OBJECTIVE
Create a typographic poster series utilizing a design system to show each poster's relationship. The poster must list information for hypothetical events surrounding three Ohioan poets.
THE ARTISTS
Russell Atkins was a poet from Cleveland. He was active during the Black Arts Movement and the Harlem Renaissance. His poetry included descriptive words, repetition, and shortened phrases, believing that poetry was meant to be experienced.
Kari Gunter-Seymour is the poet laureate of Ohio from the Appalachian region. Lots of her work is about her identity in Appalachia, as she’s even created a non-profit organization called Women of the Appalachia Project that addresses discrimination against Appalachian women. Her writing is very nostalgic, centering around identity.
Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American poet and the Cincinnati Poet Laureate. She has a poetry collection called Besaydoo (2024), is the editor of the anthology What You Need to Know About Me: Young Writers on their Experience of Immigration, and has written other books. Her work discusses identity and culture.
EXPERIMENTAL PLAY AND INSPIRATIONS
All poets have recurring themes of identity and culture that were important to include in the posters. Home-like imagery such as quilts or threads and paper textures were major compositional inspirations in the design.
EXPERIMENTATION
The word "threads" became essential to the concept, so scanning printed word experiments took place. While experimenting with different materials, altered cutouts of poster information and altered scanned words and letters were incorporated in the final design.
ITERATION
Putting the scanned words together in different cut-up layouts created a quilt-like effect. For each author and poster iteration, experiments with different type sizes, tracking, weight changes, and orientation occurred.
FINAL POSTERS
