Victorian Poster

The aim of the project was to design a Victorian style poster, something that would have been seen in the mid-1800s, promoting travel of one type or another to the West. The poster was to have been created with a contemporary design mentality in mind. That is to say, use what we know today about what makes good design, and apply it to a Victorian context. The poster must incorporate good hierarchy, color management, and handling of form. There must also be a clear sender, promoting a concise message. Above all, though, it must attract and speak to a defined audience.

The sender of my poster is the Union Pacific Rail Road. The audience is any settlers or farmers currently living in the eastern United States who may be looking for open land to own and work on. The message being sent by the Union Pacific is that the railroad lin­­e is the safest, fastest, and cheapest means of traveling across the country to the west. To effectively communicate this message, I illustrated a train car full of people, stretching away into the distance, towards a small, prosperous farming town, in the midst of wide-open lands. A simple, yet bright, color palette was chosen to associate the text with the illustration, using sky-blue, and a rich orange and yellow, symbolizing light and prosperity. A balance of smooth, clean arcs and rigid geometric shapes are present throughout the poster, and uphold a good quality of form, so that all of the existing elements tie into each other.

This is a preliminary sketch for my Victorian travel poster.

This is my first finished version for the Victorian travel poster. I moved the train over to the side to make room for the open land that the poster is advertising. I also decided on a color scheme and filled in the text.

The final product. The illustration was re-colored to look more bright and inviting, and also to match the updated color of the rest of the poster. All of the banners were redrawn in Illustrator to look cleaner. I also focused heavily on the hierarchy of the banners and textual elements.