About this project:

My poster is fairly simple, but it’s colorful with fun designs and patterns throughout. I chose to keep it simple because I didn’t want to overcrowd the space, however it is a lot of information in a small poster.

The background image is a black-and-white close-up of sawdust but that could also appear as sand from afar. I think either would work for the poster’s purposes, because its namesake is sawdust but the festival takes place on Laguna Beach. I placed an image of a pink sunset in the header text and the website, both because the color is similar to the red on the Sawdust Festival’s website and because it’s on the beach.

The remaining colors - green and gray – are the more prominent colors from the website. I think the green adds a nice pop and is used frequently on the website, so I incorporated it through the paint splatters and the paint on the end of the brush. I used the gray for the more serious parts of the poster; the text and the brush.

I chose the paintbrush as my design because the Sawdust Festival website already featured paint splatters, and as an art festival I imagine there will be many paint vendors. A paint brush is distinctive and it communicates the festival’s purpose effectively enough that I believe it could appear on a t-shirt or bag and tell any viewer what the Sawdust Art Festival is about.

I know the paintbrush is pretty simple, but I felt the project needed a design that would neither overpower the text nor add too much to the noise. Overall, I think (and hope) the poster comes across as a cohesive project that communicates key information, a beach setting, and a celebration of art.