As an exercise to prepare us for the poster project, we had to convey the meaning of an idiom through just text. We were, however, allowed to transform text. I chose ‘keep something at bay,’ which means to prevent something undesirable from occurring. I used one font (Gill Sans), but the red font has been heavily transformed into something feral and dangerous. I choose the color red since it naturally stands out, and also is associated with themes of danger. Meanwhile, the word ‘something’ acts as the barrier that keeps the red font from getting close to the thin/fragile word ‘keep.’ I ultimately choose to set the background black so that I could have the words ‘keep something’ in white, to emphasize the purity and goodness of the words. They are literally bright lights in the dark, fending off the wildly distorted red words.
I originally had ideas to turn the word ‘keep’ into a literal keep (like a stronghold), with ‘something’ acting as the castle walls of protection against the malicious ‘at bay’ words. It came out looking a bit cheesy, and I thought I could create a more powerful visual without forcing a very obvious story to the viewer.