Assignment 4- Save This/ That: Critique and Development
Saturday, October 13, 2007
After I presented the poster in class, some of my coursemate gave me very valuable feedback.
First point was that the colour background was too distracting and takes the attention off the two paper dolls. At a glance, it was not obvious that the focal point of the poster was the dolls and not the table setting. Some suggestions were made, such as taking away the background totally or changing it to a greyscale picture.
A second point brought up was that the tape that was joining the two dolls was not obvious enough. The main focus of the poster was actually the tape 'forcing' the dolls to be together. Some suggested enlarging the taped part of the paperdolls together.
Besides these suggestions, Julian also said that the poster was not depicting the notion of love well enough. There was not much emphasis on the word 'love' besides the subtle difference in colour. He suggested adding a heart shape or two to bring in the symbolism of love to the poster.He also said that the poster might not be balanced as it only symbolise 'gay' relationships and not 'lesbian' relationship being broken up.
So, I have made changes generally according to the suggestions made in class. I removed the photograph background and generated a graphical background using Photoshop. Then, I desaturated the picture and used it as a background. The attention of the poster already zoomed in on the pictures of the dolls.
Then, I shaped the background in an heartshape. This shows how the two 'heterosexual' dolls are accepted in love, and the other two dolls was deprived of the right to love, by falling out of the heart shape setting. I also added another female doll to appeal to the lesbian audience. The word 'Love' is enlarged and separated from the rest of the slogan to bring out the explicit notion of love.
Here is the final poster after the changes I have made:
Posted bymadguitarist at 3:39 PM 0 comments
Labels: save this that poster
Assignment 4- Save This/That: Design Ideas
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Save this/ that is an assignment where we could decide what we want to save or protect and do a poster design on it. There are of course very common ideas around; from green ideas like save the rainforest, protect the earth to other issues such as protect yourself from AIDs. I wanted something out of the box, perhaps a tagline that will catch attention or stay in people's mind for a period of time.
Thus, an idea strike me one night. It hit me as a tagline, a slogan for a campaign that I could design the poster for.
"Protect the Right to Love"
Love, a concept that people can seek for for the entire lifetime and still not understand. And why protect it? Because of the discrimination that people faced when they declare their love for something non-conventional. Yes, I am talking about homosexuals.
So, based on this theme, I brainstormed for ideas. Gay pride campaigns often showcase happy people, being comfortable being themselves, with their partners. One example is this poster that I found while researching for ideas for this poster.
Picture taken from Pete's Birmingham Gig Guide ( link )
The common theme with the excessive use of purple and pink colour is constantly used on gay pride campaign posters. Intimacy between the couples are also shown explicitly through their actions and poses.
However, I wanted to do a poster that conveys the message without employing such elements. The poster can be used to even teach younger children about not discriminating homosexuals and let them be aware of what is happening in the current world.
Therefore, I created a simple poster with a setting of a table with 3 paper dolls. Two of the male blue coloured paper dolls will have a perfect heart shape created when their hands joined but the heart is torn apart and the blue paper doll is forced to be stuck to a pink female doll with tape. This shows how much society is not aware of the torment these homosexuals are going through, tearing their hearts apart, and forcing them to conform to the society's norm of heterosexual marriage.
This is the draft that I presented in class :
Posted bymadguitarist at 3:11 AM 0 comments
Labels: save this that poster