Ranger Snapshot: Seattle Print by Rick Murphy
Ranger snapshots highlight the best work for the Forrst community, diving into the design and story behind the most compelling work on the Internet. Snapshots serve as examples of great design presentation for effective design learning and feedback from our community.
Today's Ranger Snapshot comes from Seattle-based designer Rick Murphy. We've been following his work for awhile and really admire the work he's done on his Seattle print. We chatted with him recently to get more insight into how he created the poster.
1) We really love the work you did on the Seattle Poster, especially the use of orange on the Space Needle. How did the city inform your design choices? What design decisions do you think work best in the poster?
The geometry choices come from our skyline being made up of vertical buildings and angular mountains. I find that limiting yourself to a small a set of design rules helps decision making and gives your work a cohesive finish. Everything here was drawn from the vertical, horizontal or forty-five degree angle. The objects that didn’t immediately lend themselves to this style were “pushed through it” and ended up with the best solutions.
For most of 2012 (the year I worked on this project), the Space needle was painted orange to celebrate its 50th birthday. Orange was its original color when it was built for the 1962 World’s Fair. I was limiting myself to four colors and you’ll generally need two shades of any hue to render lighting. This led me to choose a light and dark color from the orange side of the wheel and obviously the same technique went into selecting the blues for the sea, sky and dark shadows.
2) We also really love how you incorporated many landmarks from the Washington State Ferry System in your United Pixelworkers t-shirt. Why did you choose the ones you did? If you had more time, what would you change?
The shirt and print share similar landmarks in the same way that the Puget Sound region shares its features with Seattle. The brilliant thing about riding the ferries from downtown is that you can remove all of the loud elements of the city by simply walking on one of these boats. That is all I did when creating the United Pixelworkers shirt. The concept worked well for them because a lot of people actually commute to work on these things.
3) We saw on your Twitter that you enjoy Game of Thrones. Have you ever thought of doing a poster or t-shirt for the show, or any show that you're currently addicted to?
It's funny you ask a TV content related question. Most of my time is spent working on an iOS TV app (BuddyTV). I've ran into a few walls trying to use imagery from TV shows without proper permissions. I'm not sure how far I'd get trying to illegally distribute a poster with Geoffrey's face on it. I would do one if asked. For sure.
Know of a great designer or design that we should feature? Email us: hello@forrst.com.







































