6.2

Rationale

Annabel Wennekes 

My poster has been created to persuade people that social media should be used in favour of sharing ideas via posters or other physical mediums. My main message is that social media is a much more effective means sharing ideas rather than only being able to share with the limited people that can view a poster. My poster has been rendered in a style that references old newspapers and poster designs. The ini of the poster is distressed and using text, filers and colour but also dynamic and modern. These aspects of the poster make the viewer’s Wehi feel confronted by the intense colours and text but also nostalgic.

6.1 + 6.2

After deciding on my last rendering style I started working on hierarchy of text and layout and how your eye travels across the page. There was a lot of experimenting with layout and how to position my text on the page. 

I then talked to my tutors and we agreed that I needed more colour in my poster to make it stand out as currently it was just black and white. I started trying to add red to the text but it still wasn't standing out as much as it could. After continuing to play around I added yellow also as they are both bright bold colours.


Then I noticed that my main message 'print is dead' did not stand out enough on the poster- in fact it was the smallest text on the poster. I reflected back on my first rendering newspaper style and used the idea to overlay the text on top of the rest of the poster and text. I had to play around with sizing of text and the way it was placed on the poster a lot so that you could read both the 'print is dead' overlay by making sure the opacity wasn't too low but then also making sure the lable wasn't to big and obvious so that you read the text behind it first. I also wanted to give it a look like it had been stamped/ slapped onto the poster like an answer suddenly given to the problem.

5.2

Rendering Styles

News Paper
I used news paper as the background and made the poster black and white and red to represent the emergency/hurry that is getting news out to the public. I have chosen this render style because I want to show that print is dead and news paper is a print form like this. I wanted the main text to be bigger and red so it was a headline of the newspaper. Then the next text I wanted to make into columns in the page, so they had to be short not long paragraphs. I found that the red was very eye catching to the viewer making them see that the poster was something important which worked well with the headline which said "this poster has an important message" in capital letters. This also meant it was somewhat a 'filler' headline for it was referring to the message but not giving it until you continued to read the text below. Further down making iterations I dulled down the colour tones with filters on my chosen best compositions.

Poster
My next rendering style was using old posters that were famous and recognisable from their time period. This meant that you would know they were outdated and old to match the message I was giving. I joined posters together to make a wall of old posters so it looked like a photograph. To each picture I used photoshop to make them look outdated then added old filters and desaturated the whole image over all to make it look old. I experimented with fonts and colour a lot more in the rendering style combined with the composition. However I found that text always worked centered to made the old poster style and aesthetically it looked pleasing compared with aligning the text which looked too modern. Here I struggled with making the text stand out and the posters fall back enough into the background while also being able to define the posters themselves. I also added subtle imagery of skulls to add to the idea of print being dead.

Illustration
I instantly found a font I loved that went well with the vibe I was going for in the poster and starter playing around with text layouts and such, however I found that when I added imagery the poster just didnt work. I tried a couple other layouts but I was never happy with the text with anything.

Wanted Poster Thing
Next I decided that because I liked playing with text in the pervious render style I would experiment more with using text to portray my idea like we learnt in class rather then a visual story/ metaphor in an image. This I enjoyed a lot, attemping to once again make the poster look eye catching like a news paper title (this poster is a halfway mix between a newspaper and poster style) and encorporating imagery this time further. I played with several different text types in the one poster and used only black and white. I also used filters to make it look old. This i found was very successful.

5.2

I have been looking out for several different rendering styles online and getting inspiration. I have also been thinking about changing maybe my heading to 'print is dead' instead of just having that as text at the bottom because it has an impact i think. Rendering styles that I want to try are newspaper, old posters, illustration (had drawn text too look old and sickly). Anything else that looks old and outdated, look into a combination. I have been working on the newspaper style by having old newspaper in the background (NOTE i want to add old looking filters) and newspaper like headings and columns for information. The text im also looking as is bold and simple, open sans. I also just have a colour scheme of black, white and red at the moment to match the news paper theme. Next I will work on the old posters rendering style and look into text for that.

