Poster Project

Event & Issue: The event is called the “80’s Mania Happy Hour,” hosted by a non-profit organization named Coalition for Asian American Children & Families (CACF). CACF’s main goals are to improve the lives of Asian American families and to help them adapt well in America, particularly in New York City. The purpose of the event is to invite people to enjoy the 80’s music and to increase awareness of Asian American families who reside in America. Through this event, Asian Americans would be able to absorb the American culture, while people of other races would be able to support Asian Americans through various means such as donating money.

Visual message: Through my poster, I intended to convey the mood of the 1980s by placing the neon-colored cassette tape towards the center of the page. The bright colors signify buoyancy of the 1980s, and the cassette tape implies music.

Audience: My target audience would be college students or perhaps individuals who already have a family, residing in New York City (especially Asian Americans). The poster would most likely appear on the streets of New York City.

Design Strategy: The poster initially draws the audience’s attention to the cassette tape, followed by the tape that extends with the words “absorb the culture.” The audience’s eyes would then naturally follow the white fonts, leading to the actual event title and information about it. The cassette tape’s design consists of the CACF logo, which matches quite well with the event, since it is related to music. It also ties the event back to the organization itself. The main message is tied well with the design, since it is just like an extended tape. In addition, the word “absorb” fits well with the design and clearly represents my main message to the audience. It has two meanings: to “absorb” in the 80’s music and to “absorb” in the American culture. Furthermore, I used the Wendy LP Std Bold as my typeface because it looks like an extended tape. It also fits well with the 80’s theme. I used Futura Medium in my body text. Since Wendy LP is a fancy typeface, I wanted to use a simple, sans serif typeface to balance it out. At last, the large cassette tape is located on the upper left side. Thus, I placed my body text on the lower right side to create balance. 

Style Sheet:

Display Type “Absorb”: Wendy LP Std Bold, on Adobe Illustrator

Display Type “the culture”: Wendy LP Std Bold, 75/90

Event Title: Wendy LP Std Bold, 70/84

Statement: Futura Medium, 25/30

Statement “movement”: Wendy LP Std Bold, 50/60

Event date, time, and place: Futura Medium, 17/20.4

Website: Futura Medium, 12/16.8 

 Use of color: Colors play a large role on my poster. The vibrant colors such as hot pink, sky blue, neon green, purple, and yellow represent the 1980s; the black background makes the colors more noticeable. Although the bright colors seem to clash with another, the overall appearance represents the colors of the 1980s well. Moreover, the body text is white to balance out the colors on the poster, since there are a lot on the top half of the poster.