SHUMO Bot Challenge and SHU Tree Lightning posters

Below is the poster made by Sacred Heart University’s Engerneering Programs for the SHUMO Bot Challenge 2017. 

Overall, this online version of the poster was executed quite nicely, with all the important information hilighted. However, if this is a printed version, the way the designer used typography does not work really effectively.

One of the reasons that make this poster a good one is that it has contrast and hierachy of presentation, as R. William said in the poster designing principle: “ Use a strong focal point and contrast to organize the information and lead the reader’s eye through the page.”  The “SHUMO Bot Challenge 2017” phrase presented in large texts with contrast of colors (SHU’s red and white) brings an attractive effect that can easily grab viewers’ attention. The use of different font sizes also greatly helps feature the important information that the poster wants to convey: The event’s name, dates and places that it was going to happen. The designer also used subhead effectively. Viewers can get the main basic information without having to read the entire content of the poster. Allignment of the texts are good, and there is also a repetition of typeface too. The graphics are neat and clearly demonstrate the message of the competition in the poster.

However, if we look at this poster, there are still somewhat missing in typestyle. By using the concordant design without bold or italic, the feeling this poster gives out is quite lacking creativeness and innovation, which is kind of important for a robotics competition. The typeface that the designer used looks pretty good for a header, but when being used for body of text, it turn out really hard to read.

The second poster that I want to have a deeper look into is the one made for SHU’s Christmas Tree Lightning. This is a really pretty and elegant design, strongly emphasis the Christmas environment.

The first impression I have for this design is the SHU’s red. The designer did a great job in utilizing the school’s color and match it with Christmas color in order to bring a festive atmostphere while still being able to advertise for SHU brand. The graphic used in this poster is beautiful and matches perfectly with the content “tree lightning ceremony”. While also use the concordient design like the first poster, the typeface is the same as Sacred Heart University logo’s typeface, a serif one, which is elegent and easy to read, suitable to be used for both header and body. The cap versus lowcase (contrast of form) method also help the whole design look more harmonizing.

However, there is still an easy-to-see small problem with the way the typography is used for the body. There are two different statements in the body of text but the way they are center-alligned makes it really hard for viewers, when they first scan the poster, to divide between the two. It is also better to put the Location part into the subheadings together with time and date because they are all important elements that the viewers need to decide wether they want to come to the event or not.

The reason I choose both of these posters is because they all make good use of SHU’s red, white and gray colors without loosing the overall message of the events they want to promote. This is a very important factor when it come to designing posters or posters for a corporation or organization. People can get to know your brand and what you want to convey without reading the texts on your designs.