Creating the Poster!

Over the past 1-2 weeks I've been producing my Science Recruitment Poster. It's gone well - I've pretty much stuck to what I initially planned design wise but I've deviated and developed the colour scheme further, as what I chose was not too well thought out and when I applied it to my work it just didn't look right.

My initial chosen colour scheme

I'm sticking with the greyish black and the off white. They're both a few shades from being too over powering (e.g. a stark, bright white) and are easy on the eyes. I'm using the black for the silhouettes that build up the shape of the dress, and the off-white will form the background of the poster in order to "pop" the colours in front of it.

I did want to use mainly the pink for the surrounding silhouettes as I thought that would appeal more directly and stereotypically to girls, but when I applied this colour to my design I felt it lost some of its Pop Art quality. In my research I concluded that obviously, Pop Art contains bright colours, but that they were also colours of the rainbow - primary and secondary colours. The colours I have chosen above hint towards Tertiary colours.

http://theaudacityofcolor.com/2010/06/17/color-101-primary-secondary-and-tertiary-colors/

So I've decided to experiment with including more Primary/Secondary colours in my design, to see if it results in a stronger link to the Pop Art style. These colours are bright and eye catching and the fact that I've not used primarily pink will not mean the poster will appeal less to girls. I mean, there's a huge dress in the middle of the page?

I've developed my skills on Illustrator hugely. When I started this project I had absolutely no clue how to work the pen tool, and as a result had no confidence in drawing shapes in the program. I'd rely heavily on my graphics tablet, and as I'm no artist I struggled with producing shapes that actually looked like what they were supposed to be. Now, I'm more than happy using the tool and am able to confidently use it's features (specifically the Add/Convert anchor point) appropriately and quickly in order to produce what I can see in my mind on screen. I've also combined the use of my graphics tablet and tools like the Pen, and find that I personally produce much better and more realistic shapes when I utilise both.

Tools/techniques I've used most: Pen tool, eyedropper, manipulating strokes (e.g shapes of the corners), shape tools.

The basis of my chosen design is built up with silhouettes, so I've obviously had to create those. For this I've also found myself relying on the Pathfinder window to merge several shapes into one as well as using the Divide and Trim options to simulate gaps in each of my silhouettes (e.g. hole where the glass goes in a pair of glasses). Below are some of the shapes I've created.

I did look at some example fonts in my research and when I was developing my idea, but I'm still not decided on what I'm going to use. I've tried a few fonts but didn't think they sat well with the design, so I'm leaning towards designing my own. I want the font to be pop art-esque.