‘One poster every day’ for UPES School of Design students

Designing a poster can be an extremely challenging and rewarding experience at the same time. UPES second-year graphic design students witnessed one such experience recently

Behind every powerful, thought-provoking artwork, lies the rigorous task of putting the best ideas on canvas, and exploring a variety of styles with a thorough understanding and application of the design process. Designing a poster can be an extremely challenging and rewarding experience at the same time. UPES second-year graphic design students witnessed one such experience recently.

The Poster Design Project went on for almost six weeks. Some of the themes that the students focussed on were cyberbullying and trolling, with minimal graphics, a good headline and social messages. The idea was to explore as many creative flairs as possible in a limited period of time. The project focused primarily on style than content.

The objective of posters was to convey a certain message for the target audience. Therefore, this project was also based on mental processes involving ideating, analysing, and visually interpreting the problems. These processes were rapid, unconscious, and non-verbal.

Students settled on a specific theme each day such as Minimal Mondays, Typographic Tuesdays, Vintage Wednesdays and so on. They came up with a group of posters representing that particular style. What followed was an expansive range of designs breathing fresh colours, typography, and stunning visual ideas. The energy was commendable with a wide exploration of styles and techniques with a significant message. 

“The motive behind this activity was to expose us to the concept of poster design, and without a doubt it was successful. We were required to step out of our comfort zones and experiment with something new every day. What added to the success was the detailed feedback we gave during lectures. We gave our suggestions about each other’s work, thus getting into a habit of identifying the smallest of details and learning how to put forward critical and more professional feedback,” says Saloni Dugar, a second-year graphic design student.

Ayush Srivastav, another second-year graphic design student says, “I got a chance to come out of the monotony of day-to-day life. I went on a creative journey of my own while still learning about the style that was assigned for the day.”

“It was challenging and exhausting as we had to think out of the box and were given the complete freedom to experiment. We had to come up with a new idea each day. A wide range of references and works of good designers helped me a lot. The fact that I got to learn many things, explore and implement them in such a short time was remarkable,” says Abhishek Kumar, student, graphic design.

Another student Pratishtha Nautiyal says, “A poster a day challenge made us put on our thinking hat and come up with unique ideas yet similar to our perspective. I pushed through my boundaries to learn immensely, where I can now research and create a poster on my own, using the right fonts and colours to bring out an effective design in establishing a strong image and a relevant message.”

(The writer is a professor, UPES, School of Design)