British designer Alan Clarke created a buzz in the online design and sporting communities with his clean, energetic poster designs for visitors to the 2012 London Olympics. Alan’s designs were featured in Monoscope and Valet.
Reply: Tell us a bit about your work.
Alan Clarke: I think my solutions are hopefully simple, effective, striking and memorable. I hope my poster designs conform to this. I am also very interested in Typography and feel this is a very important part within good graphic design.
RE: What inspired these posters?
AC: The design were part of a project that I was interested in about communicating to an international audience, I was interested in the problem of how people would find their way around London during the Olympics. I wanted to simplify the elements as much as possible in the designs, so people could clearly understand them and the designs would be bold and striking. I wanted to convey the equipment that the athletes used and the speed and movement that occurred, I looked at series of photographs that conveyed the movement of sails and bikes etc… I am also interested in Modernism and Japanese optical art (which inspired the diving poster). I also did alot of research into colour theory, which helped in the designs.
RE: The typography and feel of the posters struck us as decidedly British. Is this something you meant to do, or is it an example of your personal style?
AC: I meant for the designs to fit in with the TFL and existing underground designs (as this was what they were for), rather than the 2012 Olympic games designs. The typeface is Johnston, the font of the Underground. I suppose I have been heavily influenced by British design though.
RE: Your posters have a distinct kinesticism, a sense of story through abstraction. Was this something you felt was missing from traditional Olympic design?
AC: I felt a lot of previous work was just concentrating on the athletes rather than the process or story and their equipment. It was just a route I decided on as it was very different to previous designs, and something I was interested in.
RE: Any feedback from the IOC or London planning authorities on these designs?
AC: No not yet I am afraid.
