Hand In

War on Want finished....finally.

Visual Thinking PPRD

I have found this unit very challenging. The brief, to create a bus stop adshel and a second dimension, has been very specific as to who it is aimed at, its purpose and the budget. It has been interesting to make use of everything that I have so far learned about semiotics, looking at what colours are used and the connotations of the imagery, in order to encourage people to donate money

I have felt very supported throughout this project by tutors and other students because of the frequent tutorials and interim critique, however I was set back towards the end because my designs would not have been within budget.

Whilst working on this project I asked for advice much more frequently, seeking peers’ and tutors’ opinions in terms of colour, design and levels of information. I found this way of working very useful, and it helped generate ideas I would not have arrived at on my own. I will draw from this new way of working and make sure I use this in the future.

This project concentrated a lot on idea generation and research through looking at other advertising campaigns. I found this very useful and became quite overwhelmed with the variety of designs and unique ideas. I was concerned as it seemed to me that everything had been done before, although I discovered that I could benefit from this as I could see what had worked and what had not, adapting ideas to fit my designs and making them more effective.

There were two group projects within this unit, the first being ‘Democracy’. The group I worked within for this project worked very well together, we began by researching the subject and them broke off into groups to look into specific areas. As a group we made decisions as to how our image would look and then worked out the best way to create this. The group worked well together and we benefited from concentrating on our own skills before putting everything together.

The second group project, 'Black Box' meant creating an image to promote Aquafresh Toothpaste. Again the group I was in worked well together, generating ideas through brainstroming together. We were pleased with the image, however we had not thought about our presenting techniques which meant we let ourselves down in the critique. I have, however, learnt from this experience and will give much more time to thinking about this next time.

I found creating the second dimension the most difficult aspect of this project. Every time I decided on an idea, after researching further, I realised it was either too expensive, too ambitious or unethical. Although my final idea for a second dimension is not particularly unique I feel that it does answer the brief well. The brief asked for something to educate a younger generation and raise awareness to human rights, rather than concentrating specifically on raising money. Aiming my second dimension at schools means I do hit this demographic and educate about the current issues War on Want is dealing with, whilst also giving the opportunity to donate through leaving donation boxes within the schools.

In contrast to the previous project I worked on a lot of different ideas and designs before making a final decision, valuing the opinions and comments of others. I also worked hard on my final poster design, changing colours and layout until I was completely happy. I think this is a good practice as it meant every detail had been thought about, but I also feel that it is possible to work too much on a piece of work, where simplicity was possibly more effective.

Were I to approach this project again I would look more at technology and the possibilities this could give. As the campaign was designed to be aimed at a younger generation I think virals and other techniques that exploit the immediacy and unavoidability of the Internet would have been the best direction, however lack of time and experience deterred me from attempting this. In my work practice I would have liked to have decided on a main design sooner so that I could have spent more time developing it.

In my next unit I plan to continue concentrating on my sketchbook work, experimenting and planning each step as I go along. I will make sure I research thoroughly and use this research to further my own ideas. I will attempt to be more organised in planning my time to make sure I arrive at my final ideas sooner, allowing me more time to work on those ideas, realising them and developing them.

Final Crit

Todays crit seemed to be much more honest than any others we have had. I am very grateful for the criticism as I know that without this I cannot progress, however I think it is very late in the day to hear certain comments. I had a tutorial yesterday in which I went through my poster and second dimension and was told the idea was good and given a few stylistic details that may need changes. Today I was told my poster did not give enough information and my second dimension would be too costly, something I was slightly concerned about, however I am annoyed this was not mentioned before. So now, before the hand in on friday I need to change my second dimension to something that is more cost effective.

I think I will stick to my idea of donating 'Small Change to Make a Big Change', however now I will work on specifically institutions like schools and universities working on posters that can be put around the schools encouraging to donate and design a donation box to be put in the reception.

I will also change my poster design because after hearing feedback I feel it does not give enough information about War on Want and what is happening in Palestine.

Poster Decisions

In the end I decided to keep the poster design very similar to the original but change the background to white. This way the poster remains simple and effective and also stays in the War on Want colours.

