DESIGN IMPERATIVE PROJECT PROCESS
Designer as Author VISC 402 Fall 2012 Patrick Dooley
The Graphic Imperative Process Work COLLEEN IRELAND
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Research Materials
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Design Development
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Final Posters
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Reflections
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RESEARCH MATERIALS
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ASSIGNMENT For this project I was able to choose an advocacy that I was interested in or connected with and create posters to represent a call to action for that advocacy. I worked to create two seperate posters: one that was designed purely from typography and one that combined type and image to relate the idea. I chose to represent The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and came up with a problem/solution/action selected that I wanted to follow through with on my poster designs.
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ESSAY ANALYSIS In Steven Heller’s essay, Ode to Ink Saturated Paper, he spends most of his time discussing how a poster can best serve its purpose through the way it is made. Advocacy posters are like weapons for demonstrators, they are a means of showing the faults with current conditions and how things should change. Successful posters are meant to obtain some sort of emotional response from the viewer while still relaying a call to action. These responses shouldn’t just be used to muster a reaction right now, though. A good poster is able to retain its relevance now, and in years to come. It can do this by following the quality, not quantity, approach. Often posters can be overlooked because there is too much going on instead of having one centrally strong and clear message. Some of the simplest posters can be the most effective ones. Heller portrays this with the example of R.L. Heaberle’s photograph of a mound of corpses lying on a dirt road with the headline “Q: And Babies…? A: And Babies…?” It is such a simple message, but it is the deep and alarming message that it iterates that makes the poster compelling and memorable. Sometimes the more beautiful a poster is, the less urgency it demands of its viewer. Neatness and attractiveness can mute the raw emotional responses that can be gained by a poster that is less designed. Not that design is not essential, but that the lack of composition, when used in a thoughtful way, can be more compelling and attractive in it’s own way. Posters should invent new symbols out of old ones but most importantly, they should make people stop and think, because those are the images that will stay in their memories. In Carol Wells’ essay, Why the Poster in the Internet Age, she talks about how the poster is still relevant in a time that is overwhelmed with an obsession with digital media. Posters still serve a purpose mainly for the reason that there are still people that don’t have regular or easy access to the internet and therefore aren’t able to view
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digital media. Posters have become scarcer as they have moved away from international issues, and have instead become aimed at more specific and regional concerns, which has decreased the visible audience for much of the imagery. There have also been stricter regulations and restrictions on where they can be displayed. Though a larger audience base can see digital images at much greater speed, these images can’t be held up in a protest, staked in the ground, or seen by many lower class neighborhoods. One of my favorite statements that Wells made was that “posters chronicle a community’s often untold history and articulate its vision for change.” Another reason that posters are still useful is simply because of the fact that they continue to be low cost, low tech, and relatively easy to distribute. In my opinion, these statements are almost all true. I highly agree that images can be striking and simple at the same time, and that it’s usually best when they are. The more complicated things get, the more that gets lost in translation. It is difficult to stand out in our generation, but it is not impossible to make a lasting impression and shouldn’t be difficult at all to gain some sort of an emotional response from a piece of work. Wells makes some valid points as well. In my mind, posters are kind of similar to books. There really is no substitute for a concrete and lasting piece of work that you can see out in daily life and feel and hold in your hands. There is a huge advantage to digital media, of course, but when you have a physical representation of something, it is bound to make a more lasting impression and be seen for a longer period of time.
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POSTER ANALYSIS This is an environment poster titled Clon 1 (Clone 1), by Jianping He. This poster was made for a “Humans and Science” seminar on the topic of cloning. I really enjoy this poster because of the way that it approached the topic. Instead of focusing on repetition, the designer focused on symmetry. The unnatural coloring and the proximity of the face is somewhat jarring, which demands more attention from the viewer. I like how even the text is mirrored in the center of the poster. This is clearly an image based poster and I like how the text is clearly visible, but takes a minute to descipher, and doesn’t take away from the gravity of the image.
This is a peace poster titled Q. And Babies? A. And Babies., by the Art Workers Coalition. The type and image in this are equally important and without both, neither would have nearly as much relevance. The words placed on top of the image of the dead victims highlights the fact that innocent people, even children, were killed during the Vietnam War. It also shows how the war changed people, and made them do disturbing things they usually wouldn’t. It is a shocking peice and deffinitely grabs your attention as well as has an unsaid call to action to stop the crimes being committed, which is what makes it a good poster. This is a peace poster titled “Little Boy” by Uwe Loesch. It is meant to make a connection to the bombing of Hiroshima, since the bomb that was used was named “little boy”. The poster highlights the stark contrast of what a little boy looks like and brings to mind the mass destruction that was caused by the bomb of the same name. I definitely like this image because it is stirring, but I admit that without the background information I would have no idea of its relevance.
