Critical Role Quote Posters
VECTOR / LAYOUT / PRINT / TYPOGRAPHY
The Initial Project
When our Typography professor, Karen Jimenez, approached us with the project to create posters of at least two of our favorite quotes, I automatically had a few in mind. One was my favorite song lyric from the band, twenty øne piløts, which says “the sun will rise and we will try again.” Although the quote means a lot to me in my personal life, I chose not to adapt it into the redesign. Down the line, however, I plan on creating a poster series for this band’s lyrics much like I did here. However, the other poster I did definitely left a bigger mark.
“You were not born with venom in your veins.”
Critical Role, one of the most popular Dungeons and Dragons actual play show, has a quote about owning up about past mistakes and healing from traumas. “You were not born with venom in your veins: you learned it,” by the character Caleb Widogast has always meant a lot to me, to the point that when I met the character’s actor, Liam O’Brien, I thanked him for Caleb’s arc, including the quote. Looking back, I’m upset I didn’t show my design, but glad that if I meet him again he’ll see a more refined version.
The concept of “venom” with the quote brought snakes to mind, inspiring fang-type sharp lettering. Despite the character’s warm color scheme and affinity for fire, green seemed like a better color choice considering the snakey, poisonous feeling. At the time, a harsh gradient with different shades of green seemed like a good idea, but ended up feeling jarring looking back on it. Finishing this off, it was clear that not making the ‘O’ in venom a snake eye would be a missed opportunity.
Portfolio Redesign
When approached to recreate and expand upon our old projects for portfolio content, this was one of the first projects that came to mind. I had four Critical Role quotes to create a much more cohesive series of posters. In addition to the first Critical Role quote, the quotes “Pain doesn’t make people, it’s love that makes people,” “I have passed through fire,” and “Do not go far from me” were added to the collection.
Sketches
Redo – “You were not born with venom in your veins.”
Remember the snake motifs and the jarring gradient? Well, I just had to beef up the snakiness and abandon the gradient. Now I can take a deep breath, the gradient is gone, it can’t hurt me anymore. To increase the snake motifs, scales were added in the background to add that extra ‘oomph.’ In conceptualization, adding some of Caleb’s fire motifs was considered but it wouldn’t make much sense for those that don’t understand the character, and besides, another quote including fire was going to be used later. Lastly, the nervous feeling often associated with the word “veins” with a creepy font for the word in question.
“Pain doesn’t make people, it’s love that makes people”
The contradiction between the words “love” and “pain” inspired an alive and dead rose design, especially since the character that said the quote, Caduceus Clay, tends to use magic that pulls from both the living and dead. Also, the colors of red and green made sense for the rose and the stem, but also for the concepts of living and dead, as they’re usually used opposite each other to represent good and bad. It made sense for the words “love” and “pain” to be the highlight, as they carry the quote, so the font Gobold with cuts in it made sense for pain, as it reminded me of the saying “death from a thousand cuts.” Love, of course, would feel the best in a wispy, elegant font such as Acroterion. The other text in the quote needed to be highly visible, but not as prevalent as the two big words previously mentioned, so DIN Condensed Bold with some of the red and green used here and there made it still pop.
“I have passed through fire”
One of the most popular inspirational quotes from Critical Role is the coming-of-age, and quite literal quote “I have passed through fire.” The character Keyleth, an antler-adorned practitioner of nature magic that is destined to lead her tribe, quite literally passes through fire to prove her worth. However, the idea of passing through fire to relate to dealing with one’s struggles and traumas but still surviving has created a mantra for both serious and casual fans alike. Fans even got to see this animated in the animated series, “The Legend of Vox Machina” on Prime Video, making it all the more popular. As tempting as it was to incorporate green to relate to the quoted character, using warm tones as a focus made the most sense considering the fire of it all. Using brown as an accent but to also reflect her antlers added to this poster as a cute little nod for any fans, but not having it be too overwhelming for those who aren’t fans.
“Do not go far from me”
Ah yes, yet another banger quote by Liam O’Brien, but a different character. This quote was shared between twin characters, Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan. This quote, which was also seen in animated format, holds a lot of meaning for siblings who enjoy the show together. The twins this represents are very rugged and woodsy types that both have feather motifs in their designs. This influenced the choice to use the font Hanging Tree Condensed and have feathers accenting the type. Vax’ildan was saying this to Vex’ahlia, who has blue motifs, so I chose more blue than Vax’s black theming. Vex’ahlia also wields a bow and arrow, which influenced the arrows around “from.”
The End
Is this project to flex some design skills and show versatility? Yes. Is it also so I have an excuse to talk about my dorky interests? Double yes. In a show that seems as unserious as one that is centered around Dungeons and Dragons, one doesn’t expect too many emotional messages to be translated in such a beautiful way. However, Critical Role does just that, which is why it means so much to me. This project was a fun way to combine my love for this show and design while simultaneously making something I’m proud of.
