STEP 1

Select Poster's Theme: Select a public event, for example, an Arbor Day celebration, Zombie Walk, or First Night (a city celebrating New Year's Eve with a huge variety of family and cultural events). (Next Time: Be sure to include information about where and when your event will be held.)

STEP 2

Design Three Versions: Design a poster to promote the event in three different ways:

1. Design a poster (version A) using type only
2. Design another poster (version B) with a visual as the dominant graphic element and the type as the secondary graphic element
3. Design a third poster (version C) with the type as the dominant element and the visual as secondary
4. Produce at least ten sketches for each version before going to the rough stage. That's 30 sketches total.
5. Create two roughs for each design problem. That's 6 roughs total.

STEP 3

1. Refine the roughs and create one comp per poster
2. Use black and white or full color

RULES

1. You may not use any hand-drawn fonts in the comps!
2. You may not use hand-drawn images in the comps! Use iStock or Google Images for all your image content.
3. Sketches and roughs must be done with a black pen. No pencils unless you can draw with it really dark.
4. All 30 sketches and 6 roughs must be in a correctly proportioned rectangle (2 wide by 3 high). Rough's frames should be measured and drawn with a ruler.
5. The all-typography poster can't have any images or non-typographic elements in it except for rules and other geometric elements (rectangles and ellipses). Even type that looks like something other than the letter it represents is not permitted.

HINTS

• For the all-typography poster, think big, bold, typography. Treat the type as a pictorial element. Be playful with size, kerning, and spacing. Check out Paula Scher's all typography posters for inspiration.

• For the thumbnails and roughs, leave room around each one when you draw the 2 by 3 rect. This will give you more space to "think outside the box"
• To draw out a 2 by 3 rectangle, draw two line segments of equal length horizontally, the three of the same length vertically to get the approximate aspect ration