See me in my works
The Harmony of Vitality and Eternity
Music Poster Design
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Inspiration
About the music
The music River Flows In You is made by Martin Ermen, it is light music played by the piano. The music is famous because it is a soundtrack from a popular movie Twilight (《暮光之城》).
What I feel …
Since this is light music, I intend to convey the feeling of the music.
Generally speaking, the sound of the piano creates an atmosphere of peace and serenity. However, there’s a change in rhythm: the beginning and the ending of the music is gentle and soft while the climax is much more intense. I want to show this transition in my design.
Immediately after listening to the music, some elements come up in my mind: night, water, boat, stars, moon…I construct a night scene in my mind since night is always considered peaceful and serene.
Concept
Some elements I used here to convey the contrasting theme of vitality and eternity in my design:
Vitality
•The shooting stars across the sky
•The moving water
In this case, the moving objects bring vitality to the image.
Eternity
•The constellation physically exists for a long period of time, which could be considered as perpetual
•The upper and the lower part of constellation together forms the symbol of infinity – a representation of eternity
In my design, I mostly apply the figure/ground principle. The background is purely black, while the object is white. The black and white form a strong contrast that make my object clear to see. Also, make the background as black shows the context of night.
The One Black Square project introduces me the Gestalt theory. For this project, I make a scene of the sunrise in the desert. The curve I used to create the desert inspire me to use curve to make the water in this design.
The application of Gestalt theory could also be found here:
Continuity
The continuity can be found from the stars and its reflection on the water. People could view the work through the direction of the stars, which form a symbol of infinity.
Symmetry
Symmetry can be viewed by the water and its reflection.
Design Process
Ship
•The upper and the bottom part is composed by the character “C”
•The edge of the ship is composed by the character “l”
•The font I used here is: 方正静蕾体
Water & Shooting stars
•The water contain characters “S” “C” “O” and “g”
•The shooting stars are made by characters “S” and the keyboard letter “*”
•Make each character narrow and flat
•The font I used here is: Across the road
Constellation
•Use pen to draw the path
•Use the path type tool to make words run along the path
•Group paths to get a complete pattern
•The font I used here is: 方正静蕾体
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
After the first critique, Cici suggested me to include some meaningful words without disrupting the poetic feeling of the image. Thus, I came out with the idea of constellation, which was made up of a poem about eternity. With our fellow Jingtian's help, I rearranged the position of constellation to make the image more balanced.
Conclusion
Challenge
•How to organize various elements without disrupting the poster’s poetic feeling
•Find appropriate font to convey the scene
Takeaway
•Typography!!
•Adobe Illustrator skills (eg. Layers, effects, pathfinder etc.)
Improvement
•The reflection could be more vivid.
•The constellation on the bottom is not clear enough when the poster is printed out (maybe because of the font I chose.) I might change the font if I have time.