Blog Summary

Just briefly - I decided to try and do all my process on a blog for a change and not hand in a workbook, instead I photographed the few pages I did write/draw and uploaded them within appropriate posts / stages of process within the blog. So don't worry, my workbook isn't lost. :) All the important stuff is on here!

Thanks.

Rationale.

Poster 1:

Ihi Wehi - Anti Flag Change.

The argument I was portraying with my posters is that the flag change is a superficial and unnecessary distraction which is directing attention and money away from more important issues at the core of our society.

We have some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the western world. In my first poster, I used subversion and homage for my version of Vermeer's well known "Girl with a Pearl Earring", shedding light on the issue of domestic violence in our country. I chose this painting as Vermeer was famously known for painting intimate scenes of beautiful girls, and to contrast the beauty associated with this image with the wehi I was trying to evoke, makes it have that much more impact. The imagery is confronting, violent... and sadly probably hits home for many of those whom may look at it, or will at some point in their life. A pained, and "reckless" brush font was used for the tagline, and bold blood red is used to lead the eye around the composition where the pearl earring has been replaced with a modern piercing and focus has shifted -- The abuse takes center focus, and puts priority of her safety even over the design of the flag. This reinforces the rhetoric: what should our real concerns be?

Poster 2:

Ihi Wehi - Anti Flag Change.

The argument I was portraying with my posters is that the flag change is a superficial and unnecessary distraction which is directing attention and money away from more important issues at the core of our society.

With so many pressing issues in our society such as poverty, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse etc. We have far more important things to focus our time and attention on than changing our flag, which is more a distraction than a remedy. For my second poster, I used metaphor and juxtaposition, and an ironic tone: combining icons of identity fighting for attention, with medication to point out that the flag change has basically become a cure-all panacea, a drug of distraction. I also tried an element of pastiche in this; I wanted the image to look like a weird “scientific” shot, and used sterile sans serif fonts that mimic the type on prescription bottles to further convey this. Our flag change panacea is nothing but a hollow placebo, which will not fix the greater issues in our society whatsoever. The use of scale makes these pills hard to swallow. They look almost alien and surreal. The color saturation was made intentionally vivid and ‘sickening’ to make the viewer question whether this ‘cure’ is actually good for them or nausea inducing. This flag change is an unhealthy distraction from more important issues.

Poster Wall

Photoshopped my posters onto the wall photo supplied on stream. I think I am pretty confident with how my poster solutions stand out visually compared to other posters, actually they grab your attention pretty nicely, even for someone like me who mentally blocks out this sort of stuff as I see these all around my daily life, the simple yet eye catching nature makes them stand out compared to a lot of the usual posters you might see around. :) Really helps you realize the impact of your visuals when you see them up against real posters in a real life scene. Pretty happy with that outcome!

Final Solution

Below are the completed posters which I got printed. I was pretty satisfied with the outcome of both of them, as I worked with CMYK in the digital files, the printing came out really rich and not too different from the screen versions. :) I think one of the things I like the best, is that both of my visual approaches are entirely different directions in aesthetic, color and 'Wehi' but both eye catching in their individual ways. The 'painting' was a good solution for the sake of the homage, and the photography was the right medium for the more medicine / science looking image in my second poster. The previous critique was really useful in nailing down my message and fine tuning the visual elements and rhetoric of my posters. I was really happy with the way they came out! 

Crit version vs. Post Crit version.

I decided to do a comparison summary of my crit and post crit versions of my posters, just to go over the elements I changed, added and tweaked to try and make the rhetoric / visuals stronger.

The image presented at the critique:

Everyone said 'no' to my cynical tagline. :(

Updated, post-critique version:

Changes made: added bloodshot to the bruised eye, added a bit of shadow to the hoodie to add depth, tidied little bits of colouring here and there. Thankfully I didn't have to change too much -- this painting was a real challenge colouring wise to give it an effect even vaguely similar to Vermeers original work and would have taken a lot of effort to rework. :) I altered the tagline to make it more focused on the direction of my argument and less obscure. It made the unity between the text and image better in my opinion as we are suppose to feel concerned for her.

Poster 2:

Image presented at the critique:

Updated, post critique version:

Changes Made: I took the classes suggestion into consideration, bumping up the white of the pills a bit more so they stand out upon the background a bit easier. I tidied up the alignment of the text and made it spaced a bit better using the baseline grid. The star, an icon which could be interpreted in several ways was replaced with a fern, a more classic example of an NZ symbol of identity and patriotism. The body type was condensed slightly as I felt it was a little too big before, now it feels like it is almost a 'pill' size bite of info which fell out of the pill container which is very fitting haha.