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This is a social justice poster called Racism Triptych, by Lex Drewinski. This is a purely image-based poster and it is meant to portray how the white race overpowers and humiliates other races. The colors are that of the German flag, but can also be related to African Americans, Chinese and possibly Mexican races. It is a simple image but is still strong because it literally looks like the white people are stepping on top of other races, as if they don’t matter or as if that is a normal standard. It is an especially successful poster because it relays the message without the use of any type.
This is a social justice poster titled We’ll Never Forget Wounded Knee, by Christer Themptander. It was created in rememberance of the Native American people killed at the Battle of Wounded Knee. This hits home for me because I am part Native American, but I think the imagery is very strong. It has to be since there is no type to help draw attention to it. The black and white color scheme kind of connects it to the past, and the stripes of the flag almost resemble a prison cell. It is an ironic peice because the American flag itself is supposed to be a symbol of our nations freedom, but it gains new meaning when it is juxtaposed in front of an image of a person that was mistreated or killed under the laws of that flag.
This is an environment poster titled Your Lifemeter, by Kyosti Varis. This image is basically saying that the more you smoke, the more likely that you will die at a young age. It is very easy to decipher its meaning without any background information. I think between the countless PSAs seen on TV and other ways used to discourage smoking, we all know how dangerous it is. But this image is so simple and straight to the point it is almost saying, ‘you’d be stupid not to understand that what you’re doing is a bad decision. The title only increases this call to action.
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OVERVIEW OF THE ORGANIZATION ISSUE: GUN CONTROL The organization that I chose to represent was Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. LCPGV (formerly Legal Community Against Violence) is the only national law center focused on providing comprehensive legal expertise in support of gun violence prevention and the promotion of smart gun laws that save lives. As a non-profit organization founded by attorneys, we remain dedicated to preventing the loss of lives caused by gun violence by providing trusted, in-depth legal expertise and information on America’s gun laws.
AREAS OF ADVOCACY PROBLEMS/ SOLUTION/ ACTION: P: Immense loss of life due to gun violence S: Create laws and policies that work. By acting as the most trusted resource of expertise and information on America’s gun laws, they are able to influence firearm policy and legislation that keeps our friends, family, and neighbors safe from gun violence. A: Work with government to create new laws. P: Naive knowledge regarding the second ammendment S: Supply the foremost information and analysis on the Second Amendment, as well as detailed statistics, study findings, and polling in support of strong gun regulation. A: educate yourself on what’s happening through their website http://smartgunlaws. org/about-gun-laws/ P: Community education and action is lacking and is vital in the fight to improve gun safety S: Educate communities, and empower governments to pursue effective measures that are legally defensible. A: Make complex legal and policy issues understandable, conduct legal research, analyze existing and emerging policy strategies, and generate model regulations P: Fear and threat of violence S: As a community we need to become active with gun safety laws and regulations and put them into use so that we can live comfortably without the fear of violent action
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looming over us. A: Make it more important for people to actually follow these regulations. P: Few incidents actually receive thourough media coverage- unless it is a mass shooting, or involving someone of high social status, everyday gun shootings don’t receive the same coverage and therefore don’t iterate the level of danger that guns create and lessen the veiwed importance of gun control. S: Highlight these incidents more. A: Show more news coverage of gun violence and include information on steps that can be taken to reduce these occurances.
