Design Practice

I thought about Propaganda posters that were created to encourage women to take part in the war and thought that I could create some sort of pastiche of one of these well known posters. The only thing that gave me a slight worry was that this idea was a bit too obvious maybe?

I still liked the idea of this poster, because the woman is showing off her 'guns' proving that women are just as strong and worthy of taking part in the war.

Playing on this idea of guns, i had a play about with the sentence "you don't need guns to win a war" and tried creating some ideas for my typography poster. I tried writing the sentence in a feminine and attractive way that made it look more like something for a poster and not just a boring old sentence.

I really like this idea, because I think it could work really well if I spent a lot of time perfecting it and making it look well executed. I think it's an aesthetically pleasing idea, but in a way doesn't really portray the feminine side of the war...

I decided to experiment with some other typefaces and ways in which I could represent females in the war. I think designing something which includes stereotypical female symbols and objects could help bring the design together.

Had a little go at playing around with some more feminine typefaces to see what the words would look like when written in something a bit more fancy than just a generic gothic typeface. I really like the fluidity and femininity of the lettering, however I don't think it really represents warfare or women in the war.

The thought of Propaganda posters used during World War 2 made me consider how I could use the theme in my work, but in a way that represents the need of females in the army.

I really like the idea of creating a pastiche of the "We Can Do It" poster, but incorporating the slogan that I eventually decide on about the use of guns and sexism in my design work. I also think that changing the O in YOU to a symbol of venus is extremely effective and portrays the message efficiently and quickly to the reader. I feel that either of these two ideas could work for the image and type posters and both obtain an aesthetically pleasing nature.

Decided to come up with something a little bit different to the previous ideas, and more in the style of typographic artists like Jessica Hische and Mats Ottdal. I think that it works as a decorative image, however loses the idea of warfare and becomes more of a design for a tattoo. I love the use of a cute and simple illustration of a dove, as it represents the idea of the soldiers of the F.E.T creating peace with Afghan women.

I'd quite like to use this idea somewhere in my designs, as I think it's quite a clever way of representing women's importance in the war and how there are a lot more men than women. I think the use of only having the backs of their heads works well as it means that the characters in the design have no actual identity and remain unknown, which means that anyone can relate to the subjects in the picture. Obviously this would have to be perfected and reproduced as either a photograph or a vector drawing.

For quite a while throughout my thought process, I kept going back to the idea of using a typeface that relates more to Afghanistan and the language that they speak. I researched into the language of Pashto and found quite a few different words and phrases that I thought were relevant to the subject and message that I was trying to convey. I like this idea above, because the word WAR has been written in English from the left hand side, and in Pashto from the right hand side. The problem with writing in Pashto would be that not very many people would understand what was going on, and could be thought of as simply a pattern next to the word war.

FINAL POSTER DESIGNS:

I decided to print my designs on Antique White paper as this will help to carry the message forward, because the chosen stock will make it look more industrial and war related. I also didn't want to just use ordinary printer paper, as it wouldn't have been as effective and would have made the posters less interesting to look at and engage with.

Type Poster

For the poster made completely out of type and type alone, I really struggled to make it look feminine and relate to the women when they view the design. I think the design works with the rest of them and gets the message across well. I really like the use of the two colours I chose, as I think that the green and golden brown relate to warfare and help represent the message.

Image Poster

I found that this poster was the hardest to produce, because it was difficult trying to think of images that would get the message across without the use of type. I initially wanted to have a gun shooting out a flower, but it was hard to produce this in 2 colours that was also in a minimalistic style so that it suited the rest of my posters as well. I think this poster works, but not to it's full potential. It looks a bit like the gun is either shooting at women, or women are being shot out of the gun which I could imagine would be hard to understand if you couldn't see the other two posters as well. However I think the colours work well and relate to the overall idea and other poster designs.

Type & Image Poster

I really like this poster design and think that it is the most successful out of the three. I think the type and image combined in this way work well and relate to my initial ideas at the beginning of the brief. I think that the juxtaposition between the stencilled word WAR and the flower pattern is effective and grabs your attention, because you wouldn't usually associate the two. I think if I were to change the poster in any way, I would change the font used in the sentence 'it's not about who has the biggest guns' and make it more feminine by changing it to the one used in my typography poster. This will also make the posters relate to each other more successfully.

I think that overall I really enjoyed this brief as I found it challenging and different to what I'm used to doing. I liked the fact we were limited on colours, because it made you think about your ideas more thoroughly and how the colours will relate to the article choice in an effective and aesthetically pleasing manner. I also liked using the unusual format and thinking about the use of stock, as it made each of my designs a little bit more unique. I think that if I had known what the brief was going to be before choosing my article, I probably would have chosen a different article all together as I struggled to come up with acceptable ideas as this article was quite broad.