Paula Scher Psalm Poster

_{Download Size: 4000 x 2737}

This was one of my favorite projects this year, mainly because it pushed me out of my comfort zone.
Each of us was asked to draw a random designer's name out of a hat and then design a poster in their
style for one of two Psalms. I wasn't thrilled about doing a Psalm, but I was excited about the name that
I drew: rockstar designer Paula Scher! Her work is the antithesis of my aesthetic and that was really
a challenge for me. She works with so many colors and so much variety that it almost looks like chaos,
but then she also knows how to edit down and be a total minimalist. I'm neither of those, so this was
a big change for me. What really got me going—and what I based this design off of—were her maps.

In the early 1990's, Paula Scher began working on a series of large-scale acrylic paintings that centered
around impressionistic geography. Her maps are composed entirely of dense, hand-painted typography
and base shapes in flat color. Type is utilized to convey the names of continents, countries, landmarks
districts, city centers, and even specific cultural references, but its function is primarily textural. Her maps
are characterized by winding, sinuous lines of sans-serif text that are laboriously and almost obsessively
rendered. She also implements a wide range of colors that fluctuate in both saturation and temperature.
Her intention was to design a complex narrative about how she experiences the world, not to be 100%
geographically accurate. They are meant to be bold, eclectic, illustrative distortions of the world.

Here is a link to a collection of Paula Scher's amazing maps: [link]
The first map in that online gallery is the one that I drew my inspiration from. You can tell by the colors.

My poster on Psalm 150 was designed to emulate this hand-painted style. All of the typography was
written by hand, digitally scanned, and then translated into vector paths for use in Illustrator. To further
enhance the hand-crafted aesthetic, a subtle canvas texture was applied to the poster in order to down-
play its graphic qualities. The color scheme was eye-dropped from the first map in the gallery, but it was
later adjusted for the sake of harmony and thus is not exactly the same. Special attention was paid to
how the various words and letterforms interact, as well as their hierarchy. The final design presents
itself as a compromise between Paula Scher's style and my own, I think. This poster pulls back on the
inherent density of her work while still being far denser than I am used to working. Also, the treatment
of color is quite liberal compared to my design aesthetic, but it is quite subdued according to hers.

I think that the blending of styles contributes to the success of this poster. If I were to change it in a way
that better reflects her style, I would have made the background text on the left side weave around the
title instead of fall behind it. I also would have made those lines more serendipitous instead of having
them be so regimented. But all in all, I just love it. Working with so many different colors and deviating
from conventional, digitally-set type was freeing. I realized that variety can create harmony and that
dissonance can actually be a good thing. All design needs flavor, something that spices it up. Doing
this poster definitely showed me that it's okay to color outside the lines sometimes and be random. I
know that you're probably thinking this isn't very random, but for me it really is. I could push it further,
I know, but I want to take baby steps for now. This semester has been full of baby steps and I can't
wait to show you everything that came from those steps. But in any case, enjoy the delicious colors!

_{Created in Illustrator CS5 on April 18, 2012.}