After a tutorial I also thought it would be best to move the 'HELP' slightly higher. It was brought to my attention that when looking at a poster the eye is drawn instantly to eye level, whereas on my previous design people would have to have looked down slightly.

With these changes in mind I have also changed the colour scheme on my leaflet, looking at the typography and layout in more detail. I decided to make sure all locks of text were in line with images and that paragraphs that were more important were slightly more bold.

Options...

Interim Crit

Today was an interim critique., a week before the hand in date. Despite feeling incredibly ill I managed to drag myself in, and I am glad that I did. I've been struggling a lot with this project, finding it hard to trust my own ideas and generate unique ideas that also have to be ethical and economical...

However, I presented what I have so far and the feedback was really positive. I was concerned that my leaflet idea was slightly dull and I know it could also be quite a costly idea. The idea went down well and suggestions were made as to how to go about designing a donation box.

The criticisms that were made of my poster were fair and helpful and not aspects that I had considered myself. I was told that it looked slightly threatening in the current red and black colour scheme and that it would be worth working on this adding a certain positive aspect to encourage people to donate rather than guilt them into it. I do agree with this and have begun working on different colours but keeping the same basic idea of the poster layout. I was also concerned that not enough information was contained in the poster but this did not seem to be an issue, so I am happy to keep it the way that it is.

Small Change Makes a Big Change

Second Dimension

I have had a lot of trouble trying to decide on the best second dimension, it has been hard working out whether to go with a digital aspect or traditional paper based ideas.

In the end I decided to work on the idea of small change donations. Because of the current financial climate many people would not want to commit to donating regular amounts of money, so instead I decided to focus on smaller donations of loose change and foreign currency that people may have in their pockets or lying about the house, but still give them an option for regular donations. As well as collecting money for War on Want this would spread the information about what is currently happening in Palestine and the aid work War on Want is doing to help.

I will be designing a leaflet that will be based on the design of my poster, this will include information about Palestine and how to donate money. I will also attach a custom made envelope to the front of the leaflet that will be possible to pull off and use to donate change to any schools or universities and also a selection of ethical shops like Lush, Body Shop, Fat Face and V Cosmetics.

I would have liked to have designed something slightly more exciting but I feel the leaflets would be most economical and effective. If sent directly to students and a younger generation they would encourage people to get involved with War on Want's work.

Mud Graffiti

Below is the result of my mud graffiti, a way to ethically advertise War on Want's work. I think this worked really well, the lines are strong it conveys a clear message that links well with my poster design.

Mud Graffiti Stencil

I have decided to attempt some mud graffiti for my second dimension so using card I have cut through the shapes based on one of the poster designs I have created. I then coated the stencil in plastic so that the wet mud would not ruin the stencil or change the shape. It was very difficult to keep the lines acurate and the shapes strong but the design worked well and looked distinctive.

Black Boxes

This final group project before Chirstmas asked us to create a piece of visual communication that promotes a particular product. Each group was given an envelope containing the name of a product. Then, as a group we put together clues that hinted at what our given product was, in our case it was Dorset Cereals.

Our cryptic clues to give away what the product was, was to draw a door + a person sitting down then the eye to represent seeing and reel, as in a feel of film. If said aloud correctly this would become Dorset Cereal.

The clues we were given we worked out to be Aquafresh toothpaste. We created a poster advertising the toothpaste using their logo of the three stripes to replace lips. We created this using Photoshop and a photograph of Matt smiling.

Our group worked well together brainstorming ideas successfully before we all committed to an idea that everyone agreed on. The only place we fell down on was the presentation. We spent a long time designing the poster and deciding each detail of the layout that we had not considered who or how we would present, so did not appear particularly professional.

Tutorial

In today's tutorial I showed two ideas, I personally preferred the other in my previous post, however, it was agreed that my other image had more potential. I am now going to attempt to create a series of posters, one for each letter of the word 'help' and finally another to use the whole word help, bringing everything together showing what War on Want do.

War on Want Continued...

This is another development of the War on Want poster. I think this idea is strong as it manages to convey a short message while also containing a lot more information. I will take this to todays tutorial and see how it is received.

Ideas

I have decided to use War on Want's work in Palestine to be represented in my poster.

