I sought to make a set of 5 posters which took a cheeky tone to critique things within the art world. The 5 posters are meant to be minimally but purposefully designed. I found it hard at first to think of an idea of how to approach the final project but in class hearing Edith’s list of requirements gave me some inspiration. I wanted to pick issues that I felt I could speak to best and also ones which wouldn’t be too diluted paired with a cheeky tone. The goal of these posters would be to post them around in cities and places near museums and document the reactions.
My first poster is a road map on how to make a museum, taking people on a short 6 step journey. The goal was to bring people to issues of museums but in a much simpler way than much of the readings and work we have done. It is supposed to be a helpful easy starting point for anyone in calling into question things they might have ignored or been unaware of. The images all are abstracted shapes which hopefully can be read well given some cultural understanding, shapes of US currency as well as the golden frame meant to represent classic frames for old paintings.
I found myself drawn to a similar style which is minimal and underwhelming yet I find it beautiful in its own regard. I think through minimally designed objects and posters you can reach a more general audience and better understanding. There is a semi modern architecture inspiration in the posters of stripping form down to the bare necessities and finding the pinnacle of function. I also received a MoMA store catalog and inside of it was a beautiful graphic of how they choose art and objects to sell in their store which by happenstance followed a similar pattern of drawing and words then line connecting it to the next part of the story; this was a happy accident that my design for the first poster coincided with this.
To actually physically produce the images and texts I used Adobe Illustrator which I had never used before. The program is fairly simple and took only an hour or two to get acquainted. It would be nice to have been able to actually post the posters around campus and photograph them for the final project, but perhaps I can do that post isolation.
