For my Little 500 poster, I took the influence of popular contemporary designer, art director, and illustrator Aries Moross. Beginning in 2007, Moross launched their career in London, designing posters for the underground music scene, a year later launching a vinyl-only record label, “Isomorph Records.” Throughout the years as Moross grew as a designer and built a following, they continued to grow within the music industry and expanded into other sectors of art direction and design, eventually opening their own creative studio in 2012, “Studio Moross.”
As a Creative Director, Moross has expanded into a variety of different areas of design, however, they’ve still managed to remain strong in their musical roots, creative directing for a variety of different musical clients in a variety of ways spanning album designs to show direction. Clients include the likes of H.E.R., Spice Girls, and London Grammar.
Moross’s style usually centers around a huge emphasis on typography rather than illustrations. As you can see from their work, they love to fill the page with type and design the words and letters with a variety of fonts, colors, and art styles, seamlessly mixing a ton of different styles for one striking, vibrant, and fun design.
These two designs served as the base inspiration for my design. I loved how Moross blended so many different type faces, colors, and design ideas without the design feeling to overwhelming or cluttered. I of course took some of my own liberties with regards to the idea of designing typography instead of relying on illustrations. I chose Moross as my influence, primarily to push myself into more typographic design, as that’s not something that I’m usually good at or interested in.
Overall I am happy with my design. For one of my first true dives into typographic design, although while still very rough, I think I did a good job, and better than I expected to be honest. When ensuring that I added my own style/ideas to the design while still adhering to Moross’ influence, I wish I could’ve blended the ideas better to create something that was overall more cohesive, however I am glad that I pushed myself, and happy with the result.
My influencer is Louis Byrne, I chose him because of his unique style when it comes to illustration. His work is definitely one of those that you just have to look at and wonder how he gets this idea from. For my design that you see up at the top, I wanted to replicate the element of the unexpected, something that doesn’t make sense but also you stare at and admire. Louis Byrne is a graphic designer based in the UK. He does a lot of video animation for his designs. His style of work involves 3D dimensions using shapes like the circle, cube, and triangles. He makes sure to implement a lot of texture especially when it comes to shapes. Most of his work involves of dark colors like black and white with pops of color using red, blue, red, pink, yellow, green and orange.
All photos taken from his website portfolio and you can see it more of it on instagram @louis_illustration
My design was inspired by the first picture that you see above. I took the colors of red, blue, and gray because those are the colors that he uses the most in all his artwork. I used a gradient and a effect to give it the same texture as the picture in the middle row. How i got to the point to choose a space theme for this piece was at most random and last minute. I wanted to match the vibe and aesthetic as him. When i look at his work to me it gives me space, alien, out-of-this world vibe and thats how i came up with this piece.
For my Little 500 poster project, I chose Wes Wilson as my inspiration. Wes Wilson was an American designer, most well known for his psychedelic posters that are synonymous with the peace movement in the 1960’s. Some of his most popular works of art were in collaboration with Bill Graham, a popular rock concert promoter in the 1960’s. Wilson created posters for bands like Grateful Dead, Love, 13th Floor Elevators, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane and more. I chose Wes Wilson as my inspiration because I have a collection of his posters, and ones of similar style hanging in my room. I am a big fan of psychedelic rock in the 1960’s, and I wanted to create something based off of this era.
For my colors, I used crimson, cream and black. I chose black as the background because it complemented the black on the bicycle, and I felt in contrast best with the white and the red. I had many phases, where I used a teal, the complement of crimson and a light blue, the complement of cream, but I felt the blues didn’t encapsulate the spirit of Little 500 the way that black did, because a lot of jerseys, and other popular IU merch contains black as a filler color.
I specifically chose a poster Wilson made for a Jefferson Airplane concert, because I liked the colors and thought they resonated closely with IU’s colors, which I wanted to implement in my design. I used the tip from week 7, Rays and Wraps, to create the wheels of the bicycle. I felt the wheels give the bicycle a psychedelic, playful look rather than realistic. I tried to avoid realistic sketches and images for my poster, because I felt it would contrast with the blown up letters and distorted typography.
