poster

About my kyle and kate poster…

When I heard that we would be using Photoshop in our Digital Media class I pretty much went crazy with excitement. Not just because I’ve used Photoshop lots before, but because my CS4 trial had ended last year and I’d only been using Lightroom since then. Lightroom is a great program, but you just can’t do the same things on it that you can of CS4. I was excited that I’d be able to use the program again, and even more excited to experiment around with it. When approaching this poster project, you could say that was my motto. Experiment.

Right off the bat I decided to make a poster for my new SpiritLive show that I’m doing with Kyle. Why not kill two bids with one stone? I wanted to show the goofy nature of our show and the dynamic between Kyle and I. Titled simply “Kyle and Kate” our show is an odd mix of sports news (done by Kyle) and indie music (done by myself). I know nothing about sports and Kyle knows nothing of the indie music scene. This results in lots of me getting confused, and then me bossing Kyle around. There seems to be this idea that jocks and artsy types are worlds apart, and we try and bring them together on our show. I wanted my poster to do somewhat of the same thing.

I decided to take candid shots of Kyle and I goofing around, and then edited the photos in Lightroom. Once I was happy with the base image I imported it into CS4 and began to play around. Here’s where I got a little stuck. I decided to colour the background blocks different colours (for a fun yet funky effect), and used a big selecting tool that is similar to the magic wand. This tool was grabbing too much and, I forgetting about how you can adjust that, instead went to the magnetic lasso and took a lot of persnickety time selecting blocks. Lesson learnt. Moving on, I decided that a more raw and rough look would work for this poster. I used the clone stamp, copying the original image, and then cloning on some of the creases on the blocks. I liked the way it brought out the lines and added some directional flow, helping you eye move around the poster.

With that done it was time for text. Going to my favorite font site DaFont.com, I began to explore. Still going with the rough yet fun look, I found two fonts that I liked and thought would be appropriate. One more chunky and stubby, one thinner and more detailed. Both very distressed. I thought that it would be fun to mix it up a little with the fonts, and chose to use the thinner more detailed font for the title, and the chunky bold font for all the info. I’m very pleased with this choice, and think that the two fonts balance each other nicely. I arranged them in a way so that the chucky info bits of text framed the title as well as the photo of Kyle and I.

All in all I’m quite pleased with my poster! I can’t wait to put them up all over Ryerson and beyond. Now…if only I could afford colour prints! Viral internet advertising will have to do for now.