SAID THE MAJOR,

SAID THE MAJOR,

2019

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Color Palette

Red, yellow, black, grey, & white

Font

Hand-drawn custom type & Archer

Icons

Abstract mouth

WHAT IS SAID THE MAJOR?

This poster design was inspired by Anna Ratyńska's poem called Said The Major. It was translated from Polish to English by Piotr Florczyk and it is about 5 messenger girls being sent out during the war and only one of them making it back alive. 

MAIN CHALLENGES

Creating hand-drawn typography for the title was the most difficult aspect since it required many adjustments & had to look like it naturally filled in the space between the mouth & the edges of the poster.

INSPIRATION 
& PROCESS

INSPIRATION

Influenced by war propaganda posters along with 70s posters, this final design blends those two styles together. The focal point in the center, with text above & below it, relates to the war propaganda posters. Meanwhile, the yellow organic font relates to the 70s posters. The text of the poem is placed on a curve as a way of adding movement and direction to the words that the major and lieutenant are saying in the poem, while also creating space for more focus to be on the last two lines.

PROCESS

From the beginning, I was inspired by a shouting mouth to contrast the title, Said The Major, yet relate to the intensity of the poem's message. The shouting mouth illustration was abstracted & refined, & then centered in the layout. The yellow hand-drawn text went through multiple refinements in order to fully fill up the space surrounding the mouth. The intensity of the yellow & red complement each other instead of competing, so that both the title & illustration remain as strong elements in the composition.

Final Designs

All photographs & videos are my own, taken in New York City