Founders Day - Design Brief

Founder's Day celebrates both the past and the future of Butler University. We were challenged to create a poster and timeline design that encompasses Butler's accomplishments of the past while "Looking Forward" toward the Universities goals for the future. We chose to focus on how involved and supportive Butler University has been, from its founding until today, in fights for equality. From gender, to race, to sexual inequalities, Butler has actively worked toward crating an inclusive campus; we are "Looking Forward" to what comes next. 

We were inspired by both Futurism and Art Nouveau to represent the strength of Butler's past and its movement toward the future. These two periods provided the most inspiration to create a poster and timeline that truly showed Butler's participation in movements toward equality.  

Alphonse Mucha's Art  Nouveau work inspired the cut outs seen near the bottom of the poster. These are present to give the poster more depth and to add texture and visual interest to the lower half of the work. The cut outs are overlaid with a layer of transparency as to not take away from the primary image. His work also inspired the use of a single female figure as the main focus of the piece and the use of a halo type shape surrounding the figure's head. We used this technique to pull the eye toward the center of the composition as well as give the figure a more regal, optimistic look. She is looking toward the future of equality at Butler.    

Jan Toorop's Art  Nouveau work, as well as the concept of whiplash lines in the rest of Art Nouveau, inspired the background and the hair on the figure in our work. Whiplash lines are used to create movement and flow in an image. We similarly used them in our own work, employing the lines to move the viewers eye around the poster. Their presence also gives the figure a lighter appearance and a look of serenity. This is important to convey the idea that she is "looking forward" toward the bright future of Butler University. 

Whiplash lines also represent the anxiety people were feeling in the 1890s toward the industrial revolution. We took this concept of anxiety and used it to reflect the current state of Butler students in regards to the administration's handling of contemporary issues of equality. While they do support equality, for example they publicly apposed HJR - 3, it has been taking a longer amount of time for them to do so. As students, we hope the administration is more proactive towards future fights for equality, just as they were during Butler's origin. 

The contour lines used in Toorop's work also inspired the use of similar lines for the figures face in our poster. We wanted to portray an absence of race in the figure and decided contour lines would be the most ideal way. The poster wouldn't be portraying equality if the the figure on our poster had an identifiable race so it was important for our concept that she was non-racial. 

Hector Guimard's Art Nouveau architecture also inspired the whiplash lines used in the creation of the poster.  

Max Läuger's vase also provided inspiration for both the poster and the timeline. For the poster, the transparent aspect of the vase was used in the bottom cutouts. For both, the curvy, whiplash-type lines were incorporated.

Foutuanto Depero's Futurist posters inspired the bold text used in our work. The three diminutional text is used to draw attention to the poster and to the event it is promoting. The 3-D text, along with the bold, blocked secondary text, is used to give the poster a more solid feel. It is used to represent the foundation on which Butler grew and is now able to stand on as they look toward the future. The text visually contrast the whiplash lines, providing more visual interest and allowing the text to stand out from the background. It also gives the work more depth. Depero's work also inspired the use of solid blocks of color in the foundation of the design. For this reason, we decided to work digitally. We wanted to create crisp, clean lines. We also wanted to have saturated, solid colors, which would be best achieved with a digital print. Working digitally also allowed us to experiment more with the design. This was important because of the multiple font and color choices we plan to experiment with. 

Futurists were interested in anarchist ideals, wanting to create a complete lifestyle revolution during their time. This often resulted in the use of force and bombings. While Butler did not use force in their movements and fights for equality, they were often supporting revolutionary ideas, just like the futurists.  

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist works helped inspire the movement seen in our work. Futurist work captures continuous movement which we wanted to portray in our work to represent Butler's repeated strides toward fighting and supporting all types of equality.

Marinetti's work also inspired the color choices in our poster. The blues and yellows on our work, as they do in the work above, contrast each other, attracting viewers to the poster, but still nicely complementing one another. The colors are simultaneously vibrant and earthy, attracting viewers but not overwhelming them. (Also, these color choices could work well with the "Butlerizing" of the work.)

Our work went through many stages before we arrived at the final composition. Below was the initial rough sketch of the poster. 

The digital mock up of the above sketch is shown below. 

We were not happy with the extreme color usage or the busy, distracting composition. We decided to re-sketch the idea for our composition, this time focusing on keeping the more simplistic style we had seen in Futurist work. We also wanted to focus on including whiplash lines from Art Nouveau. Below the our secondary sketch. 

We were much happier with this design. As we were working on creating the work digitally we ran into one major problem: how were we going to depict the figure in a way were she encompasses the multitude of ethnicities represented through Butler's support of equality? Our first idea was to use contour lines. Below is the result. 

We did not like how this ended up. The figures large face took up a major part of the poster. This was problematic because, as we used contour lines, her face and the space it took up, was essentially empty. The figure also felt very separate from the background; they were not integrated. The poster didn't feel complete. We brainstormed and decided to try to overlay pictures taken from old Drifts, Butler's yearbook, that represented the diversity at Butler. We layered several images at low opacity. The result is below.

We found this design boring. Also, the figure still had an easily identifiable race, which we adamantly did not want. We returned to the idea of using contour lines but this time we decided to make the face of the figure smaller. This would make the poster feel more full and complete. We also decided to integrate the hair into the background to connect the two together. The result is below. 

We didn't like how the blues looked together. The figure did not stand out. We played with the coloring of the figure and ended up with the final version that we have now. The yellow coloring stands out and is much more bold, crating a visually interesting composition that is successful in depicting the forward looking attitude Butler University has toward equality. 

