Academic Poster
"The reception of Aubrey Beardsley in Russia"
"The reception of Aubrey Beardsley in Russia"
A friend of mine, who's a culture studies student, asked me to create an academic poster for presentation of her thesis on a conference. Her topic concerned one of my favorite artists Aubrey Beardsley and his influence on Russian culture of the first half of XX century.
An academic poster is a graphic and textual method of presenting information — a map for a presenter to guide his audience through the topic.
First of all I was provided with all kinds of graphic material needed — my task demanded huge amount of references to existing art. I carefully studied main themes of the thesis and after I discussed them with my friend, it was decided to accentuate the artist himself and the religious motives his influence gained in aforesaid area — hence the composition — huge dandy figure and his crucified posture. My stylistic task was to come as close as possible to art nouveau aestheticism and Beardsley's graphic art in particular.
The very first draft of the poster
Details of the poster. Some of them were changed in process, like the powder-box in dandy's hand (reference to one of Beardsley's illustration) which were too hard to be recognized by modern viewer.
My friend's thesis consisted of three chapters and a conclusion, so poster was divided into four parts, every one of which consisted of title, main quotes and questions. Every chapter was equipped with small graphic details — which were to help the presenter to illustrate some of the points.
My original idea was to put a small portrait of the author beside every quote in the poster, but as my friend wisely noticed, they aren't too recognizable figures, so this would give no information to the viewer, that is why we decided to use the important details of the thesis in these rosy frames instead of the heads.
They are Nikolai Kuz´min, Abram Efros, Alexandre Benois, Kuz´ma Petrov-Vodkin, Susan Sontag, Andrei Belyi, Sergei Vinogradov, Nikolai Shebuev
It was obvious that in an academic poster especially when it's topic concerns a century-old events, font should be classic, old-style and serif. I decided to use an open source EB Garamond.
I also drawn some fleurons to variegate the text blocks.
I also drawn some fleurons to variegate the text blocks.
I used different emphasis and hand-drawn fleurons to separate title, quote and question.
An intricate hand-drawn ornamental frame was to emphasis Beardsley's filigree graphic style.
All in all it was one of the most interesting and pleasing projects of the year 2016 since I was working with the material I personally highly admire, had opportunity to make careful and fastidious research, was given the creative freedom I require and vast format to cover it with infinite ornaments which is the true blessing for me! Heart!