Rain Shadow Poetics Lab 2025 Poetry Festival
Client: Adelia MacWilliam, Watershed Press, Vancouver, B.C.
Timeline: May-June 2024
Format: 8.5 x 11 poster, web banner
Overview: For the Rain Shadow Poetics LAB 2025 Poetry Festival, I designed a poster to support a multi-day gathering focused on language, land, and bioregional poetry in the Comox Valley. The festival brought together poets, philosophers, and scholars for readings, workshops, and conversations rooted in Cascadian place and ecology. The poster needed to present a dense schedule clearly while conveying the contemplative, land-based ethos of the event.
Design Approach: The design centers on a dark, forest-green map-based background that situates the festival within its geographic and ecological context. The depth of the green field evokes land, weather, and terrain, creating a grounded, immersive backdrop for the program details without competing with legibility.
Portrait photographs of featured participants are arranged in a vertical rhythm along the left edge, anchoring the poster in human presence while guiding the reader through the schedule. A clear typographic hierarchy balances density and readability, allowing a complex, multi-day program to remain accessible in real-world viewing conditions.