5.1

During class I discussed my new idea further with my tutor and we both decided that my new idea was stronger then previously and that I should continue with developing it. I am stepping back from making my poster overly interactive abut staying on track with the persuasion that posters are an old medium and how people should take advantage of technology. I have done this by using the message that the poster has an important message to share but can only be shared with limited people. Where online it is endless. Posters are a dying media.

Whereas before I was only playing with hierarchy of text to get the message across I now want to try different rendering styles. I have done some research into many different artist models that I could use from the typographicposters website to get inspiration. Currently i'm looking for a render style that shows off the death of different mediums for mass communication e.g news papers. I also am interested in looking at overlay of text and imagery using opacity.

4.2

Today in class we got into pairs and discussed our work a little. I didn't find this overall very helpful as I had not developed and extended on my work as much as I would have liked to. We also learnt about fonts and text a little and then did studio work. During this time I went to the library to find some inspirations. This helped a lot as I went in and found pieces of design I really liked whether it be the way it was rendered or the design style or the ideas behind it. I found some and put them into my workbook so that I could go back and look on them, I also made some notes about things I could extend on. After seeing all the artists models together before I put them into my book I noticed a pattern among them all which was that I seemed to like collecting hand drawn works and illustrations. At the time being this is just an observation. With social media being my focus this could be taken either way if I wanted to render in like this, we shall see where it goes or if that happens or not. I also liked the idea of somehow incorporating 3D into my work if I wanted to to make it more interactive. Obviously here you can see i'm going off in some tangents from my original ideas but these are just things i'm looking into. (i wish I had went out and found some artist models earlier!)

After getting some artist models it inspired me working with text for a little so I stepped back from my four concepts that I was meant to be developing and took another approach for a little which I enjoyed. I looked at sustainability and reducing (reduce, reuse, recycle) waste by using social media online. This was not one of my final social media focuses however it is a strong idea and major point to be added. I also looked at the still idea of sharing online and sharing ideas online, which was one of my original focus points around social media.
I made four main concepts with these and then started playing with compositions a little. These have nothing to do with my original four visual concepts however I think they are good strong new ideas. I have basically now returned to idea generation, I seem to be working a little less canonically then planned but i'm more happy with where my work is going right now then where I was before. I will however, still continue to develop my 2 strongest works from critique as I want to resolve them and see where that goes as they could also end up as my one A3 that I develop in the end into my final.

4.1

Today was our first interim critique in which we shared 4 of our A3 concepts to a group of 7 using the thinking hats. Our group didn't fully use the hats to the best of our ability however we did all critique the work of everyone fairly and handed out advice on what we thought was working and what wasn't. 
This critique was great as I got feedback on my work after being stuck in a somewhat rut and it helped me prepare for beginning to develop my posters moving forward from idea generation.
I also enjoyed giving other people advice on their work and giving suggestions because it got my mind working for developing work rather than creating ideas. When giving other people advice it is great because you have never seen it before so it really is first impressions on what you think of the poster. I saw other peoples ideas on voting and it somewhat made me wish I was doing that instead of social media!

Notes on works

Desert
add mouse, doesn't look mike cord
tweets more for connections or binary
plug on persons face
person makes more relatable 
only have steps in cord/ words to have focus
on the steps have deset just colour etc
use something instead of steps

Bridges
needs something to link them
hand putting blocks on/ building it
two different people building bridges towards each other
built out of different phones and other forms of social media

Fries
add hand more connected to people
needs to be full
is having it empty making it negative
picture needs to be on right instead of left
or will the twitter bird direct the eye off the page?
hands connecting
different social media platforms
fries made out of text?
lines made out of text at front with fries inside

Before the next class I want to go in search of artist models and develop some of my ideas from the critique so I can discuss my work with teachers effectively and not show them the same work that was critiqued today.

