In college, we were asked to recreate a museum poster for an exhibition. With my love for everything Art Deco, I found a local museum that was doing a show on the cars from the 1920s through the 1940s. I wanted to make the pieces dramatic with a simple black background so that the cars would stand out. I wanted to the beauty of the lines of the cars to help make it stand out.
For this project, I went to the exhibit and brought my camera with me to capture the best images of the cars at the show. The bright red car just seemed so appropriate for the poster.
To me, this image is everything I think of when I think of Art Deco. The Art Deco period was a time when engineers could be creative and free with their sculpture of cars. Most of these cars would never be able to be reproduced in mass volume in their lifetime so they made them stand out with their modern interpretation. The Art Deco movement is characterized by boldly positioned geometric shapes and strong colors. The design was used mostly in common objects, like household goods, cars, and architecture. It seemed appropriate that these cars shine under the lights in the museum making their colors so much brighter.
I wanted the whole piece to convey the boldness of the period, so I used Didot font style for the title text and the Helvetica font style to balance out with all the other text in the poster.
After creating the poster, the class was asked to carry the idea into a campaign. Selecting another platform, you would then create an advertisement or informational piece about the show to accompany the poster.
In my postcard design, I wanted to mimic the lines of the car and the weight of the font but adding the lines at the top of the card. I still wanted to make the car stand out on the black background. Unlike the front of the car, I wanted the back to be clean, with white text going across the top on a purple background and a beautiful purple card at the bottom with the name of the show and dates. I wanted to add more color to the back of the card to make it stand out and make people want to read about the exhibit. On the top right of the back side, I illustrated the outline of one of the classic Art Deco cars at the show. The offset text allows the view of the full car stand out, yet provides the information about the show.