One of the things that first drew me to graphic design was the visual interplay between images and text. The following examples display two different approaches – handmade and digital – to this image-text relationship.
Spread Your Wings is a handmade collage that conveys its message through medium, color, text and imagery. I layered elements found in magazines over a stylized, hand-drawn background. The finished product uniquely allows me to combine my love of quotes, photography, graphic design and fine art. While most of my work is created digitally, I find the process of making things by hand therapeutic. For this reason, I plan to incorporate collage into my future designs whenever possible.
Inspired by the Seattle Children’s Theater world premiere production of Black Beauty, this poster was created to advertise the play in a fictional setting. The story of Black Beauty is a tale of animal cruelty and hardship told from a horse’s perspective. This juxtaposition is depicted in the horse head image because it combines both real and fictional elements, much like the story itself. Using the head shape from one of my own photographs, I added the graphic pattern to resemble the style and form of the large horse puppet in the play. Additionally, I chose to make the eye detailed and realistic to represent the narrator and to instill an emotional connection with the viewer. Limiting the color palette to gray and black unites the text with the image.
Bryan Oliver Gallery At Whitworth University 