Exercise: Museum posters

I chose to visit the Clock Museum in Jerez for this project because it sounded interesting, time seemed like a theme with many possibilities and according to the website it contained over 300 pieces meaning there was probably something to appeal to all age groups.

http://gospain.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=gospain&cdn=travel&tm=4&f=11&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=13&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.elmisteriodejerez.org/english/clocks/introduction.html

The museum is also called the Palace of Time (Palacio del Tiempo) and it turned out that it was only open for guided tours at prearranged times and while I’d be allowed to take photos there wouldn’t be time to do any drawing there. I told the guide about my poster project and she said she’d email me info about the museum and asked if I’d send her the finished poster (she didn't get in touch).

I made a spider diagram before I went and having sorted the photos into the categories: child, teenager, adult, mechanisms and general I made notes on my ideas and a few rough sketches.

The tour through the museum was set out as a ‘journey through time’, the clocks being 17^th,18^th, 19^th century and primarily from France, England and Italy so themes of time travel and geographical travel spring to mind.

In all honesty there probably isn’t much in the museum that would appeal to teenagers and children but here goes:

Child

I selected these images from the collection

 Interests www.buzzle.com/articles/list-of-hobbies-interests.htm

•  computer games /cartoons
• sports
• reading
• musical instrument
• pet
• horse riding
• collecting stamps/badges/postcards etc 

Teenager

I selected these images from the collection

Interests http://www.blurtit.com/q619498.html

•          music
•          fashion
•          arts
•          texting/ social networking
•          friendships
•          opposite sex
•          celebrities
•          films

Adult

I selected these images from the collection 

Mechanisms

Museum Logo

I wanted to make ‘a family’ of posters using  a different exhibit and time related phrase for each age group, linking them with a single clock / mechanism image (which I thought would be of interest to all ages) and the museum name and logo.

The phrases also had to work in Spanish, so I used an online Spanish-English dictionary to double check my list then drew some thumbnails and line visuals in pencil. 

I then used photoshop to make coloured line visuals by collaging some of the photos I took at the museum

I thought the time travel themed poster would probably appeal to the widest audience as well as a general adult audience so I finished this one, making a vector drawing of the museum logo and a rocket in Illustrator, using the latter as a template to cut out a segment of clock mechanism.

On reflection:

I like the finished poster and as I said above I think it could appeal to audiences of all ages, but don’t think I did a particularly good job of designing child and teenager specific posters because

1. I was fixed on making a set of three posters
2. After my visit I assumed that the clock museum didn’t have much to offer them even though
3. I don’t know enough about what appeals to them
4. I wasn’t disciplined enough to make more drawings of the exhibits

I think it works in terms of clarity although the mechanism photo I used for the rocket isn’t really of high enough resolution. I’d like to redraw the rocket by hand and add a cartoonish element. I was thinking of doing it initially, then decided to have a go at a vector drawing, then saw some animated intros for TV programmes featuring rockets (Heston Blumenthal and Dara O’Briain) and was re-inspired. I think it would give the poster a warmer, more humorous and child friendly feel.

One of my (adult, Spanish) friends saw the posters this afternoon and said ‘Ooh, what’s that? I’ve never been there I want to go!’ which is a good sign.