"The History of Type" poster design for class. Critiques welcome!

L

lokriart

New Member
Hi, everyone!
New user and novice graphic designer here in an intro typography class.
Our assignment for this class is to create a hypothetical event poster. The copy is mostly a timeline of events. The other requirement a headline reading “The history of type” alongside fake venue dates. We are also required to only use type, no illustrations or photographs. We’re not allowed to use more than one other color besides b&w.

I’ve been really inspired by Michael Bierut’s posters for the Yale School of Architecture.

I made 5 versions and I'm looking to print the three best.

Poster 4@0.75x.pngposter3@0.75x.pngposter2@0.75x.pngposter1@0.75x.pngPoster 6@0.75x.png

I just want to know if there are any glaring issues or anything I should work on for future projects.
I’m really grateful for any feedback!
 
lokriart said:
oh! 20"x15"! The smallest text is 8-9 points and when printed out is pretty readable. These thumbs were printed at 75% scale at the time
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Yeah that's pretty small for a poster imo, you're not going to be reading it like a document it's going to be on a wall with you standing away from it.

I'd suggest you put some text at 8-9 points on a wall and then stand back a bit, then try and read it :)
 
Levi said:
Yeah that's pretty small for a poster imo, you're not going to be reading it like a document it's going to be on a wall with you standing away from it.

I'd suggest you put some text at 8-9 points on a wall and then stand back a bit, then try and read it :)
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I mean I have them printed out already and felt as though they work fine. It’s partially the recommendation of my professor as well to keep it that size. My understanding is that the small text is something you read after you walk up to a poster to see more.
 
lokriart said:
I mean I have them printed out already and felt as though they work fine. It’s partially the recommendation of my professor as well to keep it that size. My understanding is that the small text is something you read after you walk up to a poster to see more.
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Yeah but you don't read a poster from the same distance as a letter but if you're happy with having text that is probably too small for most people to read then go for it. My view is it's too small for a poster.
 
Levi said:
Yeah but you don't read a poster from the same distance as a letter but if you're happy with having text that is probably too small for most people to read then go for it. My view is it's too small for a poster.
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Fair enough, I’ll try out some larger font sizes Thank you. Other than that is there something that stands out as a problem?
 
They don't really look like posters, more like pages from a book. Why is there so much text, do you really need all that information on there? And yes, it is too small.
They read more as infographics, but even then there's too much text.

If I was doing it I would just have the sub-headings or names of fonts along with the title and dates etc. Avoid chopping up or bastardising any fonts or letters.
Don't forget you could have tints of a colour too.
 
Wardy said:
They don't really look like posters, more like pages from a book. Why is there so much text, do you really need all that information on there? And yes, it is too small.
They read more as infographics, but even then there's too much text.

If I was doing it I would just have the sub-headings or names of fonts along with the title and dates etc. Avoid chopping up or bastardising any fonts or letters.
Don't forget you could have tints of a colour too.
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I agree that it’s too much text but that’s part of the assignment, along with having 8-9 point text for that part. I’d change that if I could,

And yeah I’d say they’re closer to infographics too.

and for sure I probably could get some more hierarchy using tints. Thank you!
 
lokriart said:
My understanding is that the small text is something you read after you walk up to a poster to see more.
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Maybe yes, but you need your nose almost on the poster to read it that size.

It a recommendation from your professor. That means it's not a rule.

There is way too much emphasis on the bog blocks and not enough on the events. I'd make the date and event a lot larger - to become the focus of the poster not the words 'history of type'.

And on two of your samples I read in columns which meant the timeline didn't work.
 
fisicx said:
Maybe yes, but you need your nose almost on the poster to read it that size.

It a recommendation from your professor. That means it's not a rule.

There is way too much emphasis on the bog blocks and not enough on the events. I'd make the date and event a lot larger - to become the focus of the poster not the words 'history of type'.

And on two of your samples I read in columns which meant the timeline didn't work.
Click to expand...

For sure. Those thumbnails are not very good representations of the final printed versions and that is my bad.

It was part of the requirement to make the history of type larger and the focus.
But I think after this assignment i'll change that for sure.

Also thank you. I'm gonna try changing the timeline to columns because I've had other people say the same!
 
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