This project explores the various relationships between type and imagery. The assignment is to create two posters that create a dialogue between typography and imagery. One poster that combines typography and image and another poster that utilizes type as image. Content is based off a class discussion. The objectives are to develop an awareness of the conceptual and expressive potential of typography, demonstrate sensitivity to the formal qualities of letterforms, and explore the communicative power of type as image.

Sam Smith. The underlying basis of my poster. “The Rhyming of the Rain” is taken from lyrics from the song “Leave Your Lover”. I wanted to focus on mood for this poster, the mood that I get pulled into from hearing Smith sing the lyrics that I featured. The visuals that my mind comes up with while hearing those words served as the biggest inspiration for the mood I wanted to convey in this poster. The lyrics, in context, “You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain,” speak to the desperation presented in an unrequited love situation. How could I sum up how it looks to experience immense sorrow from not being loved back? Grey. I wanted to make the viewer feel like they are observing a dreary, sad, and rainy day. Staring out of their bedroom window and simply watching the rain fall down. I used kerning and restricted myself to one simple typeface to convey the simple and plain, drawn out message. I included a concert context to add copy, an advertisement for the type of mood that experiencing Sam Smith live would bring you to. Depressing lyrics to the song are used to simulate rain coming down the poster.

The poster conveys the song, leaving the viewer with dread and almost numbness. Typeface designers included two of the most popular, Max Miedinger of Helvetica, and the recently passed Adrian Frutiger of Univers. These designers strived to create typefaces that communicated a message and point clearly, without bells and whistles to distract from the content and served as perfect candidates for me to communicate a simple message.