As for my other graphic elements, like the bike and the heart, there are a few reasons as to why I implemented them into my design. The bike may be a dead giveaway, but it is honoring Little 500, where competitors happen to race while riding on bikes. Surrounding the wheels are more circles, and this is to give the bike an amplified effect, because it is the star of the poster. As for the heart, Little 500 is a weekend of IU Pride, and most people who celebrate are not only celebrating the race, but also our love for our University. At the very top of the heart, “The World’s Greatest College Weekend” is written, and this is a well known phrase that is often said about IU.
Wilson’s style of design is one that has closely resonated with me, for more years than I even considered my favorite graphic designers. On his website, wes-wilson.com, Wes also has a collection of stories about living in the times, including an entry about his time spent with world famous designer, Andy Warhol. Below is my design.
For my Little 500 Influence Poster, I chose Josef Müller-Brockmann as my influence. Ever since I learned about who Müller-Brockmann was in Graphic Design I, I have been a fan of his work. I have always loved the Swiss design style – I just didn’t know who the pioneers where. Müller-Brockmann’s design style and the Swiss design style are both very similar to my individual style and I really enjoyed understanding Müller-Brockmann ‘s work flow and specifics better.
Josef Müller-Brockmann was born in Rapperswil, Switzerland, in 1914. He grew up in a time of influential design, and has mentioned inspiration from the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements. He went on to study graphic design and architecture at Zürich School or Arts and Crafts. He then opened his own design studio in Zürich, and his career took off. He was famously known for his typographic and geometric posters, which generally followed a strict grid system. He went on to design a famous series of posters for Zürich Tonhalle in the 1950s (shown below). He is famously known for his book, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, published in 1961. It emphasizes the importance and visual ease of using the grid system in design, one that he commonly used. Müller-Brockmann was a professor at Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich from 1957 to 1960, and continued to guest lecture at many universities. He died in Zürich in 1966. He has left a major impact on the world of graphic design, and is a major pioneer in Swiss design.
When doing my research on Brockmann, I wanted to also understand how he was as a person. In researching, I found a few first hand accounts of him which were very endearing to me. A student at Arizona State University who was lucky enough to have Brockmann visit his class wrote, “once I was in his calm, yet playful, presence, the impact of his stopover became clearly apparent”. I thought this was important to note because his calm, yet playful presence is clearly echoed in his design. This student was also lucky enough to receive a critique from Brockmann, and with ease mentioned that “reduction of content can make all the difference in the outcome of a design” and I kept this in mind while designing my posters. In this same visit to the classroom at Arizona State University, a student asked Brockmann to show his business card. “As JMB casually pulled the business card out of his coat pocket, there was a frenzy like fish at a pond when the morsels are tossed in. He was taken aback as we scurried around to take a peak at the card revealed; novice typographers eager to see his miniature piece of art. I still remember the card clearly. It was on light gray paper stock printed with a solitary color of cool gray ink. All content was in a singular sans serif face, all lowercase, and no punctuation to speak of other than the umlaut and hyphen in his distinguished name. No commas, no periods, no colons. All the elements on the card were restricted to the purest of necessary elements. In that small space he proved the mastery of minimalism; communication clearly achieved without the use of a period or a comma. The execution of an all lowercase solution, which has influenced my own design solutions to this day, and a restrained use of typographic elements was an awe-inspiring lesson, visually delivered. He didn’t need to speak a word.” In reading this first hand account, I was inspired to keep my design hyper simple, while still conveying what needs to be conveyed.
I designed three posters because I had time and because of the simplicity of Brockmann’s designs. For my first poster (below, black) I was inspired by Brockmann’s use of simplistic lines and thought this would be a great opportunity to echo the lines of the track at Bill Armstrong Stadium. I referred to many of Brockmann’s numerous poster designs to understand how he uses type and where he places it on his posters. He tends to highlight important parts of the message in red, which I also chose to echo. And of course, the iconic Helvetica was the font I used, as it was the font Brockmann used his entire design career.