Grid Considerations

In order to keep the layout feeling well balanced in each of my posters, I employed the use of a grid to get an overall feel of the imagery and where it would be best to place the text. This is an integral part of my design process as it can greatly affect the unity of the image and text, the hierarchy in which your eye is lead around the page etc.

Poster 1:

For my first poster, I utilized a 8 x 10 grid which gave me more options for alignment of text, as I wanted the overall composition to be simple and symmetrical so that it wouldn't take away from the strong imagery. Not surprisingly, being based upon an artwork by a master like Vermeer meant that most of my drawing fell very much into a comfortable section of the grid, which really highlights her face and draws your attention to that part of the image which is very effective, the red of the flag then leads your eye down to the bottom parts of the grid where the red stars and red word 'Flag' draw your attention. At first assessment people will ideally think "are they really talking about a stupid flag over something more important like the violence shown in this image?". I used the baseline grid to space each section of text evenly and create a cohesive feeling that didn't detract from the image.

Poster 2:

For my second poster, much of the imagery falls into the 'sweet spot' of this 5 x 7 grid composition. As the eye is naturally more inclined to move along from the top left-to-right, the angle of spilled pills helps lead the eye down towards the text. Not only is there a vertical axis of alignment, but there is also a diagonal axis at play in this composition. It makes the overall image seem a wee bit more dynamic and brings the composition to life more. I moved the lower pill so that it fell into a lower grid intersection. Lastly I spaced the type evenly using a baseline grid.

Tag lines / Captions Ideas

We did an exercise in class where we were told to read our text in multiple voices to see if the tone was correct for the message we wanted to portray, and matched the wehi we were aiming for. My posters are in a more serious and confronting direction and in no way aiming for humor, so my captions all ended up being more serious in tone/cynical in nature and I found this excercise helped me pin down appropriate taglines to convey the appropriate wehi/feelings.

The tag line is really key in nailing the message and putting forth the Wehi of my posters. For this reason, I think it is important to make the tagline and body copy straightforward and clear, legible but also having impact and emotive language.

Tag Line / Sub Text / Body Copy considerations:

On keeping the flag for historical or sentimental reasons:

Still just a flag?

Still just a piece of cloth?

Just a flag, right?

On the flag change being a waste of money:

It's just 26 million.

What could 26 mil do?

How else could we spend 26 mil?


On there being bigger issues in society:

Different Flag, Same Problems (I liked the broad and simple direction of this one)

A flag wont mend a broken society.

A flag can't hide our problems.

Some things a flag can't hide. (Very fitting for my poster showing abuse that is being literally and metaphorically hidden under her hoodie)

Our flag isn't the issue/problem.

Is our flag the biggest concern? (This one is very effective because it sets the mood, implying that there are much bigger things we ought to be concerned about. It begs the question, what do you notice first in the image? The abuse, or the flag? Which is more important? I felt this worked very strong rhetorically.)

What should we be changing?

On the flag change as a distraction / Criticism about our PM:

Blind Patriotism

The Key is sabotage from within.

Patriotic Placebo / Panacea (The cynical implications of a flag change being used as a way to cure / remedy / hide other problems were fitting for my second poster.)

Critique Feedback

Poster 1 - violence

• While people liked the image and the message, there appeared to be a little confusion regarding the interpretation of the main tagline. I intended it to be a cynical poke at a victim blaming culture of violence in order to highlight the issue, instead some people interpreted it as almost threat like? In light of this, I think simplifying the text to something more blatant and straightforward will clear this up for those people who have a very shallow knowledge on topics such as domestic violence.

Poster 2 - panacea

• People seemed divided over the colours, some wanted to see it a lighter color to make it more medical/healthy feeling, others liked the bright saturation I chose. I think I will stick with the more saturated almost sick looking green as this makes the tone a bit more unsettling. The medicine draws you in, but the monster / putrid looking green makes you second guess if it will really help you or harm you. This further helps the idea of the flag change merely being a panacea that won't really fix the main issues with our society.

• It was suggested that I try to make the White pills pop a little bit more by bringing out their whiteness a bit better against the other colors in the image.

• The use of the red star on the pill can have other meanings than just the flags southern cross i.e. Communism. Perhaps try replace this with another symbol i.e. a fern.

I really appreciated everyone's input and suggestions about my posters! I feel like with this, I will be able to focus on more accurately conveying and pin pointing the message, and the wehi in my posters. Definitely an invaluable session!

Poster 2 - Creation Process

Step 1: I took various images for this, but picked the one with the most interesting layout to play with, which was also the most in focus, fortunately, since scale was a main element of this concept; big panacea pills to hide big problems.

Step 2: I cropped the image to scale up the pills even more in size, and cut out some of the distracting parts of the pill container/label. I auto corrected the color to make it more vivid and true to life, which coincidentally made it more sterile looking which was one of the wehi/feelings I was aiming to evoke in this poster.

