Flu Shot Poster

Key skills: Graphic Design, Prototyping, Research

This is a Group Project for a Graphic Design class in which we were tasked with creating a PSA poster and mobile design.

Summary

This was a team project to create a public service announcement poster around an important health issue, from which we chose the influenza vaccine. We also had to create mock-ups for specific devices (iPhone 6) and a presentation. It was based on the Russian constructivist movement of the early 20th century. Specifically, we took inspiration from his propaganda poster “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge!” from the Russian Revolution.

Клином красным бей белых!

Our team made different designs originally, then came together in the final iteration to create an ideal final framework, which involved elements of all of them.

Initial ideation involved researching background on the traditional Constructivist artists, such as El Lissitzky. Their art was inspired mostly by the Soviet Revolution around 1917 and involved rejecting what was viewed as ‘autonomous’ art in favour of constructing a piece.

Research on El Lissitzky

Process

From a design standpoint, this involved using vivid, flat colours (red, white, and black) and shapes along with shifted, angled axes, and diagonal lines. The style also involved partial shapes and layering of elements to create a visual hierarchy. We used a commanding faux-Cyrillic typeface to mimic the traditionally Russian design. All these elements in our contemporary remix came together to create a sense of urgency to this public health issue. Because this was simply a prototype, placeholder text was left in some of the designs. The text that was used in the final version was meant to be short, direct, and clear, getting the point across with even a cursory glance.

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Takeaways

I learned a great deal about typeface, graphic design and visual hierarchy from this project. The research I had to do for the tenets of Constructivism gave me a greater appreciation of its influences on the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements later on.