A2 Graphics Unit 4

First of all, I drew a rough design of the circus poster on my sketchbook and scan it into the computer.

Since I'm doing two posters, I started off with the day time performance poster first. I opened the rough drawing in Illustrator, which allows me to create illustrations with smooth lines and clear edges. I created a new graphics style so I can draw the illustration the way that I want. Furthermore, I selected a colour palette from the colour library, which enables me to choose the right colour to use out of all the available options.

Afterwards, I used the graphics style to draw the illustrations, and I started off with illustrations that are formed by simple shapes, such as the balloons. And once I outlined it, I then fill in the colours.

When I'm done with the simple shape illustrations, I then moved onto texts. For the information texts I used san-serif typography, because the title 'CIRCUS' is a display type which it is more easy to the eye if I employed san-serif type for the information texts.

Later on, I worked on other illustrations such as the hot air balloons and the trees.

As for the circus tent, I used red and white because this is the common circus tent colour. But in order to make it more pop-up and 3D like, I used graphics tool and drew an illustration next to each stripe of the tent, and set it one shade darker, which creates a shadow effect and make the overall look of the tent more pop-up.

I thought the overall look of the poster will look dull, so instead of just drawing the clouds and fill the colours in, I created it by making it formed by numerous of triangles (in different colours, mainly purple, blue, green and white). I outlined the cloud first, then I drew a grid on top of it, so it is easier for me to fill in the colours of the triangles.

I finished with all the illustrations on the poster, so now the only thing left to do is to add the 'CIRCUS' title. I drew the typography on my sketchbook, then scan it and opened it on Photoshop, so I can colour it.

When I'm done with filling the colours in, I opened it in Illustrator, used the tracing tool to ungroup the white background and the typography.

I moved the typography into the poster document, and placed it on top of the information texts. And this is my final day time performance poster.

Since I need to create a night time performance poster, it requires a night sky background, which I created it in Photoshop. First of all, I set the background colour into a really dark navy blue, then I used Noise and Blur tool to help me create the stars. And the outcome is what I expected, as the stars are subtle yet noticeable.

I placed the night sky background into the poster document in Illustrator. The night sky performance poster and the day time poster are relatively the same, the only thing that I changed is the the majority of the illustrations (day time: hot air balloons, balloons and clouds; night time: fireworks) and the colour of the information texts.

I recreated the tree and circus tent in the night time poster document, but change the tent colour into purple, and make the tree colour slightly darker. Also I already placed the 'CIRCUS' title on top of the information texts.

As for the fireworks, I used graphics tool to help me create it. I then moved it into the poster document and duplicate the firework illustration. Since I don't want the fireworks to overtake the attention, I employed darker colours and set the opacity level to 70, so it'll look subtle and make the overall poster look less busy. Additionally, I adjusted the fireworks into different size so it creates a contrast, which makes it less dull.