Seeking Visions for a Better World

24 x 36", 11 x 17", 8.5 x 11", 1080 x 1080 px, 1080 x 1350 px

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Working on this project was the most difficult challenge I'd come across while working under my design work scholarship for Seattle University. I was initially excited being tasked to design the poster and other elements for Ryan Fedderson's/RYAN!'s exhibition, Seeking Visions for a better World. However, after getting started on working on this project it proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated. When starting on this project, I met with Ryan Fedderson and one of the members of their exhibition team to discuss the poster design. Although they wanted something simple that reflected the promo of the previous version of this exhibition, I wanted to find some way to enhance the excitement around the event. We agreed on having the neon sign imagery that would be in the gallery be the focal imagery for the design poster, though I created a couple different versions as drafts. In the first renditions of my drafts, I tried to create a simple yet modern feel with the typefaces paired with the overall neon imagery.​

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After getting some critiques from Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery manager, Arielle Simmons, it proved difficult to manage what was asked of me to do and what works better design wise. Another challenge of the whole design process as with the other past designs I've made was the back-and-forth email chains. There was a lot of miscommunications between those email chains between people and it was up to me to keep everyone on the same page. Feedback from 3 different people was confusing me a lot, as each person was asking me to change different aspects of the main design that contradicted another person's requests. Something that bothered me a lot in this process was Simmon's overarching control over the design and impatience with how it was coming along. Moreover, there were a lot of design decisions she'd asked me to change which didn't look visually appealing and didn't make sense design wise. During my design process midway through and towards the end, I discussed the design elements that needed to change with a couple of my design professors. We all agreed on the changes I presented to my clients and that they made the design a lot easier to read and looked more visually put together. I submitted the version of the draft which I thought looked much better design wise along with the draft with changes made and what Simmons had asked me to change. I gave Simmons and Fedderson my entire explanation as to why my preferred version works better than the other version requested. In short, the typefaces Simmons requested are in bold, taller, and harder to read, making audiences have some difficulty reading information in paragraphs. Moreover, the justified text was heavily disliked on my end and I attempted to explain that justified text is really only used in larger texts, like textbooks or newspapers sometimes, not posters. 

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After receiving a follow-up email about my explanation for which poster design works better and their justifications, I was met with a lot of hostility, passive aggressiveness, and dismissiveness from Simmons. However, I got virtually no feedback from Fedderson about those design decisions, as Simmons spoke for them. After consulting my design professors again about how I handle this situation, I chose to simply give my clients the design they wanted. Moreover, I did everything I could to try and convince my clients of what the right design decisions in our situation were, even if my concerns

were dismissed.

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In the end, I had to learn to trust my own design intuition and education while also balancing what my client requested of me. I had to learn to hold my own ground on difficult situations while also allowing room for conversation with clients. Additionally, after finalizing the designs that were asked of me to create, I kept my own version of the poster which included the better design choices and better visual layout. I kept this version of the poster because after some discussion, I decided it would be best to keep the version of the poster which actually follows good design practices and decisions to the fullest. Although I was very much not proud of the final version of the poster and seeing the design posted around campus, I was glad to have a challenging experience like this so I could learn to trust myself and my own design decisions.