First Poster
Second Poster
Third Poster
In the second poster (below, blue) I wanted to reference Brockmann’s common use of circles, and different opacities. In designing this poster, I saw the opportunity to place the circles in a way that looked like cyclists. I thought that this was very interesting, and a simplistic way to show that it is a bike race. in terms of type, referencing Brockmann’s business card, I made it as simple as possible, all in lowercase.
In the third poster (beneath, red) I noticed that Brockmann used a lot of rectangles, which I wanted to echo but with a twist. I made the rectangles larger on one side, to represent looking down at cyclists. I made them in the formation that they are because when you look down at the cyclists on the Little 500 track, this is commonly the pack formation that they are in. I made them different opacities to represent the different teams, something that I noticed Brockmann does in many of his designs. I thought that changing the opacity and not the color would make the poster look cleaner. As for the type, I took a similar look from Brockmann’s poster “Der Film” from 1959. I thought that this type treatment matches well with the visual element of the design.
I really love how these posters turned out. I think that they work well together – they all represent different views of Little 500, and I think they have the potential to be used in a campaign-like setting. I am a big fan of Josef Müller-Brockmann’s designs and really enjoyed researching him and using him as an influence for my Little 500 poster.
Herbert Matter was born in Engelberg, Switzerland in 1907. Throughout his life he studied painting in Geneva and Paris before returning to Zurich to work for Swiss National Tourist Office. This is where his most well known work was created. His travel posters went on to earn him many awards and bring him many opportunities to showcase his talent in the design world.
When looking through the design books in class, I was immediately drawn to the Swiss style. The deep contrasts, simplicity, and pops of color stood out to me as truly effective posters. Most importantly, the use of photomontage solidified Swiss style as my choice. I’ve cycled through lots of different arts and crafts in my life, but scrapbooking or creating digital collages has always been my favorite. Once I saw Matter’s work, I knew he would be my choice.
As seen above, Matter typically finds a way to highlight the blue sky or traces of blue in his work. In creating my poster, I looked for a way to incorporate this, but ultimately it didn’t feel natural to my design. Instead I looked towards his usage of color pops, black and white photography, and bold diagonal type.
The most difficult part of this process was trying to recreate his style of photography. There is a almost a film-strip like grain over the pictures, sometimes making it confusing as to whether they are illustrations or highly edited images. I played around with many different combinations of filters and image adjustments before I felt like I had achieved close to his balance between image and illustration.
The most enjoyable part of this process was the creating the composition. Once I had my imagery and everything was filtered, I got to play around with his use of diagonal lines and recoloring parts of the images to create his signature pops of color. I knew I wanted to include some of the red-orange I had seen in his work, but I otherwise tried to keep the color palette stay true to the event. Although his work might seem a bit surreal, his colors are still natural to the images, just a bit more saturated at times.
Overall, I truly enjoyed my time working in the Swiss style. Although the posters may seem simple, there is a lot of work that happens on each individual image before they can be arranged. The effortless quality of Herbert Matter’s work comes from his deep knowledge of structure, color, and composition, as well as a love for his home country that is steeped into every poster.
For this project, I chose Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec as an inspirations for my poster because I was always a great fan of all his work. From his paintings to his posters, Toulouse-Lautrec’s style is distinguishable from afar, and captures a feeling of everyday life that is hard to put into words. The way he paints the elegant culture of the late 1800s and the social sensibilities of the time period always stuck with me when observing his work. Thus, I thought this would both translate well to the idea of IU Dance Marathon- a weekend long dance party event to raise money- as well as humorously contrast that notion of high society and elegance in Toulouse-Lautrec’s work with the casual, modest style of the Dance Marathon in which students wear rainbow clothing, capes, flower necklaces and whatever else they can get their hands on that will accurately reflect their team’s colors. From a design standpoint, Toulouse-Lautrec’s notions of color felt perfect for capturing the IU Dance Marathon because of this heavy emphasis at the event of bold colors to make a statement.
Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Moulin Rouge: La Goulue”
In trying to convey a scene of dance and a party atmosphere, the first of Toulouse-Latrec’s work I turned to was his iconic poster of Moulin Rouge, in which he expressed a watercolor-filled world of performance. A well-dressed gentleman stands in the foreground, as behind him a woman in a large dress dances for a mysterious silhouetted audience. I utilized his dominating usage of specified foreground, middle ground and background elements into my party scene, creating my own two figures to demonstrate the differing aspects of participation during the marathon, as well as a silhouetted group in the background that conveys the instantly-recognizable “total reveal” at the end of the marathon when the final amount is displayed on large cards.
This poster was also a great influence on my typography, which like Toulouse-Latrec, I hand-drew myself. I utilized a soft typeface I found online, then typed my text out and sketched over it all to have that hand-drawn look while still utilizing the professional appearance of an actual typeface. I then stretched out certain letters to create that longer text feel that Toulouse-Latrec utilized in this poster, and took influence from his usage of bright colors in the majority of the typography.
Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec’s “The Force of Mlle Eglantine”
For the actual design itself, I took inspiration from “”The Force of Mlle Eglantine,” a poster that features several women in a line, dancing. I was drawn to the strong usage of yellow coloring for the space, and the outlines of the women, which change in strength and size often. Thus, in my own work I employed much yellow in my background as Toulouse-Lautrec often did, and utilized an oval brush shape for drawing my figures that would allow for my lines to reflect the direction and weight in which I drew them- similar to a real pen or paintbrush. This gave my people a bit more of a “sketched” look, and I even erased certain parts of my figure’s outlines to emphasize this further; if you look closely at the feathers in the top of the women’s hats, you can see a similar absence of line in certain places.
Overall, I am quite happy with how my design turned out. I believe I accurately reflected lots of Toulouse-Lautrec’s style elements in my own design while remaining original. I really enjoy how my texture looks on a closer inspection, and all of my background elements- the watercoloring, the usage of abstract shapes, the thin lines- help the piece stand out and be memorable. If I was to redo my project and make changes, I would probably go even further in making the people in my design look hand-sketched. While I did employ several techniques to give them this appearance, in the final render it didn’t look as handmade as I had hoped. In the end I am still proud with my final design and while Toulouse-Lautrec was a bold choice, I am glad I chose his work as inspiration.
For my influence, I decided I wanted to specifically choose an artist that is new to the game, someone who will most likely have a long illustrious career in the near future. I decided that Timothy Goodman would be a good choice. Goodman was born in Cleveland, Ohio and developed a passion for art early on in his life. Although he didn’t see this as a viable career path, he initially worked in construction. Eventually, he decided to apply to the School of Visual Arts in New York City where he studied graphic design and finally found his artistic voice.
Working as a designer for a few years, Goodman eventually gained recognition for his illustrations and murals. His distinctive mix of bold hand-drawn letters and illustrations combined with his socially aware and reflective messaging allowed his career to really take off. His collaborations with high-profile brands such as Apple, Google, Target, and The New York Times quickly allowed him to build a name for himself.
I ALWAYS THINK IT”S FOREVER BY TIMOTHY GOODMAN
Goodman has since used his art as a medium to explore more complex personal and social ideas. He often talks about topics such as mental health, masculinity, relationships, and self discovery in his works and he uses his platform to address issues on social justice and activism. His extremely distinct style of hand-drawn letters and minimal use of bold color make his work instantly recognizable and visually engaging. The way he chooses to fill space and weave words for visual balance is thought-provoking as well as attractive to the eye. This combined with his unique voice has made him a standout figure in the world of contemporary art, illustration, and design.
Again, I chose Goodman initially due to the fact that he is still a relatively new designer, but I also resonate heavily with his style being heavily into hand-drawn elements. Looking at my piece is trying to draw on that style while also remaining original in design choices. So things I directly took from Goodman include the line weight being overall the same except for in a few specific cases. Goodman often uses sharpies and paint markers for his work, so the line weight almost always is consistently the same throughout one project. I also initially struggled with how to incorporate color and ended up reverting to a technique that Goodman has employed where the largest, most important words stand alone in color, while the rest of the work remains black and white. As far as the fonts and fillings go for the hand-drawn elements, most of them derive from designs that Goodman consistently employs with my own personal spin on them.
