Placard Issuu

Placard Project

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A good designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Initial Research Right after choosing Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s quote for my project, I did some research on the man.

My goal was mostly to see what his art style was and learn a little about his life and any major events that might give me inspiration for the project.

One of the surprising things that I learned about Saint-Exupery is that he did not do much designing with typography. He was an avid pilot and book writer who often created his own watercolor illustrations.

This posed a hitch in my plans because I wouldn’t have any of the artist’s work to directly model my typography after.

But Saint-Exupery is an interesting person. Here are some highlights for your general information: • The third of 5 children, became in “impoverished aristocrat” when his father died when he was 4.

• Learned to fly and took a lot of aviary jobs.

Many of them risky.

• Once crashed his plane in the Sahara Desert and wandered lost for four days until Bedouin found him and his copilot and rehydrated them. Had become extremely dehydrated over this time and nearly died.

• Fought in WWII as a pilot. Rejoined the force 8 years after the age limit and with waning health.

• He would often write while flying because it gave him a chance to reflect on the world below him.

• On his last reconnaissance mission, he left in an unarmed plane and never returned. The wreckage of his plane was found in the ocean years later.

• He is viewed as a national hero in France.

• Wrote: The aviator, The Silver Ship, Southern Mail, Night Flight, Flight to Arras, Letter to a Hostage, The Little Prince He also has some very cool quotes that I will be displaying throughout this issuu because I love collecting quotes.

One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.

First Sketches With my research done, I began making preliminary sketches on how I would lay out my quote.

Though sometimes my tendency is to over decorate the typography, I quickly decided that a minimalist and simple tone would match the quote the best. Along this train of thought, centering text often gives it a calming, balanced feel. So my sketches began to move towards small, centered designs with a lot of white space.

I also tried to express the meaning of the words through their typography so “add” was bold because it was “too much” and “take away” was thin because it was “sparse.”

Top 3 Iterations I decided my three strongest sketches were the ones shown to the right. They are all different styles that involve centering the text. I was playing with hierarchy and extreme contrast mostly.

All three have a large visual gap between the bulk of the quote and “to take away.� This is because I felt that phrase was the punch of the quote and could be emphasized most effectively through space.

The bottom two I was also working on aligning the words to a central axis to add more visual interest and create a definite line of contrast.

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

First Critique The first critique didn’t bring any surprises. The class suggested that I decrease the contrast a tad so it’s not so overpowering. They advised that I switch to a regular font instead of bold since the regular would most likely contrast enough with the thin type to still hold the desired effect without being so heavy.

I also wanted to scale down the designs on the right so there would be more white space around them and they wouldn’t be so visually abusive.

They were too loud as they were and my goal was to reach a quieter, simple tone.

I was also told that I should change the “take away” in the lower design to thin since they liked how the message was conveyed through the thin font.

They also discussed that I should fiddle around with which words were bold and which were light. The tendency of the reader is to just read the dark words and skip the light ones so they wanted to make sure that made sense.

a rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing with him the image of a cathedral.

Corrections So I went back to my sketches and made the corrections. I shrunk everything proportionally so that they were significantly smaller and it did a ton in expressing my minimalist tone. I think this was the best improvement I made to the designs.

I also changed the Fira Sans Heavy to Fira Sans Book. There was still enough contrast for readers to know which words are important and also still kept its visual appeal. But it wasn’t as loud and extreme as before and the subdued appearance also helped the tone.

I also changed the last line of the last design from heavy to thin. However, I had already decided that the top design was my strongest so this was a bit of a moot point.

Admittedly, I did forget to play around with the hierarchy at this stage. I thought I had remembered all the corrections that the class had recommended to make, but this one slipped my mind. Fortunately there was still time later in the revising process to play with that.

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

Second Critique At this critique I chose the one design I liked the most as you can see on the right. This one was minimalist enough that it wasn’t overwhelming, but also had enough visual interest that it didn’t seem boring or plain.

The main point that the class discussed was hierarchy which I had not revised earlier. They felt other aspects of the piece were effective but that when you only read the bold it didn’t make sense.

if you want to build a ship, dont drum up people to collect wood and dont assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Struggling Hard This was where I hit a wall. I could not find a good solution to improving the hierarchy while maintaining the general design of the quote.

First I tried making the not/but whens large and moving them over to the right half of the design.

However this made the image seem very heavy on the right and unbalanced. The light text didn’t have enough substance anymore to justify a half and so now it just looked like little phrases tacked on to the left of the bold text. I was working with the large version of the quote too so when I shrank it the thin text would look even more insubstantial. The words also sounded choppy when I read it because anytime I read a bold word you put more emphasis on it. However, with there being so few thin words, it just sounds like you’re shouting every 3 words and the sentence loses its flow.

