Take Note

All of the sketches, brainstorming, etc, all of the general ideation is in the physical workbook, this blog only contains digital work and reflection.

Week 6, Session 2

19/8/14
Define

Done. The poster is all finished.

Here it is on a poster wall.

Rationale:

The conceptual idea of this poster is that youth should not vote because they are misrepresented. It uses pastiche through referencing the idea of Lèse-majesté, used by The Sex Pistols in their 1977 album art for ‘God Save the Queen,’ which talks about youth revolting against the system and is visualized through the defacing of symbols of power, John Key in this case.

The poster is an interesting example of ihi wehi as it is specifically targeted to the youth of New Zealand who would understand and be inspired by the poster. Interestingly, the older generations would still understand it as it references the classic Sex Pistols album cover that they would have grown up with and evokes memories of their youth and that rebellious period. Although both sides would understand the poster, it would be received in totally different ways; inspiration and fear.

Week 6, Session 1

18/8/14
Ideate / Making / Critique

This was the current poster but after critique I made some tweaks and ended up with the one at the bottom. 

Some of the critique I got was; 

- wanting to see John Key more 
- how 'boycott 2014' sounds like a boycott of a whole year rather than an election
- maybe not use the 'ransom note' style text for 'boycott 2014'
- make the blue brighter

Other than that it went down quite well and was understood properly.

Week 5, Session 2

12/8/14
Ideate / Making

After looking at the typography ideas I got inspired and came up with this idea which lead from looking at imagery from The Sex Pistols.

I feel like they are getting there but still need some work done. Mainly colours?

The Sex Pistols / Jamie Reid

11/8/14
Understand

I stumbled across some Sex Pistold imagery and thought it was extremely relevant. I discovered an album artwork for the 1977 album 'God Save the Queen' which uses imagery of the queen in a rhetoric way. The piece is about Lèse-majesté which talks about youth revolting against the system and is visualised through the defacing of symbols of power.

Typography Examples

11/8/14
Understand

I felt that because I haven't done any typography before I should look into some typographical posters to get a feel for good typography.

Week 5, Session 1

11/8/14
Ideate / Making / Critique

I started to think about a parody of a government symbol in some way and ended up with these ideas:

I'm not happy with it though, it's just not working but I feel like I am finally getting somewhere. I think I could probably lose the tagline but I need some other way of enforcing the idea. At the moment the idea is too passive and there are too many fonts going on, the hierarchy is just not working at all.

Visualisation of Non-Voters compared to Voters

10/8/14
Understand

Stuff Article - Youth Tune Out in Record Numbers

10/8/14

Understand

"If we don't solve it we'll end up with a county being run by older people who are dying off and young people having no say in how it's run," he exhorts.

 Maybe this is what we need; the tiny, remaining voting population dying off, then maybe the government will make some serious changes.

"My theory is that most people can't be bothered. New Zealand politics is very boring - there's not enough of a discernable difference between the two major parties to make it seem worthwhile."

- Guy Williams

This is very true, to the youth who don't know much about politics it can seem as if all the parties are the same and there is really no point voting. 

[Full Article]

Barbara Kruger

8/8/14
Understand

I heard about Barbara Kruger and her style of typography and achieving great things with very little text and image.

Progress

6/8/14
Understand / Define / Ideate

Today I made huge progress, I went through many different stages and ideas and ended up right back at the start but now I have a really good understanding of what I am doing and really believe in the idea, which I didn't really before.

I started to think that the original idea was just way too difficult to visualise so I started thinking about other reasons not to vote and ended up at the GCSB spying scandal. I worked through that for a while and then realised it wasn't as strong as the original idea.

I had an idea about trying to integrate bees with the MPs so I did a lot of research into bees hoping there would be some sort of relevant fact involving young bees but there wasn't so I moved on, not wanting to waste anymore time on bees.

I then moved onto ideas for a hippy style poster to try and show how old these MPs are, as I just realised that if the average MP was 51 in 2011 then the average MP birth year must be 1960. I came to the conclusion that I was contradicting myself as the hippy style and imagery was just reinforcing a youthful feel and almost reminding the viewer that the MPs were young once, the complete opposite of what I was going for...

I researched what happened in 1960 in New Zealand and found out that New Zealand first got TVs in 1960. I started playing around with this until I realised that the connection wasn't strong enough and ended up back where I had started but with a lot more faith in the idea.