I had to design a social poster as a follow up to the post card I designed, I chose to go with a different cause/area with the poster instead of following on with concepts. I chose a political poster about the importance (subjective) of voting for a Labor government in Australia, especially when faced against Tony Abbott and Clive Palmer; as the current political climate is.
My first concepts and drafts were both including Palmer and Abbott; but this raised a lot of compositional problems. I guess my final result would be one poster for each, but for the one I am submitting it's related to Palmer; who is probably a worst case scenario for an Australian elect. Picking the worst of two evils I guess?
I feel the need to provide a strong rationale for my design, first I'll start with a conceptual side:
I designed a poster which tackles one of the most mundane, simple and what I personally consider to be one of the most problematic areas of campaigning. I have intentionally designed a bare bones, stripped back (I guess 'utilitarian') design, this is for a reason. Form follows function. I have seen more designs I can count which use some form of communication which is not clear cut. I didn't want to design something that people stand around it and see it and then go "oh I guess that's a statement on [x]...". This is not something to be noticed in the background, it has no undertones, it says one thing and it says it clear. It's not meant to be salvaged and kept for some kind of ongoing collection of "art/design", it's meant to be plastered by the thousands to get a message across.
I think puns and conceptual renderings which make people have to think to get the message across have their place, in a country with one of the lowest voting education ratings of all first world countries; political posters that aren't clear cut have obviously failed. I think Michael Beirut says it best in Helvetica. PERIOD. (Although I didn't use Helvetica there's still a point)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDLPAE9wLEU
Point in tact: Australia was built on a working class population, Australia lives on a working class population and backbone. There are less billionaires in Australia than I can count on my hand, so how does a mining magnate make the best decisions for the majority of Australia when they need his help as Prime Minister? He doesn't.
Now I need to rationalize the technical side of my poster. Unfortunately I don't have a chance to ask Clive Palmer to take 5 minutes out of his busy wage dropping/cake eating day to let me take a photo which would be used against his favour. The photo I used looks pretty average at A3 size, even bitmapped (which would have been done regardless to emphasize the and simplify the poster) but it was the highest resolution photo that was suitable. I tried to limit colours, I have everything set in black and white, apart from the "VOTE LABOR" line in the Labor Logo's red. And the logo is in it's red, white and blue.
Research and concept:
I don't really have any applicable concepting as everything I have done up until now was scrapped when it changed and didn't work. I presented all previous versions in class anyway, I don't think they add anything to the final piece.
I had to find three posters which I thought were good. I think the ones I have found are pretty good and they are also directly linked to my cause, I think there are better posters out there but I wanted to limit myself to ones that support my cause and methodology for this.
I found a bunch of War and Post-War era American Labor posters and I chose two, along with one about Blackouts in World War II. I was meant to write a paragraph on each but I think everything I like about them can be summed up across the board in a little paragraph and what I've said in my own rationale.
There is minimal but strong imagery. Everything is clearly to the point, and the point it's self is so obvious that you couldn't miss it if you tired. There is no process to get to a result, the result is given to you. PERIOD.
http://speckycdn.sdm.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/propoganda_12.jpg
http://speckycdn.sdm.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/propoganda_44.jpg
http://speckycdn.sdm.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/propoganda_09.jpg