The timeline also went through several stages to reach the final result. Below is the original sketch.

The idea behind the timeline was to incorporate the whiplash lines used in Art Nouveau for each major event on our timeline. To incorporate the Futurism aspect, we would use Futurism-inspired font and text. This font was the same one that would be used on the timeline. Originally, each event would feature the text that talked about it, as well as a small image that would also represent the overall theme of the event. However, we decided that the busyness of the whiplash lines paired with the text and images would be too much. In the end we decided to just stick with the text. Since we liked the way the lines looked on this sketch, it was posterized on the computer and then uploaded into Illustrator to further edit it. The posterized version is below.

This gave us the ability to distinctly see the lines that would be used for each event. From this version, there were plenty of changes made, but the overall design was never changed. The final product can be seen below.

As you can see, the background color, as well as the other complimentary colors are the same as the ones on the poster. This element tied the two together rather nicely. The primary and secondary texts are the same as well. During the process of finalizing the timeline, we changed a few things. First, we added more whiplash lines in the background, coming off of the bolder ones, to give it more depth, movement, and visual appeal. Although the whiplash lines are strictly Art Nouveau, the movement element that tied into them references Futurism. As well as the whiplash lines, the bold dates' locations were changed, tilting them slightly. This also hints at a sense of movement throughout the timeline. Keeping the dates near the base line of the time line and extending out the whiplash branches shows Butler's commitment to the foundations the institution was built upon. The whiplash lines show Butler's growth toward the future, Butler's ability to "look forward". The final thing that was added was the addition of a title phrase to each that followed the curve of the whiplash lines, creating text-based whiplash lines to integrate the text into the composition rather than placing it on top. We thought that this tied the entire piece together nicely, giving it finished, balanced look that matched the poster.

REVISIONS

After some consideration and discussion with our peers and professor we decided additional changes were needed on the poster (the updated version can be seen below). One suggestion from our classmates was that the font we previously used for the main "Looking Forward" text was to juvenile and too much like "word art". It was also suggested that it contained to harsh of lines to fit in with the rest of the "whiplash" lines on the poster. We did not want to get rid of the bold, 3 dimensional font because that was a major link in our work back to futurism. Instead, we found a similar bold font that had smooth, rounded, art nouveau edges instead of harsh ones like the previous font. The font is still futurist but fits better with the ret of the poster. We also made the font a single color instead of multiple to reduces the "word art" feel. We added a horizontal panel of teal to place the font on so the title easily popped out to the viewer. This was changed in both the poster and the timeline. 

Another suggestion we had was to replace the transparent shapes on the bottom of the poster. A main concept of art nouveau is the asymmetry. When we had three symmetrical shapes on the bottom of the poster it took away that asymmetry. We decided to take them out all together and enlarged the image of the figure as well as the "founders day" text to fill the now empty space. We also reduced the size of the main teal panel down the middle of the poster to show more of the whiplash lines. This increased the visual interest that was lacking when the transparent panels were removed. Doing this made it more difficult to read the phrase "equality at Butler University". We enlarged that text and added a thin black stroke around the lettering to make it pop from the busy background. We also added a thin orange stroke to outline "founders day" to have consistency between the fonts. 

The third major change made to the poster was the removal of many of the extra lines in the figures face. These lines made the figure look older and instead of adding dimension, flattened the image. We took out the majority of the wrinkle-like lines and instead added "dimple" lines to her face and a more concrete bridge to her nose. This made the figure look younger and also more hopefully, a main component in the concept of this piece. 

The timeline had minimal changes. We fixed any misspelled words and adjusted the fonts to fit with the ones on the poster. All in all, we are happy with the results of the changes and think they helped to further evoke our concept. 

From its formation, Butler has supported movements for equality, racial equality, gender equality, and marriage equality. We chose to call our poster "Looking Forward" to encapsulate Butler Universities proactive attitude toward the fight for equality. We chose to use a non-racialized figure as the focal image to further push the concept of "equality at Butler". We pulled our color scheme from Futurist works. The contrasting colors pull viewers in but still harmonize with each other. They colors play up the serene, hopeful look in the figures face as she looks towards the future. The large teal shape in the center of the poster solidifies the compositing, it gives the figure a base to stand out from the background on. The cut outs in the middle shape create depth in the poster and refer back to Art Nouveau. The whiplash lines in the background provide visual interest throughout the poster, create movement, and encourage the viewer's eye to move around the piece. The colors of the font allow them to stand out but still meld with the rest of the poster. "Looking Forward" is larger so the main concept of the poster is the first text read. Large, solid, bold fonts were chosen to contrast the more delicate whiplash lines. They also represent the solid foundation on which the future of equality at Butler can grow where the whiplash lines represent that more elusive but still hopefully future. The style references came from Art Nouveau and Futurist works and are explained more specifically above. Inspiration was taken from many different works. Inspiration for the text came from one work, for the colors came from another, the composition another, the techniques another. The large variety of inspiration allowed us to create an original piece. We chose to use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to create the posters because we wanted to be able to achieve crisp, flat color throughout the compositing. We also wanted to be able to play with color choice while in the process of making the poster; using a digital program allowed us to do this.

Kaylin had the initial concept for the timeline and Taylor had the initial concept for the poster. Each was responsible for the construction and completion the of their element, respectively, but we collaborated and problem solved as a team throughout.