It’s done – our final ‘Independent Dorset’ poster designed for the design iterations mini-brief has been displayed in the Weymouth House foyer for our audience to see.

We ended up compromising slightly on our placement of the poster. As previously discussed, our main target was the queue for Costa.  We had determined that this was the main area where people actually stay for more than a brief period of time as they pass through the room., so it was our goal to position our poster on a pillar situated by the till so that it would be in the eye-line of all of Costa’s customers. However, this turns out to have been a popular line of thought, as the location was already in use by a different group for displaying their own work – something which disappointed us, as well as some other groups with the same idea.

We ultimately positioned two copies of our poster – one on a pillar by the stairs and one on the main entrance door, so it could be seen as people left the building. We had found that the majority of people in the space simply travel through the foyer, so we thought it best to use these locations of those available to us in order to most directly target these people.

The poster on the pillar by the stairs, I would say, was the best positioned of the two. The pillar it was situated on is located in such a way that anyone walking from the stairwell  into the main area of the foyer has to walk around it, and as such many will look directly at it to avoid walking into it if nothing else. The poster was placed at roughly eye-level for most people, so it was clear to see that many of the people travelling in this direction  would at least glance at the poster, with some visibly turning their heads and reading its message.

The other poster was situated on the glass sliding door of the main entrance, targeting those leaving the building. While this wasn’t the worst spot to have chosen – it was eye-level, and it stood out against the glass surrounding it, it did have its issues. The sliding nature of the door would often cause the poster to be difficult to read when the door was moving, something which clearly would happen whenever someone approached the poster. We also concluded that both posters facing the same direction relative to the flow of people was perhaps a mistake. Both were located so that people moving towards the exit from already having been in the building would see them, whereas I now feel that the poster would have probably received more exposure if one was turned the other way so that people entering the building could see one. This could have been achieved through either placing a copy on the other side of the pillar, or on the door facing the outside.

Overall I am pleased with the way this assignment has turned out. The feedback we received on the designs was largely positive, and the process of analysis that we engaged in in preparation for the task will undoubtedly be of use in the creation of our interactive projects for the main iterative design unit assessment.