ENGINEERS FROM DAY ONE POSTERS
OVERVIEW
Engineers from Day One is a brand created by the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University to support engineering students in their education and careers. Their goal is to help students recognize that engineering is more than sophisticated numbers and advanced technology. It is about people having an interest, persistence, and joy to pursue a career in engineering from an early age.
The Fulton Schools of Engineering encourages current and future students to build their engineering futures by engaging with the ASU engineering community (peers, faculty, academic advisors, staff, professionals, etc.) and actively build their engineering expertise and apply engineering practices inside and outside of engineering school.
THE CHALLENGE
To promote engineering at ASU, the Fulton Schools of Engineering needed a series of posters that emphasize that engineering is all around us. A lot of times, students who aren't too familiar with engineering typically associate the industry with complex fields such as robotics, chemical, and aerospace. After having a meeting with my supervisor and co-designers, we brainstormed the idea to include examples of everyday technology (e.g., smartphones, computers, radios, video games) in the poster designs. Each poster must follow the official guidelines of the ASU branding guide and include a QR code that users can scan with their phones which takes them directly to the Engineers from Day One website.
DESIGN PROCESS
The design process began with sketching ideas on paper with icons of different pieces of technology and headlines that ask the viewer what engineers do. The objective is to tell the viewer that engineering is within everything we do.
Based on feedback provided by my supervisor and co-designers, I decided to keep the headline short and simple with “What Do Engineers Do?”, so the viewer can focus more of their attention to the graphics on the poster.
After researching various images and icons of engineering, I found that the most common items that are associated with engineers are gears. Putting gears into the poster designs was something I had brainstormed from the beginning, but the hardest part was to keep it simple so the viewer can have their attention on the gears and technology icons equally. Then, I proceeded to create mockups in Adobe Illustrator with and without the gear graphics to see the difference.
Initially, I began experimenting with using both ASU’s primary (maroon and gold) and secondary colors (blue, orange, green, and gray) in the mockups as well as adding icons in the background with a low opacity. The purpose of using background graphics was to fill in any unwanted negative space.
The vertical design was intended to be very simplistic with the technology icons in rows and the heading at the top. But for the horizontal design, I thought it would have been clever to add imagery of two people next to each other brainstorming what engineering is about. These designs were sent to my supervisor for feedback.
After a brief meeting regarding the first mockups, my supervisor approved of the use of icons in the background as well as my idea for the horizontal poster but suggested using only maroon and gold because those are the two colors that audiences are going to be familiar with when they think of ASU.
FINAL PRODUCT
For the final poster designs, it was best for the gear icons to be used in the background of the poster set to a low opacity rather than surrounding the icons themselves in some of the mockups. This proved to be too much detail for the icons, and adding maroon on black or gray is too low in contrast. White and black icons added too much contrast, so black icons were used on gold backgrounds and white icons were used on maroon backgrounds.