THEIR HISTORY Over the last two decades, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has grown to become the leading resource on firearms law and policy in the United States. On July 1, 1993, an assault weapon rampage at a law firm at 101 California Street in San Francisco ended with ten people dead, including the shooter, and six wounded. This horrific act was felt throughout Bay Area communities, but none more so than within the legal community. Within days of the shooting, Bay Area lawyers responded by forming the organization Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV). One of LCAV’s first projects was to mobilize the Bay Area legal community to support enactment of the 1994 federal assault weapon ban. We then concentrated our efforts on California, providing legal assistance to California communities seeking to adopt and defend local gun regulations. Our services contributed to the adoption of hundreds of California firearms ordinances, many of which inspired state legislation that now places California at the forefront of gun policy reform. We learned that we could make the greatest difference and meet the greatest need by working at the state and local level. In 1999, in response to requests from communities outside California, we extended our services to include free nationwide assistance to advocates and community leaders working to prevent gun violence. We continue to document a tremendous need for legal information and assistance to support the efforts of public officials, law enforcement, and activists in all 50 states and the District of Columbia who are seeking local or statewide policy reform. In June of 2012, our Board of Directors and staff unveiled the new name for our organization: Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, to better reflect the breadth and scope of our work. As the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, we continue to provide in-depth summaries of federal, state and local firearms laws and policies. We also make available detailed gun violence prevention research and analysis, including publications and re-
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ports on legislative trends, materials that thoroughly examine current Second Amendment litigation, model laws, and statistics, study findings, and polling to bolster the arguments in favor of strong gun laws. We invite you to join us. Together we can save lives.
TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC Young-adults interested in learning more about the issue of gun control. Since it has become a popular issue lately with the recent shootings that have happened across America, people are becoming more involved with the issue, but there is not always sufficient information regarding it. All ages can probably learn something about the subject, but the younger audience is what I am interested in because that is probably the group of people least knowledgable on the subject and they are the age group that represents the largest number of violent crimes committed.
AUDIENCE PROFILE James goes to high school in Denver, Colorado. He’s on the hockey team and loves any physical activity he can take part in. He keeps up on his grades at school but doesn’t really go out of his way to go above and beyond when it comes to class work. He listens to rap/hip hop usually, but likes bands like Coldplay and Bon Iver every now and then. He likes reading Sports Illustrated and his favorite movie is Inception. He also loves comedies like Inglourious Basterds and The Hangover. James doesn’t go out of his way to read The New York Times, but his mom watches the news every morning before he goes to school so he stays on top of most current events as well as anyone. He just learned about the Aurora shooting, which was just a city over from him and it really hit home just how big of an issue gun violence has become and how oblivious we are to controlling it. He decides he wants to become more involved, even if all that means is reading up on the issue and possible solutions to the problem. He doesn’t want this type of thing to happen to anyone he loves and cares about.
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CONCEPT STATEMENT The United States has varied laws and regulations regarding gun control and ownership across the nation. States with a higher rate of ownership and more lenient laws have a direct relationship with the amount of gun violence and death due to firearms that takes place in that state. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is an organization aimed at educating citizens on the regulations and the current issues with lack of gun safety, as well as creating new policies to strengthen gun control in the USA. By informing citizens on the issues with current gun ownership/control regulations and getting more unified policies passed across the nation, we could decrease the amount of violence in certain parts of the country and reduce the pain and heartache that it creates for victims and their families.
TO SUGGEST LIST 1. victim-
a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency: a victim of an automobile accident. a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence; the victim of a swindler; a victim of an optical illusion.
2. fear-
a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
3. unity-
a whole or totality as combining all its parts into one. absence of diversity; unvaried or uniform character.
4. informto give or impart knowledge of a fact or circumstance
5. control-
to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register
6. loss-
the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had death, or the fact of being dead
7. safety-
the quality of averting or not causing injury, danger, or loss the action of keeping safe.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.
violence regulation death gun bullet wound blood heartache grief accident laws diverse pain sacrifice negligence naive confused educate risk untrained adolescent guilty shoot fire change refine regret
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PROBLEM STATS Americans own an estimated 270 million firearms – approximately 90 guns for every 100 people. In 2007, nearly 70% of all murders nationwide were committed with a firearm. In 2007, 385,178 total firearm crimes were committed, including 11,512 murders, 190,514 robberies, and 183,153 aggravated assaults. Firearm injuries are the cause of death of more than 18 children and young adults (24 years of age and under) each day in the U.S. Children and young adults (24 years of age and under) constitute over 38% of all firearm deaths and non-fatal injuries. In the United States, over 1.69 million kids age 18 and under live in households with loaded and unlocked firearms. The practices of keeping firearms locked, unloaded, and storing ammunition in a locked location separate from firearms may assist in reducing youth suicide and unintentional injury in homes with children and teenagers where guns are stored. A federal government study of unintentional shootings found that 8% of such shooting deaths resulted from shots fired by children under the age of six In 2009, firearm injuries were the cause of the unintentional deaths of 554 people. On average, 33 gun homicides were committed each day for the years 2004-2009. In the first seven years of the U.S.-Iraq War, over 4,400 American soldiers were killed. Almost as many civilians are killed with guns in the U.S., however, every seven weeks. In 2009, guns took the lives of 31,347 Americans in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour.
