by Background
Utah State University’s STARS! GEARUP program requested digital displays that would motivate middle and high school-aged students to pursue higher education in the future. The GEAR UP program is a federally-funded program that helps guide parents and students in high-poverty school districts through the often confusing next-steps after high school graduation.
Design Considerations
Contrast
- White text on a dark blue field (sampled from Utah State University’s official website colors) in a decorative typeface. Lighter blue text sampled from the USU STARS! official logo.
- Image desaturated restricting all but yellows in the HSL corrections tab
Alignment
- Strong right alignment of the text elements.
Repetition
- Yellow in the quote attribution is sampled from the yellow of the student’s t-shirt.
- Light blue and dark blue sampled from the official logos that are to be applied before distribution.
- Typography choices repeated for every highlighted word.
Proximity
- Text and attribution grouped together on right side of image.
Typography
- Decorative font choice (Capture It) combined with lighter weight sans-serif (Avenir) for readability.
- Adjustments to kerning and line spacing.
Software Techniques
Camera Raw: Original image manipulation to decrease saturation of all hues except yellow, increase texture and adjust exposure and viginette.
Photoshop: Multiple layers with layer effects and an embedded smart object utilized. Blending effects between layers, simple shape creation for the blue field along with effects for outer glow and drop shadows applied. Kerning and line spacing adjustments on the text block to increase readability and clarity.
Credits
Original Image (Left): Credit Julia M. Cameron, Pexels
Typography:
- Capture It: DaFont
- Avenir: Google Fonts
Mockup:
Long Billboard Mockup courtesy of RawPixel via Mockup.Photos