Poster
Beginning this project, I wanted to get a feel for what ultimately makes up Jessica Walsh’s work. What key style components make her work so unique and eye-catching. I was able to make a mood board to see various projects she worked on at once and noticed that a lot of her work plays with perspective, 3D, and color. She also worked with a lot of various mediums but she is able to maintain the same bold, clean, and color style.
Thumbnail
Looking at her work, there were a few ideas I wanted to incorporate. For one, I thought it would be cool to incorporate some text on top of her work to create a poster. I also wanted to play around with cutting out some of her projects to overlap different portraits of her under or on top.
However, I realized that it would be risky to tamper with a picture because the look I have in mind might not be able to be fleshed out successfully. Unless I would physically make the set myself, as that is how Jessica does it herself, it would be hard to end up with a successful poster. Because of this, I decided to further iterate with an idea that did not require this: a modular grid system.
First Iteration
At first, my intention with the squares and blocks of pictures was to create an orderly modular grid system, where the viewer would see only part of her face. However, as I was iterating, I found that rather than an orderly system where all the blocked out shapes are the same, playing with the scale would result in a more dynamic look. I iterated this idea with two different photos:
Although I knew the modular grid had potential if I iterated, I wanted to try out different potential ideas before committing to one.
This led into my second iteration, which if I am completely honest, I find super funny and become embarrassed by.
Iteration 2
This iteration did not require any feedback or consulting for me to give up on. Although it was not one of my proudest works, I felt a little better because I had the assurance of knowing that the modular grid was the idea that held the most potential.
Iteration 3
Playing with the different ways I could place “&Walsh” on the poster, I quickly iterated multiple poster ideas. (please ignore the funky colors!)
I was really intrigued by the way the large letters played around with sitting in the back or the front of the poster. I really liked how the ampersand was behind her. It created depth and more engaging composition.
Iteration 4
After choosing a typeface system that I liked the best (I chose this one because the big scaled letters worked well with the space of the entire poster), I got really inspired by the weaving of the typeface, so I tried out enlarging the ampersand and weaving it with Jessica herself. I actually ended up really liking it!
I had to choose whether I wanted to highlight her work with boxes or in a more fluid shape (derived from the ampersand). I chose to go with the fluid presentation of the work because it seemed more consistent with the focal ampersand in the middle. The way the work was in a curved mask helped tie in the whole poster together.
Final Poster
Reflection
Not going to lie, I feel like my process for the poster was really all over the place and super rushed. I just had so many ideas and not enough time to flesh it out, which is why I was really stuck because I was always conflicted with the idea if my thumbnail sketches had more potential than my other ones. However, at the end, I learned that the iterating process goes so much faster than I expect it to be so sometimes committing to an idea early is the wiser decision. Either way, this project was stressful but fun and I am satisfied with the poster I created at the end.
Booklet
Given the prompt of a 16 page booklet, I was a little overwhelmed as to how I would organize the entirety of my essay, display her work, but also make it visually thrilling throughout the whole book.
I started off by creating five different flatplans for my booklet.
It was quite difficult generating different ideas all at once like this. I ended up using the same idea or theme over and over in my different flatplans.
One thing I had a difficult time was making the plans for the pages that would hold my essay; I was so used to making one big visual statement with my poster, the simple felt foreign to me.
First Iteration
Here were a couple of ideas I explored in my thumbnail that I was able to flesh out for my first iteration. I made two different kinds of table of contents; one with lines and one with the pink background. I was really happy with the cover I created; it really paired well with my poster. I was also satisfied with my playing with type on the “04” page but knew I had to make the “today” portion of the title more legible.
Iteration 2
For my second iteration, I really wanted to have a general sense of the pacing of my book. Although I could not finish the spread completely, I still had a general idea of what each page would look like and what images I plan on using.
Here is the general layout of each page of my book, in order, from left to right, top to bottom. There are still a few pages I need to fully complete and small typographic tweaks I need to get to. The hardest page was the fifth page because at that point I was running out of ideas. Because my direction was not as direct for the last page, I had trouble to “fill” up the page without making it feel unintentional.
Iteration 3
Here are the pages I made iterations to for my third round. For the yellow page, I took out many of the portraits of her because it was redundant and unnecessary. It also felt like there were too many pictures of her in my booklet where she was looking at the reader straight on so it felt right to take it out. I really did like the idea of incorporating her work with the type so I played around with the hand image more to see what variable and position of type would work the best visually.
Iteration 4
Continued to find the best solutions with all the assets I had. I definitely had a hard time finding a direction for the last page ( yellow).
FINAL
Here is my final booklet and poster. For my booklet, I really like the idea of how it was a mixture of primary colors and neutral colors throughout the book. For the last page, I decided to go with a simple layout because the content of it was more fitting.
