Expressive Typography for Poster Designs

Expressing Visual Solutions Through Typography

In this project, students designed exhibition posters using expressive typography as the central visual language. Each student selected an artist, scientist, or art movement to research and interpret — visually capturing its energy, mood, and conceptual essence through abstracted letterforms and original typographic composition.

Importantly, students were not allowed to reproduce existing artworks or images. Instead, they were challenged to convey meaning through typographic experimentation, using the structure, rhythm, and character of type as the core expressive tools. Where needed, students could supplement with self-generated imagery, but only if it extended or echoed their typographic approach.

Research-Driven Design

To inform their creative direction, students investigated their subject’s life, method, and medium. Key questions included:

What medium or technique defined the artist’s or scientist’s work?
What themes or motifs appear consistently across their career?
How can type reflect these ideas both visually and emotionally?

This research served as the foundation for conceptual development. Students were encouraged to explore connections between form and idea, drawing from fine art, science, architecture, and history to develop compositions that carried both semantic clarity and visual abstraction.

Learning Objectives

Deepen understanding of typography as an expressive and conceptual tool
Strengthen ability to integrate research into visual strategy
Develop abstraction, rhythm, and spatial hierarchy within typographic systems
Reinforce the relationship between verbal content and visual form in design

Final designs were assessed not only for visual execution, but also for the depth of research, clarity of typographic choices, and the sophistication of each student’s conceptual response.

In select cases, flexibility was granted to students who pushed the boundaries of traditional typographic form in ways that were thoughtful, risky, and rooted in process.