The multimodal text that I have created is a poster bringing attention to the crumbling infrastructure of cuny. It has its main emphasis on visuals over text using pictures of Hunter college as example or microcosm to what may happen to cuny schools city wide. The contrasting colors of a black background and a red foreground with big white text. Along with this there is use of yellowish orange to guide the viewer’s eyes along the black with pictures to support the topic. The smallest part of the poster is the call to action which is quite invisible compared to the rest since it is white text on black compared to black on gold which is used above it. This was not intentional however it does bring up a problem of others simply glancing and not getting the message from this poster.
Red throughout the existence of humanity has always stood out. It brings attention in ways other colors such as purple cannot. That is why it is used in stop signs. This same reason is why I used it for nearly half of the poster. Compared to that black fades into the background and makes the red and all the other colors seem that much brighter. The use of contrast is always eye-catching, however that’s not all you need to succeed. The hardest part about the red was how much to use. Too little and it won’t leave an impact, or too much and lose the message all together. White seemed to be the best color for the majority of the text. It is still visible on red and black while having it bigger leads the view via use of scale and hierarchy (top to bottom). The text expanding across to the black helps tie the relevance of the pictures and the rest of the poster. The orange was weird for me as I didn’t want to black side to be empty besides a few pictures, but I didn’t want people’s eyes to go towards the right first and miss the point. Making a design is easy, making one that gets the message across and is able to control where people look is challenging. I needed to line everything up or it wouldn’t hold. You’d be surprised to know how easy it is to find something off with the design, and once you do you can’t unsee it.
A poster or an infographic seemed like my best bet to get the message across due to the audience of the topic. That being students attending cuny. These people would most likely see this for no more than a minute before heading to another class. Students just don’t have the time to analyze everything nor do they want to. A poster was the best option due to it’s easy to understand in your face nature. An infographic would have too much information on a page with nothing really to catch a viewer’s attention. If you can’t get to your intended audience that means you have a big issue on your hands.
Since I chose what I believe to be the most eye catching way to entice the viewers, the next question would be where to put it. An email wouldn’t be effective in my eyes as students usually don’t check their email everyday. Even those who do wouldn’t bat an eye at the poster without formatting the email in a certain way. I know that I glossed over the citytech newsletter in my email. Some students simply couldn’t be bothered to check. With that in mind the best place for it would be where everyone will see it. So no electronic copies, just physical. A place where there is high traffic and students would naturally look towards it, only a few come to mind. The stairs wouldn’t work as people are just rushing from point a to point b. The best place would be where students are forced to wait, since their eyes will begin to wander naturally. By that logic the elevators seem to be the perfect spot. The bigger the building, the more likely students are to wait for those elevators. I have caught myself and peers staring at those random pamphlets and posters around the elevators, so other students definitely focus their gaze on it.
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