3.2

I have continued to generate ideas, now having 50+ different posters. I have made my four A3 posters that I want to show at my interim critique. Three of them I like while the 4th I don't think is as strong so I am continuing with idea generation to come up with something stronger visually.
My first A3 poster is a desert made out of a computer cord and pointing out that a person can stay connected to others while in the strangest of locations.
The second poster is three different bridges made out of lego that serve as different social media platforms. This is conveying the idea of building communities though social media.
My third poster is an image of McDonalds fries with the twitter logo on them discussing how you should always share your ideas or in this case fries.
My fourth image I don't find as strong. Its discussing sharing ideas like the pervious poster however its comparing social media to slow mail and how you should take advantage on technology. I want to further the idea of taking advantage and seising/ embracing technology instead of making it negative but I don't think this poster has strong imagery so I want to further it. 
I'm very pleased that I kept on with the focus on my posters that I had from the beginning instead of just talking about how social media is good. My focuses were:
building communities
freedom
sharing ideas
staying connected
I have furthered all these ideas apart from freedom which I am very happy with.
I am also still struggling with making tag lines that are effective and go with the image. I also want to find some examples of work for artist models which I may do at the library soonish.

3.2

In the second session of week 3 we looked into De Bono's Thinking Hats. This meant thinking and directing our strategies at different types of feelings/ attitudes. This I found difficult not fully understanding the hats but I worked on it creating thumbnails for positive and formal and negative and creative ideas and stories. 
I how ever found that these drafts were not as strong as pervious ones I had been making earlier in the brief a couple weeks ago. I didnt like them as much. I had a chat with a lecturer and decided to make some of my posters less vauge and more directed at a single person or narrow the idea of each down even more but using the image and text together. I also wanted to combine some of my drafts ideas. 
I decided to take a small break from working on VCD and focus on other papers instead for a day or two as I was starting to struggle with idea generation a bit too much from all thinking and idea generation in such a small period of time. I want to take a step back and return to it later with a new outlook.

3.1

Today in class we learnt about the use of adding text into a composition to help add meaning to the poster. Neither text nore image can work alone but in unison they help send a message to the viewer.  We then worked on adding text to drafts we had already made in many various ways e.g only using one word, talking to a child, talking seriously, making a joke. 

We next working on getting ideas through random word generation e.g I got the word 'house' and made a mind map on it then tried to incorporate by poster ideas into the words somehow. Then made many thumbnails based off the map. Next I was given a picture of a bridge and told to do the same thing as I did with the word house. 

I continued to make more thumbnails out of these Ideas.

2.2

Feeling the creative vibes flowing through me, I continued to work on making many concepts of posters, some being different and others being developments from previous works. The posters were still just A4 size and poorly drawn but the ideas were communicated clearly with captions.
I then took the streets of Wellington in search of advertisements that used metaphor or 'making the familiar, unfamiliar  to take pictures of and analyse. I found the advertisements for ANZ, The Body Shop and American Tourister were the most successful few. This is because the metaphors were used effectively along with text to made a point. 

2.2

After talking with the tutors we decided it was a good idea to expand on my knowledge/ wordlist of my four focus ideas. This I did by making mind maps  I also made them very board instead of focusing on social media so that I can use them for ideas in the future and so they would help with making the familiar unfamiliar and symbols. These mind maps helped borden my view on the topics and I found it helped with my creativity which I was struggling with perviously. The in class exercise with finding uses for the whisk all helped a lot as well.

2.1

After the first session we were already coming up with ideas and drafts for our posters. I found this difficult and rushed for a couple reasons. First I felt I hadn't done enough research yet and I felt that the idea of doing a poster on just 'social media' was too board for me to come up with ideas besides just the simple poster saying social media is good. 
For homework into the next class I decided to narrow up my focus onto four different subjects within social media being:
- building communities
- freedom
- sharing ideas
- staying connected
I then came up with a couple drafts that I liked.

1.2

First we had to read up on the three topics of; voting, social media and superstores. I researched all three finding interest in social media and voting the most. I ended up deciding on social media as my topic for the next 6 weeks as I knew little about the government system and felt I couldnt get a grasp on it, even though it did interest me a lot. Social media is something I believe in strongly and wanted to work on it. 

I spent the week creating mind maps which I enjoyed making, as it helped me sort out my thoughts and process them by putting everything into categories. 
Then I went and found imagery for the next week based on my word lists and tried to focus on the positive vibes of social media while still doing research on both the positives and negatives on social media.