LINKS IN A LIVING CHAIN
Loyola University Maryland’s Humanities Symposium
CLIENT
Loyola College of Arts & Sciences
The creative brief was to design a poster and marketing graphics to promote Loyola University Maryland’s 2021 Humanities Symposium. The book chosen was Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys. Several professors taught the book as part of their Spring Semester classes and the students met to discuss the book at the symposium.
The keynote address was delivered by Antoinette Jackson, Ph.D., the founder of the Black Cemetery Network. She discussed her work at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, where she worked to identify the Black students buried there. Her work was at the heart of Whitehead's novel.
I wanted the poster to reflect the struggle of the novel and pay homage to the suffering of the characters while connecting with Black Lives Matter protests.
The collage photos were taken at the Black Lives Matter protests and downloaded from Unsplash. The historical images were clipped from Library of Congress downloads.
TYPOGRAPHY
I’d recently purchased LDN Mammoth Woodblock for a different project, but I couldn’t help turning to it for this project. I returned to it because of its flexibility and similarity to poster woodblock fonts in the 20th Century. I tried Martin, but it didn’t have the flexibility I needed for all the copy requirements.
COLOR PALETTE
The color palette was pulled from the book cover. As you’ll see in the first drafts below, it needed a little more. I chose blue because it paired well with the other elements and helped with the composition.
ROLLED INK / LETTERPRESS / STAMPED / COLLAGE
The layering these effects and elements is meant to reinforce the connections of these elements, as if each piece is a link in a visual chain.
Initially I referenced the brush stroke from the cover as I applied a letterpress effect and color wash for the background, but I arranged the type in a haphazard way to make it feel more handmade versus printed. This would be a bridge between the Civil Rights Marches from the 60s to the Black Lives Matter protests today.
GUIDE
Inspired by the work of the artist Tawny Chatmon, I wanted to give this poster a visual structure with roots in Renaissance paintings—Tawny also references Gustav Klimt and Byzantine art, but I didn’t feel like those were relevant to the story.
The scope of the novel focuses on the lives of two boys who become friends at a reform school called Nickel Academy. The Civil Rights movement plays in the background of their struggle. Referencing the Renaissance was to elevate the character’s struggle to the level of an epic painted on the eve of the Age of Enlightenment.
My clients were incredibly busy and I wasn’t able to schedule a presentation with both of them so I designed this guide to explain my vision to my clients.
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DRAFTS
Having read the novel, my initial vision was to reference its themes and events in a dynamic scene. These were the three compositions I was happiest with.
After presenting these options, the client requested the addition of the speaker’s photo as the focal point of the collage. In hindsight I’m glad they requested the change, Antoinette Jackson, Ph.D., was a wonderful and passionate speaker.
I believe the final composition is closer to the various symmetrical Renaissance paintings I was drawing inspiration from.