Let me show you, step by step, how I take an old poster design I made for school and make adjustments to make it stronger and more effective.
All tagged design
Avoid These Compositional Kinks
We can all agree that art is subjective. However, there are some things that are universally acknowledged to be detrimental to a composition and having a good composition directly affects the quality of an art piece. Of course you are always free to take full advantage of your creative license as an artist and it’s up to you to decide whether you want to break the rules or not. Regardless, it’s always smart to take design principles seriously and to take on a thoughtful approach to your work, especially when you’re still learning.
Know the Basics
"I know what I like when I see it". Have you ever said this or thought it? I’m betting you have. We can all look at something and pass judgment on it. "That’s pretty, that’s ugly, that’s okay but it could be better." What separates an artist/designer from people who "know what they like when they see it" is the artist/designer knows why they like something when they see it. While art is subjective, there are established rules or basics of design that help artists/designers understand what makes artwork look good, bad, and everything in between.
Create Color Breaks
So you started with thumbnails, worked those into roughs, picked your favorite one and refined that into a tight sketch. You have your composition as close to done as you can get it. You got rid of any design kinks and you feel ready to move on to the final rendering stage. Now what?
Start With Thumbnails
My process before going to art school consisted of two steps: draw it then color it. I’d start with the idea I had in my head, draw it as best as I could, then color it. But when it came to drawing things with backgrounds and other elements in them, it was overwhelmingly difficult to get a good drawing out. Then, when I got to art school, I was told to start with thumbnails.