Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Studio brief 4 - Poster experimentation | OUGD403

After my crit, I decided to try out one of my ideas suggested as a favourite. This involved the idea of personifying the organs, and urging people to not abandon them but give them a new home when you die. 
I began by tracing human organs on illustrator using the pen tool and creating sad faces on each. I decided to use pink/purple tones as this is associated with the colour of organs and flesh. I then added a speech bubble as if the organs are speaking to you. I have tried using the words "please don't throw us away!!" as if the organs don't want to be abandoned and left in the ground, but they want to find a new home. I first tried this text in helvetica with a reduced kerning because helvetica is supposedly easy to read and communicates well. The tight kerning is partially for personal style, but it is also more economic with space. In this typeface, I feel that the message is clear but it doesn't seem to blend with the rest of the poster. 


I therefore tried to write the message using the pen tool. I preferred this childlike writing as it feels more like the organs are talking to you (I also doubt the writing skills of organs are great-this adds to the effect). I feel that the eyes on the organs are successful as the darker colour makes them stand out, it is as if they are really looking at you and it makes you feel guilty. 


I felt something still wasn't quite working with this first poster, so I began to create the others to see if it worked as a set. For this next poster, I traced the outline of a child running/jumping. I feel that a child figure was more  appropriate as the public generally feel more sympathetic towards children requiring such treatment. I copied the lungs from the first poster onto the child's chest to represent the donation to their 'new home'. The simple outline of the child adds an emphasis to the organs so the message is clear. I used a darker purple to contrast with the first poster, however, I am unsure as to whether dark purple really represents the happiness of the situation. I also feel that the figure of the child needs some tweaking but at this stage I am only making quick designs so that I can select a final design to refine. 



For my text only poster, I felt for consistency reasons, it was right to use the same style for the text, using the pen tool. A white background seems to make the writing stand out the most. This is needed for a clear message. Uppercase also seems to draw the viewer in more and the desperation of the message comes across. I felt that an arrow would direct the eye to to poster with the 'new home' so the connection between posters was clearer.
I later added a "please join the register" in arial bold. This is to clarify that the poster is about organ donation. I am wondering whether this still clashes with the style of the rest of the poster. I will look into getting some feedback on font styles. 
I did consider trying just type (arial bold) but it seems inconsistent with the style of my designs. 




I then rougly put the posters next to each other to see if the design flowed. I think it works okay but there is improving to be done. I prefer the style of the text in the central poster. This seems to work better with the style of my designs than helvetica or arial bold. I think the message is clear but I'm unsure what exactly isn't working about the poster. As mentioned previously, I may look into getting feedback on this design and the previous. 



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