Then I tried sliding the thin words in between the bold so that the reader wouldn’t skip over them while reading the bold words. However this stretched the quote too much, broke up white space, and the quote lost its blockish, solid look that was so appealing. I tried this approach two ways and the second attempt was worse than the first because the thin letters were so few they were just as lost amongst the bold as if they were left beside it.

My fourth attempt was a lot like my first but I played around with where to put perfection. In the end I decided it was an important enough word in the sentence that it deserved to be bold.

On another attempt I tried putting to take away on the left to balance out the thin letters. However, this made it lose some visual interest due to the right alignment. Also, your eye flows best when your drop straight down from “left” to “to take away” instead of having to cross the entire page again to see it.

In the end, after much deliberation, experimentation, and consternation, I decided to stay with my original design. Not because I was lazy or because I was wedded to my first idea, but because I felt it did the best job emphasizing key words in the sentence and balancing the composition.

Tad More Research Once I had finalized my quote design I began looking into how I would paint my canvas.

I had come up with the idea of making it desert theme from the beginning. First, it is a reference to the time when Saint-Exupery crashed his plane in the Sahara Desert and nearly died. This was a life changing event for the man and he often referenced it in his writing and self-pondering. I thought this would be a wonderful way to tie the designer into the piece since I had not had an opportunity to while designing the typography.

Second, the desert fits well with the scarcity, and simplistic tone of the piece.

There’s not many other places on earth that have such a natural barrenness and static feel to it like the desert does. Also, conveniently, yellow is a light color that should not distract too much from the text like blues, greens, or any other color might.

So I researched abstract desert paintings and the ones that most appealed to me were those that were mostly different shades of yellows blended together. I felt I didn’t need to specifically paint desert landmarks for the point to get across. The image that inspired me the most is the large on to the right. I loved the cloudy, windy, abstract style of it and though I didn’t use quite the same range of color or shape in my own version, the blended, interconnectedness of the colors is similar.

what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

Final Product

Tell me who admires and loves you and I will tell you who you are.

Reflections At the beginning of the project I had an image of your classic tumbler quote mounted on my wall with cutsie decorations and fonts. But once I got my quote I realized that wasn’t going to work. I cut down on the elaborate plans and focused on a simple design that would portray the simple message accurately. As research and preliminary sketches progressed, the concept of minimalism through layout, background, and font did too. I was inspired not just by the quote but by Saint-Exupery’s history and other pieces of art with similar purposes. I combined these elements into my piece to make my own work and twist on the quote. But looking forward to actually assembling the placard, I was apprehensive how my sketches and ideas would translate onto the actual canvas. I have little experience as a painter so I was worried I would not be able to paint the background in the way I was visualizing or that I would mess it up. I also had zero experience with the Vynal. I didn’t know what was too small to print or how certain things would translate.

I would love to know more about Saint-Exupery. His most famous work is the Little Prince and there is so much about it on the internet that now I want to read it. Based on some of the quotes from it that I found on the internet, it sounds like a very simple yet insightful book. It is because of this book that Saint-Exupery became a national hero in France. One day I’ll find the time to sit down and read it.

As I was going along, I noticed how useful is was to draw out the designs before going to the computer. I normally do this, but one thing I did differently was I drew out separate parts of the image different ways. Usually I only draw base images and then experiment with different parts of the image when its on the computer and the only thing I draw are extremely different designs. But this time I would draw one word three different times or align the image multiple ways.

On the other hand I had a really hard time revising my quote this time around. I try not to get stuck with my original ideas and keep an open mind to new solutions. I just could not find anything I liked better than the first quote. Perhaps if I had more time I would spend it exploring more options in that area. Also if I had more time and the opportunity to redo the vinyl lettering, I would make my letters bigger since the small words blend into the background more than I had anticipated.

I tried to work with expressing the meaning of a word through its font and layout like we had discussed in class. For example, “to add” was bold like it was too much and “to take away” is thin because it is less. I also tried to name the tone I was going for and THEN design the quote because that forces you to make intentional decisions from the beginning and not have to refocus in the middle. Sometimes I plan the other way around which leads in inefficiency and a lot more revising.

I loved the 3D aspect and mediums used in this project. It’s really cool having something more than a piece of paper at the end and I had a lot of fun painting and laying out the vynal stickers. I kind of wish we could have had the option to add minimal decoration like geometric shapes or lines to the quotes but I also understand the limitations of vynal and wanting to just focus on typography.

I also don’t know if I would have actually used decoration considering my tone, but at least I could have had the option. But other than that this was one of my favorite projects so far and I really enjoyed it!

The one thing that matters is the effort.