CELEBRATING THE GREATEST NBA TEAMS BY TIMOTHY GOODMAN
Overall, I think my design most definitely looks as if it was influenced by Goodman. The way that space is managed and filled was a long and laborious task, but I think it resulted in something that has the same visual interest as Goodman’s work. If I was to do this again I would have probably employed more words or phrases into the design, seeing that most of Goodman’s work has copious amounts of words. I do think that the design lives up to the hand-drawn lettering, the emphasis on space, and use of bold colors that Goodman got so famous for in the first place.
I chose Gert Sellheim as my influence because I was very intrigued by his work and I thought he had a very distinct style. As I was flipping through Professor Layton’s graphic design books in class, the “Australian Surf Club” sparked my interest because of the repetition and bright colors. I thought this would be the perfect designer to choose for this project because I was already thinking of ways I could incorporate the bike track and bikers since this is a Little 500 themed poster. I also liked the use of bright colors because I knew I wanted to include vibrant colors to represent the different teams on the track.
Australia Surf Club, 1936
Gert Sellheim is a German-Australian artist/designer who was born Estonia and moved to Australia when he was 25. The poster above was a piece of work that he created for the Australian National Travel Association, and this was also the poster I used as a a true inspiration for my poster. Sellheim created many other posters for the Travel Association, but the Australian Surf Club one was the most popular. Throughout his years as a designer, he also created the logo for Qantas Airlines, which is a jumping kangaroo and is still the logo that the company uses today. More recently, Gert Sellheim was inducted into the Australian Graphic Design Association Hall of Fame in 2019, 50 years after his death. Below are some of his other works.
I chose Sellheim’s work because I thought they were very original and stood out to me against the other works I had previously looked at. My design for the Little 500 uses Sellheim’s work as influence by using bright colors, repetition, and diagonals/slants within the work. I knew I wanted to create something with the bikers themselves and I thought using a track would make sense because the lines on the track show repetition, plus it is where the Little 500 actually takes place. When illustrating the bikers, I wanted to keep it simplistic. Just like the women in the Surf Club poster, I wanted to make them all look the same and make the illustrations minimalistic. The women in the original poster are completely identical but because the Little 500 has teams, I wanted to show that by the colors that the bikers are wearing in my poster. I chose to make the track at a slant, as well as the text in the top left corner because that is something commonly done in Sellheim’s work.
Additionally, it was a difficult decision to choose a typeface. I ended up choosing an art-deco style one because I thought that matched Sellheim’s work the best. He uses sans-serif, unique typefaces, and the one I chose mirrors that.
I believe that my work does a great job representing a modern take on Sellheim’s work. I incorporated many elements that Sellheim used many decades ago when he worked for the Australian National Travel Association. I think that if someone was given my poster as well as a piece from Sellheim, they would think that they were potentially completed by the same person. My poster uses elements that Sellheim hadn’t used before, such as the checkered pattern, but I wanted to include that to stay on the Little 500 theme. It was difficult to take inspiration from a piece of work, but not completely copy it, but I think my influence poster does a great job showing influence without copying.
Overall, I am incredibly happy with how my poster turned out and I am glad I chose Sellheim as my influence. This poster will look great on my portfolio.
When I was coming up with ideas, I knew that I wanted to create the company logo related to an animal. The wolf, an animal often misunderstood and feared, embodies the qualities that I liked and thought would be great as a company representation. Wolves are intelligent, adaptable, and fiercely loyal to their pack. They possess a keen sense of intuition and a deep connection to the environment around them. I believe that the wolf and the hypothetical values of the company are very similar and based off each other. In a company, it is good when it tries to be intuitive in the approach to publishing, understanding the unique needs and goals of each project. Overall, the idea of a wolf is something that holds a strong meaning behind it and can represent the company very well. By choosing a wolf, the publishing company can convey a message of power, creativity, and intelligence, with a strong visual identity that stands out in a competitive market.
