Kinetik Poster Research: The Hampden Picture House

Poster:

Designed by Stewart Scott-Curran

Critique: 

Kinetik Poster Research: The Year Was 2005

 The Year Was 2005:

Designed by Alex Banks

Critique: This poster reads as loud, and not just because of the generous use of yellow. The purpose of the poster is to greet the new year, and it has a few details that follow the theme well. The copy is tightly packed together with different weights and fills, which reads as energetic, and it's still legible. They also use a relatively faint but eye-catching yellow for the main color. My only problem is that, even with the loud color, the poster can be easily ignored. The viewer sort of has to dig for the message the poster is giving, and I think the black bar at the top could either be moved to the bottom, or even expanded to a full border to make the poster pop more.

Kinetik Poster Research: Solstice KDU

Solstice KDU
Aesthetic Journal

Designed by Andre Beato

Critique: One element that I really enjoy about this is how the background gradient becomes brighter in the center; it makes the typography come forward, and helps make the 'oily' copy look shiny. It does seems like the background is a little too simple, though. Maybe it needs a design around the edges, or a border or a subtle texture. The design of the type itself is well done, as the designer managed a splatter/dropping look without making the concept appear gross. The various horizontal lines probably help with this, as do the droplets of black that are scarce but well placed.

Kinetik Poster Research: Experimental Posters

Experimental Poster

Designed by Amanda Mochi

Critique: The designer has a series of posters like this one, and they all include the same touches: One dash of a single color, various, almost random fonts, and an off -white background. Adding only one color in a subtle way is one of the nicer touches, and because this is one of a series, the color gives the posters an identity  that separates them, keeps them from becoming redundant. What I like most about this particular one, though, it the combination of  vertical and horizontal text. She uses various fonts that are completely different in design, but she makes them fit in an array of textures by playing with the font size. The poster feels messy, but looks intentional, and I admire that.

Kinetik Poster Research: Canadian Stage Company

Canadian Stage Company
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Designed by Setareh Shamdani

Critique: I was attracted to this poster, at first, because of the surreal line work  at the bottom. The design looks almost like tree branches that inverse and branch out into the black area, which almost seemed like sky above the treetops. The more I look at it, however, the more confusing and meaningless the design becomes. I do like the involvement in the text with the black line work, however. The letters sort of fade in and out of the blue and black, which pulls the text into the image, making it feel like all one piece. The poster itself is too simple, though, and a little more information being placed in the top of the black area would have helped; like a single line of information going from one corner of the page to the next corner, in blue.