This design was created as an entry for the KOTESOL poster design contest they were running in September 2014.
I’ve designed posters for KOTESOL in the past – even designed the poster for the 20th Anniversary International Conference, so I was interested to submit a design for this contest as well. Unfortunately, this design was not accepted (I’m not sure if any design was), but I’m still proud of it and I enjoyed making it.
(Plus the prize was intriguing as you can see below.)
Design Brief:
Are you ready to design the next KOTESOL International Conference Poster?
The theme for the 2015 Korea TESOL International Conference will be “Transitions in Education, Transitions in ELT”. This reflects a general and gradual move in education from a knowledge-transfer approach to an inquiry-based approach. In the conference we will explore how the ELT community can keep in step with the changes or even lead the way. The 2015 Conference will also continue the overarching theme of “Creativity” from the 2014 program.
Submission Guidelines
- Print-quality design in the A3 format (297 x 420mm), portrait (tall) orientation, 600 dpi or more
- Provides area for inclusion of sponsors’ logos and names of major presenters
- File format in Adobe Illustrator or .EPS (or contact us about other editable formats)
- Inclusion of the KOTESOL logo (contact us for print-quality logo)
Prize
- Lifetime KOTESOL membership, 2014 and 2015 International Conference fees waived, winner and poster appear in KOTESOL media
My Thoughts
I tried to run with the Conference Theme as set out in the Design Brief:
The theme for the 2015 Korea TESOL International Conference will be “Transitions in Education, Transitions in ELT”. This reflects a general and gradual move in education from a knowledge-transfer approach to an inquiry-based approach.
After reading up on the topics for a while (I research everything before designing anything), and pondering/sketching a few ideas, I decided to make use of some very simple icon-esque graphics to illustrate the concepts.
- Knowledge-transfer = Teachers (with knowledge) attempting to transfer that knowledge to students VS.
- Inquiry-based = Students ask questions (inquiries) and teachers guide their learning in that way
So I felt the set of images I chose were excellent to illustrate this clearly:
- Brain + speech bubble + ! = Teacher talking time = Knowledge-transfer
- Speech bubble + ? + brain = Student talking time = Inquiry-based
Fonts
Besides the image, I had a lot of fun (as usual) choosing the fonts for this work. I chose Lato which conveniently has 5 different weights that I used in the word “Transitions” to show a gradual transition from less to more substance (also indicative of the Conference Theme).