Step 3: I wanted to make it feel slightly less clean looking by taking a color usually associated with health - the color green - and pushing it to an oversaturated, 'monstrous' tone. It inherently makes you second guess this medicine, will it be good or bad for you? Should you trust it? Will it make our problems go away?

Step 4: I made the color tone even more green (I liked the dual connotations with health + sickness), and I moved the lower pill to one of the points of grid alignment in the image (you can see this on my grid post) so that they feel less cluttered, and to make the hierarchy of the image flow better. I ended up adding a union jack onto one pill, as well as a red star off the new zealand flag (which I ultimately changed to a fern) to tie back in with the whole flag change and concept of identity and how appeasing peoples patriotic side is 'curing', covering up, or ignoring the real issues at hand here in this context.

Poster 1 - Creation Process

Step 1: Firstly, I drew out a very crude version of the image referenced off the original Vermeer artwork. Although I didn't want the final to appear like it had such obvious outlines, using them at this point in the process helped me to lay down the basic solid colors so I had a general idea of where everything was going to go. I also wanted the lighting to be more intense and dramatic in my version to fit the theme and make it even more so haunting (for extra wehi points), so I played with layer modes which add additional hues into all of the coloring later on.

Step 2: The face was the main portion of the homage in common with the original artwork, so I took extra care to try and make the definition and shading resemble that of the original artwork, although my quality of shading and brush work is obviously inferior to Vermeers. :)

Step 3: Basic shading was added to the hoodie and rest of the image, I wanted the coloring to appear as painty as possible which would mean coming back to blend everything using brush tool later on.

Step 4: I created a layer over the top to pick specific colors out of the image and paint in the blending and cover over most of the guide line work to make it look more like an actual painting. I tried to leave some of the shading reminiscent of actual brush strokes. I also added a subtle texture of canvas to the image to further give it that painting feel. At this point in the image I went back and redrew the black eye and nose bleed based off random google images, making them a tad more accurate lol.

Artist Research/homage - Johannes Vermeer

After looking over a variety of ways of expressing my point of view using different rhetorical strategies, I decided I wanted to make use of my strength in illustration in a Homage which subverted a well known figure/painting to express domestic violence, particularly towards women, as shown in my research this is a serious issue going on in our society, one that I feel is infinitely more worthy of our time and money.

Several came to mind for this: Mona Lisa, Birth of Venus, The Girl with the Pearl Earring... The latter stuck out to me. I have always thought this painting was very beautiful, it almost made me feel guilty to even consider subverting it for this topic. But that's entirely why I chose it, and I had a rather impactful approach in mind. Vermeer was the perfect artist model for this concept as he is well known for his almost photo realistic and beautiful portraits of females, showing a glimpse into a intimate moment which seemed almost ethereal.

I wanted to portray this girl facing a very realistic and serious struggle many in our society have to deal with, as bleak and confronting as it may be. And bring it into a more modern and appropriate context, making it more relatable or accessible to the viewer. Rather than the focus being on her pearl earring, I gave her an understated modern piercing and shifted the focus towards her wounds of abuse. I was intending for this to evoke strong Wehi, to offer rhetoric of where our priorities should lie and make people remember that some people have such major problems going on that something as trivial as a flag change really isn't going to help them in any way shape or form. Our time and money should be focused on big problems like these in my opinion and not an indulgent flag referendum!

It really helped with the direction of my first poster getting a bit of background context about Vermeer, and how his work was perceived and what they represent. I also looked at several other paintings of his and watched a documentary about Vermeer, he lived a very modest life and had 11 children, I guess his struggles really shone through in his work, and perhaps this is why people find them so captivating.

1st Crit Sesh + More thumbs.

My direction of argument progressed further down the path of the flag change being a waste of time / money that could easily be better spent on more important things. Below are some further visual developments I came up with regarding my direction of argument, including the ideas I had at the point of the first interim critique.

In these sketches I used strong imagery and color to evoke a strong wehi. The texture of medium and sparce use of color draw attention, the red of the union jack has become blood for the rather serious topics of domestic abuse and suicide.

This one was even more graphic, which some might find a bit distasteful or serious. If some people found the idea of a noose disturbing... I can only imagine what they would think of this idea haha!

I used watercolor pencils in this, the watercolor really adds an emotive quality and nice texture for things like blood.. I have to say, lol

In the above concept, the bruises from abuse form a new zealand flag. But the message from this ia bit mixed - one could interpret this as saying the current flag has a chokehold over us, rather than the intended meaning of a violent society -- regardless of our flag.

I drew up a page of very quick thumbs to further explore ideas of 'problems' in our society, and other issues the flag change is distracting us from. Some were metaphorical, others used juxtaposition, pastiche of particular poster styles I had in mind, etc.

