Graffiti Garden Brochure

Introduction

This project consists of a marketing brochure for an up-and-coming venue. The business makes its money as an evening bar/lounge that features live music throughout the week. However, the unique attraction to this venue is that it allows people to come in during the day and create their own graffiti on a section of wall for free. Then, once the walls are full or after a certain amount of time, the sections are disassembled and sold the public, and all the proceeds are donated to various non-profit organizations. The idea is to let people come in and express themselves through graffiti and then sell that graffiti to the growing sector of art collectors who value that genre.

(Note: This is a made-up business, so that’s why the text is the typical Lorem Ipsum filler text. Cool idea—just not fully developed, and I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with the business details. I wanted to focus on the design.)

Design Principles

Contrast

My primary contrast comes from the pale yellow/gold text on the black background. I realize the purple on the cover isn’t as much of a contrast as white would have been, but I was attempting to utilize different colors. I’ve used white before, and although I like it, graffiti is notorious for appearing in bright colors. Although purple and yellow (and even the blue “shadowing” effect on the cover and back) aren’t exact contrasting colors, I played the warmness of the yellow against the coolness of the purple.

I also utilized contrast in my font selections. I am a font freak; I could spend hours looking for just the right font to compliment a design. Luckily, I found a decorative graffiti font for my covers, but I contrasted that with a simplistic font for the headings and main text. I’ll get more into my type later, though.

Repetition

Repetition is used by using a black background on all pages. Also, yellow, purple, and blue are the only colors used (except in the photographs in the interior spread).

Overall, the grid and eyelines within the document are repetitive. The interior left-hand page mimics the design of the right-hand page in that the columns and sections are broken up identically. “The Mission” lines up with “The Nightlife,” and the same goes for “The Atmosphere” and “The Experience.” I also made sure that each section began with the word “The” and that

“The” was a smaller font size than the word it preceded. (That was actually done by accident. When I realized the font sizes differed, I actually liked the way it looked, so I changed them all to be the same. It was my attempt at a concordant relationship with my fonts.) Another attempt at a concordant relationship was that I chose to place the address and phone number in all lowercase letters unlike the headings on the inside spread. It’s the same font and color; it’s just a different case.

I also used the two yellow dots from the cover on the back, as well. This was a very subtle attempt to tie the two pages together.

Alignment

I actually used two different vertical alignments, but I used them on different pages. The cover contains a right-alignment of yellow text, but the interior spread uses a left-alignment. I thought mixing the alignments would be okay since you’re never looking at the different alignments at the same time.

All the columns of text also line up horizontally across the spread. The photos I used also fall into one column of space.

Proximity

On the cover, the name of the venue is located at the top. Although the words are not in the same font or color, one can see that they are related because they are close to each other. You know to read the word “Graffiti” first because it is farther left than “Garden,” and “Graffiti” also appears higher.

It was important to include the address and phone number on the cover for quick reference. Those are grouped and isolate at the bottom right-hand corner of the cover. All of these are right-aligned.

Each section on the inside spread is also grouped together so the reader knows where he or she should move to when the column ends. This is done by creating blocks with the headings. For instance, the first section, “The Mission,” is two-columns. When the first column ends, the reader knows to move to the next column on the right instead of farther below because another heading appears below the first column. It’s a break in the section without explicitly saying that a break exists.

Perception

My overall goal of this brochure was to establish a hip, young new thing to do while contributing to a good cause. Although the good cause part would be something someone would have to read about within the text, I wanted to portray something a little edgy and artsy while maintaining a professional image. I think the decorative font does a good job representing the artsy and edgy aspect and that the clean lines of the main text appeal to a more professional perception.

Culture

Much of our society perceives graffiti as being bad (especially since it is illegal, after all), but there is real expression and artistic quality to a lot of it. Graffiti can be some of the easiest and most accessible art to do since it really only requires a can or two of spray paint. Maybe by taking something illegal and turning it into a fun activity, people can express themselves in a way that they never could before. It could be pretty therapeutic.

The cultural impact of this document is to appeal to someone who wants to experience something different. The name “Graffiti Garden” alone sort of strikes up curiosity. Is it an art exhibit? Kind of. Is it a cool name for a bar? Sort of. What is it? The design peaks curiosity, which opens up possibilities.

Rhetoric

As mentioned, this design is supposed to appeal to people looking for something different. Most of these people will be young. Many young people hang out in bars, so if they see something like this and read about how they can contribute to the graffiti art that will eventually be sold for a good cause, it actually makes the time they spent in the bar productive and beneficial.

Hopefully, the document says, “Hey, look at me, pick me up and read me. I’m cool, hip, a little cheeky, and definitely something you’ve never heard of.”

Color

I chose the black background because black is usually thought of as a dirty color (in contrast to white which is pure and clean). Graffiti can also have that perception, so I thought it fit the overall design really well.

As mentioned before, I tried to use the typical bright colors in graffiti. After all, people who graffiti things aren’t trying to subtly blend their work into the environment. No, they want it to stand out, so that’s another reason why I simplified the cover with the purple, blue, and yellow text.

I also tried to choose photographs that utilized the same colors as my font since I’d chosen the font before the pictures. Had I found a really cool photo first, I would have pulled the colors from it and used those.

For added emphasis, I put a yellow border around my pictures to tie them in with the text.

Something that may not be entirely obvious is the really ghosted word “graffiti” in the background throughout the document. It’s definitely a lot more obvious on the cover than elsewhere; I didn’t want the ghosted text to interfere too much with the text on the interior spread, so it’s hardly noticeable at all. This effect isn’t so important in an online document, but I thought it could be really cool in a printed brochure. My idea was that the brochure be printed on glossy paper but the ghosted text be printed in a matte finish. This, however, is costly, but cool usually is. The effect still works well in the online document.

Type

I used a definite decorate font sparingly for attention grabbing. I made sure that the font wasn’t hard to read because, had it been, it would have defeated its purpose. I would have found a different one to use instead. However, this one (Grand Stylus) worked really well and fit the theme of my document design.

I also wanted something that was easy to read for my body text. I didn’t want a serif font because I thought that might look too amateurish for the document. It’s not hard to pick a cool font for a title, but finding another one that works well with the cool title font can be tricky. I didn’t want someone to think I only paid attention to the title, so I also spent some time looking for just the right sans serif font for the body text. Since my title was sort of wide and elaborate, I wanted a sans serif font that was a little taller and simple. The font I chose (Orator Standard) fit just what I was looking for.

Conclusion

I have to admit that this wasn’t my favorite project, but it turned out okay. I typically do a lot of my work in Photoshop because I’m so much more comfortable in it, but the free trial on my laptop expired. So, I was forced into using InDesign—which isn’t horrible since something like this would be created in software like that anyway. So, I had a little learning curve involved in this, but nothing too bad. I’m interested in learning more about InDesign and about how I can use it better.