Creating the Poster

This is the layout I came up with for the finished piece. I used the coloured flag as an eye-catching background in order to draw peoples' attention to the poster. I had the idea of displaying the message inside the cross section of the flag from the way the Blighty logo has their name set inside their flag. The rotated canvas is designed to add a dynamic feel to the advertisement, and by extension the talent show itself. I used the star as the central point to the poster with all type and imagery leading out from around that point. This is to make the poster, which is quite busy, easier to digest. It also reflects the style of the flag in the background which has lines leading out from that central point.

I chose to add all the logos of the colleges involved as a way of showing people what KAFEC is about. This is because it became apparent to me asking asking several other students that they (and myself) had never heard of KAFEC and that if this was a way of attracting students, they might be more enticed if they saw that they were competing against all these other colleges. As well as being generally educated on what KAFEC is.

The tagline is set in Century Gothic for two reasons. Firstly that it's a modern looking san serif typeface that is legible and welcoming in its design. I'd originally set it in Bebas and then in Aroura but both these typefaces proved too harsh for what is essentially body type. The tone of voice for this message should be friendly and inviting and I think Century Gothic achieves this. The second reason is that I've noticed that K College uses Century Gothic (or very similar) in all its own advertisements and correspondence. Therefor it seemed appropriate to continue this theme and include Century Gothic in my own piece as it makes the poster associate itself with the College it's being displayed in.

Kerning and Final Touches

As a finishing touch to the poster I kerned the letters in "KFECs GOT Talent" in order to tighten up overall appearance of the type. Some of the letters, at this large scale, appeared distant from the rest of the word they were part of. I also added a gradient to the purple cross just to add a bit more life to the design. I'd originally thought the poster looked quite flat with it's block colours and sharp lines, so I think this worked really nicely. It also has the nice effect of illuminating the star as if it were glowing. Again this just gives the piece more energy and suggests to the audience that the talent show is also quite glamorous.

Overall I'm very pleased with what I've created in such a short space of time. I think the poster is bold, eye-catching, colourful and energetic. All the things that run parallel with ideas of show-business. I also think it successfully associates itself with the Britains Got Talent brand enough that people understand its relation to the show but is different enough that it doesn't get mistaken for actually being a poster for 'Britains got Talent'.

KAFECs got Talent Logo

I found the typeface that is used for the Britains Got Talent logo and created this replica. This logo then imitates the shows logo in the same way that the competition imitates Britains got Talent. I think it would be appealing to students to think that KAFECS got Talent is alot like the real thing so using a logo that is instantly recognisable and familiar should help convey this message. It also doesn't take itself too seriously because it shows that the talent show is well aware that it's a spin-off of the TV show. This light-hearted approach is something I think is important in attracting contestants.

Format

The brief states that poster will be displayed around the colleges on the monitors. The monitors in most colleges are widescreen (like ours) so I looked up the resolutions for monitor outputs and decided to set my poster up as 1920x1080 pixels which is the current highest resolution that TVs can display. This means that my poster will be of a high enough resolution no matter where they decided to display it. I also chose this resolution as it fits the 16:9 aspect ratio found on widescreen TVs. I don't think designing for standard defination 4:3 ratio screens is necessary as this format is virtually obsolete now.

Using Colour

To develop the idea of using each colleges' branding I took all the logos into Illustrator and colour picked the most defining colours from each logo. These were the 5 colours I was left with.

I noticed that the Britains Got Talent branding features prominant use of the Union Jack. Its featured in the opening and all over the set. I thought I could use the colours of each college with the Union Jack to create a flag that represents each collage in the background.

When experimenting with this idea In Illustrator I remembered that the logo for 'Blighty' the digital channel features a Union Jack made up of different colours. I used this image as inspiration and to see how they combined different, contrasting colours together into something that looks visually appealing.

This was the result. A Union Jack flag composed of the purple from North West Kent, the yellow from K College, the green from Hadlow College and the two different shades of blue from Canterbury College and Thanet College. I chose to feature the darker purple in front and have the lighter colours behind as this combination was less harsh on the eye I found.

Ideas for depicting 'talent'

I decided to pick some types of acts that are generally associated with talent shows. Things like singing, playing music, magic, dancing, gymnatics etc. I found some imagery from the web that I could possibly use.

I thought that maybe I could vectorize them and have different examples of talent together on the page. I think vectorizing them would keep the overall style consistant. But the problem is that not all these images are royalty free. And it's quite hard finding the images I want, that are free to use and publish, in this short space of time.

Research

Since KAFECS got Talent is an obvious play on the title of 'Britians got Talent' I thought it'd be worthwhile looking into the existing branding used for the show. The logo uses the typeface "Aurora Bold Condensed". I think it might be suitable to do the KAFEC title in a similar style to the TV Show logo as this will be easily recognizable to the public (particularly fans of the show) and people should identify the style of my poster with the TV Show it's based on. This could explain alot about what the talent show features without having to explain it.

I had a look into KAFEC and found out from their website that there are 6 colleges that are part of the organisation. I had an idea to use elements of each of their branding and encorperate them into this poster as a way of showing the 6 colleges coming together in this competition. Colour picking the main colour from each brand might be a good solution as each colour can be used to represent a college in a way that still gives me alot of creative freedom in the way they are displayed together.

Brief

The brief is to create an advertisment for the upcoming talent show "KAFECs got Talent" that will be displayed on the monitors around college. It was also be displayed as web adverts.

The advertisement must include the name "KAFECs got Talent" and the line "Your chance to enter the college competition of the year. Log on to moodle and enter today!"