Digital Displays

Design Notes:

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This poster is designed to elicit motivation to strive for success in middle school and high school students throughout Utah and Nevada, while also providing a marketing opportunity for the federally-funded program "USU Stars! Gear Up," which has been set up to facilitate academic prosperity for young learners.  From ACT/SAT preparation to career mentoring, USU Stars! Gear Up is about:

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           "...ensuring that students have the capability to navigate the future, which is rapidly changing."

             Ranjit Sidhu, CEO and President of  ‎

            National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP) 

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My thoughts going into this project were focused on creating a motivational poster that demonstrated the emotions accompanied by the achievement of success, that incorporated the USU Stars! Gear Up logos, matched the Utah State University visual identity program, most recently published in 2016, and most importantly, I wanted to design a poster that appealed to a younger generation of potential college students.

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Design and Development:

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For several years I have worked for various universities video recording commencement events and creating marketing materials from the footage.  I scoured my old recordings for a celebratory pose by a graduate and took a screen capture of the moment that I saw a graduate celebrating like Rocky Balboa from popular culture. 

 

With the screen capture image, I used Adobe Photoshop to accurately select and mask just the graduate, cut the graduate out of the image, and paste the grad onto a bordered, dark blue background that was consistent with USU visual identity (RGB: 0r + 51g + 89b).  I then selected and masked the grad's sunglasses, filled them white, and filled the rest of the grad black to create a silhouette.  A silhouette makes a figure ambiguous, with no race or gender implied.  The sunglasses serve the purpose of appealing to younger audiences.  I also added a clip art tassel that I obtained through a Google Image search using images that are "labeled for reuse with modification" and filled it white. It is placed on the left hand side of the cap, signifying graduation.

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As for the text, I split that gear logo on the degree cover from the "Gear Up" text that was originally on a single image, filled the text white, and matched the color of the gear to the background and the rest of the poster's theme. Then, I used this font that has the look of a paint brush to write "For Success."  I was not happy with how the "S" looked in the font, so substituted this font for the "S."  It is my hope that without explanation, the differences in font are unnoticeable.   I also wanted the paint brush text to give a nod to Utah Stars! Gear Up's various art initiatives.

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Finally, I wanted the text to fit with the image in terms of matching the contours of the silhouette, while at the same time, I wanted the text to be legible from a distance, thus the size and contrasting color of the text on the dark background.