NUNZ

Commissioned by Carol Neel in the History Department at Colorado College, this poster was for speaker Mary Ann Hinsdale, professor of theology at Boston College, speaking about the disappearance of nuns in the Catholic Church. This poster was my first poster using all polymer plates, and the smallest poster I made so far. Inspired by Andy Warhol's screen print of Ingrid Bergman as a nun, I wanted to make the image of the nun as graphic as possible, and use bright colors that aren't usually associated with nuns. Another source of inspiration was typographer Isaac Tobin (an internet fav of mine) His style is simple, crisp and clear and I tried to emulate his style for the type lay-out of this poster.

During the printing process, I was a little nervous about the EXTREME VIBRANCY of the colors, and, additionally, that the colors were the exact colors of the Denver Broncos. (yikes) After the orange, blue and dark blue were printed, I wandered over to the print shop to get some other eyes on it. Luckily, Heather Oakleaus, photography teacher, was around and plopped a barbie doll down on my poster and said "throw some HOT PINK ON IT." Moral of the story: What Would Barbie Do? Go BIG or go HOME! The nuns giving the speech loved the poster and grabbed all they could before heading home.

Another thing to consider about this poster, was the fact that the nuns have X's over their eyes, and these posters were going up in churches all over Colorado Springs (again, yikes?) Although this poster could have been potentially controversial, I learned that sometimes, over-doing it works. The image is eye-catching and funny and the colors are saccharine but stand out on a busy bulletin board. If I could do this poster over, I would have built in trapping in the polymer so that slight registration errors weren't noticeable.