Week 6 - Refining (text, kerning) and test printing

I've been experimenting with how the supporting text could be placed, as well as the font style and size. I've changed the font to a more simple one because the main text is already decorative. I scaled down the font size and changed the ground to a straight line so that it aligns with the text. Initially I thought I needed a subheading - 'Why should we care? but only realised after that it sounds sarcastic. So I replaced it with "New Zealand's hidden problem".

 (text on left) 

I rearranged the text on the cloud so that it reads like its supposed to.




 Kerning in Indesign.

Kerning the'T' and 'Y' in 'society' 

  

I did a few tests prints on A3 and A2 to see any minor mistakes. There weren't many so I'll be ready to hand my prints in to Ink Digital on Tuesday. 

Week 5.2 - More developments

The lecture and studio went over printing and submission criteria.

This week I've mainly focused on trying to communicate my intentions better for the shadow poster. I had trouble coming up with a good headline and concept that specifically relates to the psychological impact of child poverty. Eventually, I came up with the saying 'The shadow of society.' This saying works better than my previous one, which was "children living in poverty become the social shadow." That one was too long. The cloud poster doesn't need much more development, just refinements.

Again, I played around with colour and placement of text. I also included a shape of a ray light which acts as a frame for the girl. Looking at the experiments as a whole, I found that I don't want colours that are too similar to my other poster and preferred the placement of the heading to be below the girl so that it doesn't distract from her.

 

 

Week 4 - Developments

This week I've been developing my 2 posters. I experimented with different colours and compositions.


Cloud poster 

Initially, I had the black cloud just on top of his head, but I thought it would make more sense for the cloud to come out of him yet still be under the cloud. This shows that the suffering is part of him and it's not something he can easily escape out of. It follows him everywhere.
I ended up deciding between the blue and red background. I thought that the red worked better because it's quite an emotionally intense colour that is able to focus attention.
I went with a more asymmetrical composition because it adds flow and rhythm. Since we read from left to right, I want to guide the viewer’s eyes from the boy to black cloud. It also leaves space for the supporting text on the right which balances out the composition.

Shadow poster 

I did more research on what shadows represent in Jungian psychology. This way I have a better understanding of the concept which will hopefully help me develop my poster.

A summary:

• unconscious self 
• being invisible, rejected, overlooked 
• can't be ignored 
• the dark side 
• the repressed in our life 
• "returns and needs to be dealt within a new way, because the seeds of psychological renewal and of possible future directions for life lie hidden within it”
• "unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. The blacker and denser it is." 

I didn't like the colours I was using at first because they were too happy and not attention grabbing enough. Having the shadow upside down may be unclear from afar, so I will stick with having the shadow upright. 

Week 3.2 - Rendering concepts

This week I've rendered some of my favourite thumbnail concepts that are based on the psychological effects of poverty.

The shadow represents something the boy wishes to have - happy childhood that isn't burdened by poverty. While I like the idea of using shadows to communicate something, it's hard to understand what exactly the poster is trying to communicate. 

Concept: To be under a dark cloud means that sadness is surrounding the area under the cloud. The child is under the cloud to show that the child is suffering emotionally due to poverty. 

Concept: How poverty affects a childhood. 

The polaroid photo juxtaposes against reality (living in poverty ). It shows what their childhood could be. While I like the look of this concept, I don't think it communicates child poverty enough.

Concept: children living in poverty just want the basic things that children may take for granted - such as education. 

Concept: a child can feel isolated and bullied just because they're poor.

I began to explore surrealism and how I can communicate the idea of being trapped poverty. The boys head is replaced with a caged house to represent the feeling of being caged and being unable to escape poverty. 

This is a random one that relates to hunger. The illustration shows the child's need for food but is unable to have it tangibly. I like how the illustrations contrast with the photograph. 

After showing my concepts to Lee, she liked the dark cloud and shadow concept and suggested ways of improving them which was a relief to hear because they were my favourite ones as well. Both concepts still need a whole lot of development though which I plan to work on this week.
For the shadow concept, Lee mentioned that the image of the child on a scooter probably isn't the right image to have. I think having an image of a child living in poverty would be more suitable since shadows often have a negative connotation.

Week 2.1

For our first exercise, we were shown how drawings have both a denotation and connotation. This was quite eye opening to see how rotating or combining it with other drawings can create an entirely different connotation than the original.

For our 2nd exercise, we drew concepts that were based on using a random word or metaphor in combination with our topic to communicate a meaning. My random for was 'rock' which initially I thought was going to be really hard to create a concept with. My metaphor was 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear which basically means being unable to turn something ugly or inferior into something attractive or of value. I can see myself using this technique in the future as it was really helpful for generating new concepts. I never even thought the words 'rock' and 'poverty' would correlate with each other, but somehow it does.

Out of the concepts we drew, we had to pick our most successful one to pin up on the board. I tried to show how living in poverty is like living under a rock by having an image of a house underneath a person living inside a rock. By having the house below, it shows how the person could be living. I could develop this concept more but need to include something about children.