For some of the thumbs, I looked at homage / pastiche of exiting images, and subverting them by adding in elements of 'issues' within our society.

Extra Photos for 2nd concept.

Below are all the photos I took for my second poster, alot of them ended up being too blurry, or not having an interesting composition, but I thought I would throw them in here just to show what sort of setup I was working with for these photos, and the different compositional ideas I tried on the spot.

Artist Research - Cindy Sherman

After seeing some of my concepts, Caroline suggested I look into a conceptual portrait artist named Cindy Sherman.

She is known for doing homage photo self-portraits of well known figures like Marilyn Monroe and Madonna and recreating stills from movies, by inserting her self into these scenes/pictures as the actress and using clothes and make-up to help her accomplish these "roles". Her photos are often suppose to look deliberately staged, and she relied on facial expression to convey the mood rather than background or atmosphere. She enacts female cliches and "re-examines women’s roles in history and contemporary society".

In the above examples of her work, she has made the stars / characters she is imitating look unimpressed, used and also vulnerable, rather than like an object of affection or lust like you'd expect in a Madonna or Monroe picture. They ask the viewer to reconsider their ideas about the concept of the female celebrity.


This research really helped me think about the mood I want to convey in my Vermeer based homage poster, I want to make sure I evoke strong wehi with the visuals and mood of the image, even though it will be rather simple. I ultimately am trying to draw it well enough that you can feel pain, sympathy/empathy and even feelings of anger for this intimate moment with this girl being corrupted. A loving portrait spoiled by violence.

Poster research & inspiration.

I searched for a variety of captivating poster / ad / designs that used a mix of different rhetorical devices to portray their message. Some I found visually stimulating, others employed very clever strategy in bringing light upon certain issues.

This clever image brings light to racial issues and the concept of skin color, they do this by pointing out how wrong it is that there is only one color considered a "flesh tone". These crayons are recognizable as crayola brand, but they have subverted the imagery in order to get their point across in a very effective manner.

I find this image immediately confronting and bold, and that is entirely their intention. The blatant use of red, the symbolism of the noose which doubles as a stop sign -- their message is very clear and there is no confusion. They want to stop the death penalty and I think this is a very effective poster.

The above poster was created as part of the 'free the nipple' movement that has been around on social media lately. They convey a defiant and angry mood quite effectively through facial expression, the bold type draws your attention right where they want it to go. :)

The above design was created in memorial for people who died during a marathon in the US, they created a giant heart out of running shoes which are an obvious symbol. The little details of every shoe make the image have such an interesting texture overall. The empty shoes make the image a bit bittersweet though - as if they could be the shoes left in the closet of the many people who died. :(

This poster is about gender inequality, and quite effectively points out the difference in pay between men and women using only text. It's what the text says that matter though, they picked a very succinct and specific phrase to summarize the issue. The bold pink is blatantly associated with the feminine and a great use of Metonymy.

I think this image is rather amazing, it is a pastiche of a well known Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hokusai titled Great Wave Off Kanagawa, however the imagery has been very subverted. The waves are now made out of garbage - representing the negative effect mankind has on our environment, and urging for change before we get overwhelmed by this tidal wave of pollution. It is quite worrying and troublesome to look at. More specifically we can read relate these dirty trash filled waves to the fact that our oceans are now filled with plastic and garbage.

This simple poster uses the visual of a duck shooting game with cute little duck cutouts, to point out the issue of the overabundance of guns in some locations. the tagline "loose gun laws makes us all sitting ducks" really ties everything together well.

I love the use of symmetry in the above movie poster, and also the use of scale. The tiny main characters are perched atop a giant creature and the soft colors create a natural and harmonious unity which is pulled together cohesively by the organic shapes. It's quite fun yet calming to look at.

In this poster they point out that 'liking' a post about a cause or issue on facebook isn't the same as helping - the likes do nothing. This is shown very dramatically with a sick child and woman being surrounded by futile 'thumbs up' people -- they are calling for volunteers, and with such a strong use of imagery it really gets the point across quite vividly.

The above image was a poster created for the series True Blood -- they effectively used design to convey what the series is about -- red being a blatant reference for blood, and the simple use of silhouettes one of which has vampire teeth.  Very clear visuals here, what could otherwise be seen as a passionate / sex scene turned into something more sinister and the phrase "ready for seconds" is a fun play on words which can either be referring to vampires craving blood, or the passionate scene that seems to be ironically parodied in the image.

I thought the above image was rather ironic, the artist has inserted Batman, a common pop culture figure into a historical war photograph. The mixture of pop culture meets serious war theme really makes you consider your idea of what a 'hero' is.