"ITSUGAR" Poster Design
For this project, I was assigned to choose a place in Phoenix to design a poster for to promote to the students of Grand Canyon University (GCU), which only using grayscale I chose to design a poster for a candy shop called ITSUGAR at the Westgate Entertainment District.
Thumbnails
For my thumbnails, I at first had no clue what direction I would go, so I first focused very specific elements and products that I saw around the shop when I visited. When I turned in these sketches, my professor told me that I was thinking too small and specific which was boring, I needed to broaden my horizon. So for my three bigger sketches, I ended up combining all of them as have multiple elements be the focus, that way it was more interesting and engaging to look at.
Final Poster Design
For my final poster, I wanted to do a Candy Land theme, a board game my target audience most likely grew up playing. I put the path at the center, with different candies decorating the sides like on the actual board game board. I also added the gumball machine so that the path would not oddly stick out, there would be other elements just as big as it on the poster. I primarily used black ink, Micron pens, and Posca acrylic paint markers to create this poster. I designed the type myself and went with a very bubbly font to match the playfulness and child-like vibe of my poster. I think the only thing I would change about this poster is making the name of the shop bigger as it should have been the main focal point of the whole piece, but it's not.
My art style is very much colorful and busy, which was the same vibe at the candy shop I did my poster on. So I put myself in a challenging position choosing such a colorful and loud subject for my poster that I could only use grayscale colors for. But even so, I was able to communicate the feeling and vibe of the shop with the limited color palette by exaggerating other aspects of my poster and using items that we as people know are very colorful and bright simply by looking at it. I am glad that I challenged myself with this project because it really did pay off.
