Poster design I competed with for the 2022 BPA National Leadership Conference.

Here is my poster with the chosen theme and tagline. I wanted an eccentric, creative feel to my theme, in order to evoke motivation within the viewer and inspire them to craft their own future. I especially wanted emphasis on Dallas as an example because it is such a diverse and creative city, so I took the opportunity to bridge these ideas together. This also connects business and creativity, which are each important purposes in BPA.

Here is a basic overview of the steps I took to finalizing my design. My initial design was flat, so I took that advice and added some dimension by using text effects to make the tagline more inviting, and gradients, textures, and shading for the layout. By adding these extra touches, it’s strengthening that connection between the viewer and the design. 

Dallas is a big city, and as I had mentioned earlier this means for a lot of diversity and creativity in the community. I wanted to amplify that through my design with the artistic theme.

Most of my poster was designed in Adobe Illustrator, and so first by doing that I added a unique 3D-retro appearance to the tagline text to make it look like it’s popping out of the page. I also used clipping masks to add texture over different layers, such as the paint splotches in the blue blocks and the tagline, so it adds a little more depth. And for the brush stroke, I added a textured stroke to the edge of the blue blocks to make it look like it was painted on. These elements helped with adding the right touch to my design.

Since the tagline is most important, I used a decorative calligraphy script font to match the main idea “Create Your Future”. I used a more basic sans-serif font for other text so it would contrast.

For the color scheme, I used the complimentary colors blue and orange, except I went and added bit of green to give the poster some more vibrance and depth. But these colors also have their own symbolism; Blue symbolizes imagination or intelligence, orange success or expression, and green growth or wealth, all ideas supported by BPA.

Instead of using the standard horizontal or vertical lines, I wanted to spice it up by making the direction diagonal instead, so it gives the poster a bit more of an eccentric and dynamic feel. That extra dimension also pulls the viewer into the poster, strengthening that connection. Also, by placing the tower and tagline right beside each other, both objects get the most emphasis in the poster.

I used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop for my design. Most of the poster was laid out in Illustrator by using vector art and text, and I used Photoshop to add a unique effect to the image, to get that eccentric vibe for my poster.