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PROBLEM A large percentage of injuries and deaths caused by firearms are accidental injuries due to the fact that the owner isn’t practicing safe handling and storage of said firearm. SOLUTION Encouraging the practice of safely storing guns in your residence and knowing the correct way to handle them as to not injure yourself or others.
ACTION Educate yourself on these safety methods and on gun regulations in given states in regards to them.
INITIAL HEADLINES Is Your Gun Safe at Home in the Safe? Your Safety Depends on Our Unity Ask Questions Now, Shoot Later Your Kids Are Playing with Your Guns While You’re at Work How Secure is Your Safety? What If a Gun Was to Your Head.. Who’s to Blame? Help Call the Shots What If It Was Someone You Loved? We’re Under the Gun We Could All Be a Victim It’s Not Just the One That Gets Shot That Becomes a Victim
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SUBHEADS Take part in passing gun control regulations. More unified gun regulations can help reduce injury and heartache caused by firearms. Safer gun regulations equals a safer future for those you love Firearms account for 66% of all homicides and 50% of suicides. Firearms alone account for more homicide deaths than all other weapons/methods combined. On average, 33 gun homicides were committed each day for the years 2004-2009 Where guns are prevalent, there are significantly more homicides, particularly gun homicides Regions and states with higher rates of gun ownership have significantly higher rates of homicide than states with lower rates of gun ownership
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MOOD BOARDS LAW CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE CURRENT MOOD BOARD
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MOOD BOARD FOR NEW DESIGNS
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CLASS NOTES 8.23 I chose to represent The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. THINGS THAT MAKE A GOOD ADVOCACY POSTER: 1. Shoot for a strong reaction. 2. Cliches = no. 3. Must be “read” easily. 4. Beauty is not necessarily effective. 5. “Raw” design matches content. 6. Balance between simple & complex. 8.28 HIERARCHY Point of entry How text size, color, placement affects the order in which we read it POSITIVE vs NEGATIVE posters 8.30 More about Type Hierarchy CONTRAST IN: scale weight cut color texture cropping tension 9.4 I need to think outside the box a little more and come up with ideas more original than just putting bullets and guns in the background. Work on relaying the message I’m trying to send more clearly by the way I compose my posters.
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9.6 Work more on hierarchy Move away from asymetrical compositions 9.13 TYPE POSTERS: they need to represent the message better. Some of them are sending confusing and unrelated messages. IMAGE POSTERS: work on aggitating the guns and giving the composition some tension. Explore WEAPONS NOT TOYS version more. 9.20 The new water gun is better because it is clearly different than a normal gun. Shooting target can be reworked as a TYPE poster instead of IMAGE. 9.25 IMAGE: Slanted composition is best Fix hyphenations Smaller subtext Keep orange in the title text Incorporate logo into poster Vary text within the subtext (ie change weights to create interest) Move upper left subtext to center of bullseye TYPE: Fix hyphenations Bold some text within paragraphs Move the headline outline shape closer to the filled text Change bullet holes (only O’s) Include question mark Give the poster an even border Check rotation to make sure all text is at the same angle
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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
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ROUND 1
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ROUND 2
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ROUND 3
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ROUND 4
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FINAL REFINEMENTS
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FINAL POSTERS
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REFLECTION
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This was a difficult project for me. I thought that the subject of gun control would be interesting to research and advocate because of the recent national focus on the subject based on some of the shootings that have happened lately. But the more that I researched, the more that I realized there wasn’t much that could be done about the policies themselves, because they are the way they are currently for a reason. Yes, there are proven statistics saying that states with stricter gun regulations have less gun violence, but when you get down to it, it really comes down to the owner of the weapon and how they choose to use it. I did become interested in the information I found about accidental death/injury from firearms that could be prevented had the owner/ user practiced safe storage/handling of said weapon. I thought that this was something that could really be advocated and could actually change how things are at this time in some way, so that is the direction that I took. I am very happy with my final posters but I have to admit that the process for this project left me struggling. I felt lost throughout most of the project, mainly because I hadn’t solidly committed to a specific idea. Once I finally made that decision and started looking at the poster as a way to visually represent an idea or feeling instead of just an attempt at making it pretty, that is when I really became interested and committed to this project. I like how the posters turned out and my favorite part was the last variations, as I knew the direction I wanted to go and it just came down to which execution represented what I was trying to get across best.
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