A collection of different posters made for Accenture in Austin, Tx as part of an employee engagement initiative highlighting and celebrating diversity.
The control I had over the direction of this design made me quickly realise I was not equipped to speak for the experiences of women. A fact I quickly found out when I turned to a friend for her take on some ideas I had in mind, a little girl with a cape, a mother, etc. She reminded me these are expected and pandering design direction. I then spoke to several coworkers and friends brainstormed multiple approaches this design could be taken.
After a few days, the final direction had been decided on, and it would be a small series featuring different women from various fields. The women had to be accomplished in some form but also relatively unknown or under-appreciated among the public or respected field. We pulled together a list of names, and I went to the task of searching for images, bios, quotations and the visual design of the posters.
The posters were of various celebrities in different muted colours. So I wanted to utilize a duotone colour scheme for the series as it allowed for each poster to be unique but be recognized as a set with their eye-catching jewel tones. During my time studying photography, I always loved the energy found in candid photographs, so I wanted to incorporate the design with Rosalind Franklin photograph becoming the benchmark.
The different colours allowed for a broader appeal for those who wanted one but gravitated more to a specific colour as their favourite. The required information for each poster was relatively simple. Each poster has the name of the person featured, a distinguishing quote, and a short bio. The quotations were then set in Bebas Neue as the bold typeface created impact and drew attention as I wanted to pull in any passersby in to learn more.
Because each image demanded a unique approach when it came to placing the different elements, the design was kept consistent and transplanted from one poster to the next. Using the same design elements provided me with another way to signal the relationship between the posters as a series while also creating a template. The template allowed me to produce the series quickly and on time before being distributed to employees that month.
This series ended up becoming one of my favourite poster series I did for Accenture. It had its challenges with the research being the most difficult as photos or information would be sparse, but in the end, the designs all came together and we popular among the employees. We had hoped to expand the series this year, but the pandemic changed those plans.
Using the lessons I learned from the Women’s Day posters, we set up a meeting to discuss who should be included in the series. I showed them what I would design and how they would look, which was approved; they just needed to choose five important figures they wanted to feature as it was not my place to decide.
I created the duotone edits and shared them with the team for final approval. The response was positive with only one change which was the rapper Nipsy being known for the colour blue, and I had set his photo in red. While this meant I now had two blue images, the team feel in love with the look of Loretta Scott King’s design that we chose to leave it.
The posters kept to a theme when choosing a quotation. Unlike the women’s day, which just found a quote that was attributed to the person; for Black History Month, we worked hard to keep to a theme of overcoming. The goal of the design was to elicit a sense of pride and admiration. The quotations for this series would also change to having a set placement and no longer include a short bio.
So I decided to use the initials for Black History Month. The letters each were paired with lines and small crosses, which were added design flourishes with the same intent. And in the corner of each design, we included a marking designating what the posters were for by having “Celebrate Black History Month.”
The project from start to finish took about two weeks with only a few changes throughout. Fanny Lou Hamer was initially green, but our printer was unable to print the CMYK colour, and we were unable to correct it and had to find an alternative. With Angela Davis, the team lead had requested an iconic image of her, but because the picture was a headshot with Angela’s afro taking up much of the frame, there wasn’t enough contrast variation for the duotone look good. After showing the team lead the two images, she agreed, and we made the substitution.