These are a couple of images I have worked on for the War on Want poster, they are strong in the simple shapes and colours but I do not think they work as final images.

The wall shown in the first image is the wall that has been built in Palestine that is splitting families, stopping people from working and gaining an education. I think the wall is a strong symbol of the occupation and events that are happening there. However, without a further knowledge of Palestine and what is happening a viewer may not understand the connection, it might make them want to look into what is happening more but chances are they will just look away.

The second image is of a child with chains around it's wrists, something an adult actually did for a protest against what is happening. The image is visually strong and emotive, however I do not think it is enough just to show the image of a child in distress as it does not say anything about what is actually happening.

Uninspired

I'm really struggling with this project. Having not been in last week has made me feel so behind. I can't get any ideas. I've researched, and researched for hours into everything I can think of in any way I can find but I just can't find that spark of idea. Now the more I worry the worse it gets. the initial crit is on tuesday and so far I have nothing to present.

I mentioned a couple of my ideas at the tutorial on wednesday but because I was behind I just got humiliated in front of the group. I was asked to come back to another session later in the day but I could not think of any ideas throughout the previous week so unsurprisingly I could not come up with anything over lunch so didn't attend.

So now, what is my choice? To somehow think of some ideas.

Bond & Coyne

Yesterday we had a talk from someone from the graphic communication consultancy Bond & Coyne Associates. He was very informative and it was interesting to see the work that they had produced. Strangely it was very encouraging to hear him admit to his mistakes, an instance when a mistake with neon inks cost them £3000, (which to the client, they blamed on the printers...). It was also interesting to hear him say that he is still learning, that through every project he learns something.

I would have liked to have known more about their research process and how they come up with their ideas, as I am struggling on this project. He did say it was important to receive feedback from the client, unfortunately I cannot do this so I will need to make sure I take any information I can from tutorials.

Democracy For a Day

Today we had a day project called 'Democracy' in which we had to create a poster about democracy within groups. Our group decided to take a different stance suggesting that democracy may not be such a good thing. We used the quote, 'Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide' by John Adams. We used an outline of the body of a child from an image that we had found, to create the idea of a chalk outline. We produced two ideas, one hand made using newspaper cut letters and another using Illustrator. Within our group we decided to use the poster created on Illustrator as it looked more professional. We realised there were problems with it, the text was slightly too small and later in the crit we realised we had not authored the quote. However, we all worked well within our group, delegating tasks and researching individually.

Pen & Ink Drawings

Ok, now back to the brief...

Research

For the Visual Thinking unit there is much more emphasis on research techniques. I have spent a long time looking into past and currently running charity advertising campaigns, trying to see what works and what does not. I have also looked into War on Want's past marketing campaigns to try and keep themes consistent and to see what they have emphasised and decided was less important.

Something I have found interesting is guerilla advertising. War On Want has a very limited budget therefore this technique, if done effectively, could be very beneficial. Something cheap to produce, like the stickers in the example above would be a clever way to attract attention and make people aware of War On Wants work.

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Visual Thinking

After missing a whole week, through no fault of my own, I'm beginning to fall behind... I now have the brief for the second unit titled Visual Thinking.

War On Want is launching a new advertising campaign to raise its own profile, particularly with the younger generation. The brief requirements are to create a transport campaign, a poster or series of posters and an Adshel (bus stop). In additio

n, to design a second dimension to the campaign.

I've been looking through other charities' advertising campaigns, Amnesty International in particular has an incredible amount of moving and thought provoking advertisements. It seems that the only way to get the message across is to connect with people emotionally or to find a clever new angle to approach the message.

UK Tourette Syndrome Association

War On Want

A couple of weeks ago a speaker from War On Want came to talk to us about the charity's current campaigns and to explain what they have achieved as an organisation and what they plan to achieve, for an upcoming brief. The talk was very informative and it was extremely saddening to hear about the conditions in which some people work and live. It very much puts life into perspective. We have not received the brief for this project although I suspect it will have something to do with the 'Love Fashion, Hate Sweatshops' campaign that is currently running. I will try to use this time between projects to research more into the charity and brainstrom some ideas...