Live Brief- Summer Show Poster

I started the project by drawing some of the first things which came to mind when i thought of Plymouth College of Art and how i could best illustrate this. 

It was difficult to illustrate the many different things which take place in PCA (and to include all of the different subject areas). 

                                       I decided to go for a different design and try to create  poster which shows creative growth. 

Here i was trying to highlight the individuality within creativity which is promoted at PCA, through the juxtaposition of black & white images with brightly coloured elements. 

Re-drew the birds from my initial sketches so i could include more detail. 

Same birds drawn in fineliner, ready to be scanned in to photoshop.  I decided to colour them digitally because it would give me a better, more professional finish. 

Some ideas for layout, including some pencils (!) which i didn't use in my designs for the hoardings brief last week. Also i was playing around with the lettering but i think the type will have to be done digitally.

The first beanstalk i carried through digitally... my skills are not the best on photoshop but i tried some shading and i don't think it's too bad. I'm wondering whether the colours are too similar?

My second try... i started basically from scratch and i think i prefer the simplicity of the design without the shading, although i may change the colours as, again, i think they are too similar. 

Same image with a coloured background. I think it looks much more like a poster already! :) 

Final Poster design: I have left it quite simple because i know the college people want to add information etc. I also don't want to overcomplicate it. Overall i think i am happy with the outcome. I might play around with the colours though, see what other effects/outcomes i can come up with. 

Poster number 2... I'm thinking that maybe the background is now too dark but  i liked using the reverse colours for the PCA logo. I think the pencils are a good way of conveying creativity and they also look, to me, a little like a city scape.