TYPOGRAPHY
POSTER DESIGN
For this project in Typography 2, we had to choose a poem from the Poetry International website and design a typographic poster for it. The most important parts of the assignment was to design the title of the poem in an interesting way, as well as the difficult task of combining type and image to create a compelling and meaningful design.
The poem I chose was Godzilla in Mexico, by Chilean poet Roberto Bolano. The poem is about how third-world countries are affected by the tragedy of war. It also highlights the tendencies of able-bodied countries to ignore the plight of others altogether.
My poster concept changed drastically throughout development. Initially, Godzilla was the focus for the imagery, but he was scrapped in order to center on the typography aspect of the project. For later iterations of my poster design, I was inspired primarily by Russian Constructivism, Russian industrial collages, and Alexander Rodchenko. I enjoyed the chaotic dynamic nature of these images, and I wanted to translate that same energy to my poster to express the power of war.
My final design incorporates both type and image by combining the explosion and the poem’s title. I took the word GODZILLA, and played with the letters’ orientation, scale, and axis so that the word could feel as if it were literally popping out of the poster itself. Furthermore, I abstracted the word Godzilla even further by removing parts of the letter, as if it were being literally obliterated by the explosion.
