DESIGN: LUSU Cinema Politica Fall 2014 Brochure

I seemed to work my way in to Lakehead Orillia's Cinema Politica committee this year and had the joy of helping select the documentaries we are hoping to screen throughout the 2014/2015 school year. Somehow I was volunteered to make the Fall brochure for the first five screenings, which was something I had never tackled before. I've created posters and other digital pieces, but never designed a print tri-fold brochure. Perfect time to learn!

The over-arching theme of the screenings this school year covers that of Identity (This theme seems to be following me...), broken down into the ideas of personal and political identity. This semester we are focusing on personal identity, specifically regarding gender and sexuality. This is a very exciting topic for me with my involvement in the LGBTQ community, so already the prospect sounded promising.

I sat down with the other committee members and they drew up what they envisioned for the design aesthetic for the brochure. They came up with the idea of looking at personal journals and diaries open in a pile and how we could incorporate that into it. Without much heavy design experience, this left me feeling a little overwhelmed but up for a challenge.

I chose to actually photograph a series of different blank journals, diaries, and notebooks - both inside and outside - and create a base layer of a fake pile of books 'thrown' together. Afther that, I used a font that could look like hand writing, but also could be easily legible in print.

For the exterior of the brochure, I tried to make it feel like you were actually opening up into these people's journals, so I matched up the backings of each journal for the base layer under the text. It was like really seeing the pile from the other side. Unforunately, due to the covers being varied dark tones, the text disappeared, so I added the base of what looked like ripped note paper. Again keeping the atmosphere of personal writings.

For the front cover, I selected a series of symbols that could corelate to each theme brough out by the films: sexuality, gender and religion.