At 9:00am the following morning, I received an email from her, indicating that while looking for AIDS quilts I had suggested as a visual, she had discovered a website for an organization that promotes AIDS awareness through the creation of their quilt making workshops. She sent me the link and a suggestion for the poster headline "AIDS Awareness Week" and asked if I could incorporate the text and URL link with the one of the images of a block of quilts she particularly liked. She said she could return to visit me at 1:30pm to talk more about it.
At 9:02am I took a look at the website, downloaded the online image offered by the organization, and sent my librarian friend the reply that I’d work up a concept or two and have it ready for her to see when she came by to talk. Then I started to fiddle. Import quilt image...flow in headline and website link...center and align top to bottom...hmmm...looks okay, but needs something more. Went back to the website to find a better URL, one that went directly to the organization’s "About" page—rather to the image itself—and along the way also collected their tagline: "remember.understand.sharethelessons.act" then dropped them into place.
Decided my all-black headline was too plain, so applied different colours taken from the quilt motif to each letter in "AIDS." Then I decided I wanted to include the written-out words associated with the lettering: "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome." In some respects, I feel spelling out the full name of the medical condition removes part of the stigma associated with only using the initials. It gives fuller meaning to four letters we often come to have negative associations about without thinking much about the medical condition itself.
I didn’t want the full name to be the headline, but I did want to incorporate it into the headline, so I gave it a different treatment, reversing the letters out of a solid colour box. Not wanting it to interfere with the headline, I chose to tone it back with white lettering inside a light grey box. This, and all the other elements were on a plain white background at the time.
After considering it a while longer, I thought the plain white background was also too plain and went hunting for a soft background image...fabric perhaps. Or maybe something more ephemeral. A soft-focus sky image possibly? I settled on a soft, light gray/nearly white fabric or watercolour wash background. Added a light drop shadow to the headline and adjusted the full name box to be just a little darker so it wouldn’t completely disappear from a distance and wahlah! Poster ready to submit for review and consideration.
I attached a .pdf of it to an email to the librarian:
"Heck, why wait until 1:30. It’s done. =) Attached for your review/comment.
Cheers,
Scot"
Time: 10:39am
Her reply at 11:26am: "As always, a wonderful job. This is why you’re the graphic designer!"
Hooray for me.
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