word, I tried to figure out how I would incorporate the text and image together. I immediately thought that using images to represent letters would be a great way to integrate the two and add some playfulness and interest. I plan on having the triptych series to evoke a somewhat vintage feel by using my own pencil line drawings as well as creme, textured paper, and a dull, red ink for the  letters. 

Rock Star Supply Co. Final Poster

Here is the final poster I designed for our Rock Star Supply Co. campaign series. I mentioned in my previous post that our group was collaborating on a few pieces; however, we ended up having each person take responsibility for a specific piece. The poster, obviously, was my design assignment. Comparing the first draft to this one, the overall layout and organization of the poster remained the same; however, I made changes to a couple elements. For example, instead of a calculator, the focal image is now a megaphone, which better pertains to the poster's title, "Listen Up". Furthermore, the title banner was switched from a white background with black text, to a black background with white text. Finally, the circle was filled with a tint of the pure green hue, seen in the main background of the poster. All in all, I am very happy with the end product. I think that the design is clean, direct, and striking, which in my opinion, are key components in a successful poster. I particularly love the screen print style of the image. In addition, I think the color palette is successful. The combination of black and white provides great contrast and the vibrant green color adds interest and draws even more attention. In addition, the poster remains cohesive with the other work in our series. The ticket, palm card, and web site landing page can be seen on Katie Lindgren's blog, which shows how we tried to maintain similar elements throughout, such as the typography, image style, circle "ripples" and title banner.