A risk pays off?

I have worked my first time photography in an engaging poster with some pretty strong imagery in terms of distressed toy soldiers, which invokes quite a strong sense of Wehi. the shadows on the wall further frame and emphasise this.

To develop it I worked further on the type and explored ways to emphasise the work sacrifice, eventually settling on the method displayed here. I also have the whole piece a slight red tinge, hearkening back to the emotions invokes by the red themed communist propaganda I researched.

The graffiti Pastiche of Banksy results

Using Banksy's style I have recreated my poster.

Initially adding scribbles from "John", making him seem a little insensitive.

I decided to change the tone of the reed to make it deeper and a little bit more shocking, then moved away from the idea of scribbles and more into the idea of a loss of identity, putting sprays that would be essentially meaningless in the world of graffiti art, over the faces of the soldiers, erasing them of all identity.

Finally I moved to a good balance between the two forms of vandalism, the red paint doubles up in symbolism as the blood of those who sacrificed their lives for our country and died serving under our flag. I also managed to bring back the emphasis of the words that should have a greater impact, and played around with the positioning of the type some more.

The red draws your eye and and make you follow it in a zig zag motion down the page and back up again.

A brand new idea

Taking a risk, because my past VCD tutors have told me that perhaps I don't take enough of them, I decided to try my hand at some last minute photography and working with actual physical objects to try and get my message across. After scouring the city I managed the find what appears to be the only $2 shop that still sells little green army men.
My flatmate and I proceeded then to light them on fire, whilst I did a photoshoot (the first I have ever done). Though not playing to my strengths was a risk, I hope that I can use one of these photos in a way that is engaging and invokes a strong sense of Wehi.

PS I learned never to do this inside because omg the flat smelled so bad and we all got headaches and it was bad.

Research into Banksy to further my designs.

Though I can't afford spray paint for this design I still want to pursue the graffiti style and I am taking some inspiration from Banksy. He tends to use a two layer stencil style, with one layer being white and the top layer being black for all the details. The other colour that seems to appear quite prominently in his works is red, which I think I will have another go at using in a way that invokes an even more emotional impact. I am leaning towards the direction of using Pastiche on the former graffiti statue piece. 

Working on the statue graffiti

Posters for the interim

Here are the posters I submitted for the week 5 interim

This piece really plays off my original ideas of putting graffiti on a statue. I illustrated the statue that stands at Anzac Cove, and then drew over it to simulate spray paint, using colours that are commonly associated with tags and vandalism. The off white background mean I could play with black and white type to emphasize certain words that I felt needed to have a stronger presence on the page.   

This piece is an evolution from the last canvas graffiti idea (green one) I took more sepia tones and colours that invoked a sense of age and history and fused them with modern striking colours that made the piece pop more. I illustrated the soldier with markers and pencil this time to give it an ever more authentic look. The idea behind the red strike over his face is the loss of identity, and it ties in with the "NO" nicely.

The critique I received from the interim was incredibly helpful. Firstly the general consensus was that the first poster was the strongest and that I should pursue it further, but on the same wavelength the second was far too similar and used the same ideas too much. 

In the first, it was slightly too wordy and the subtext was too large. Also the image didn't take enough precedence over the type like I intended. The choice of background colour (and even having one at all) was also questioned. It was suggested that I do some version of the image in a spray paint stencil style. I have some ideas regarding Banksy's work on that front so I will look into it.

The second apparently invoked the feeling of a soldier facing the firing squad, his hands behind his back and his eyes covered by what was perceived as a blindfold, alongside the blue splatters which was seen as a confusing recolour of blood, invoked feelings that I never wanted to portray in the first place. I feel as though I am going to scrap the idea in favour of something new and riskier. 

A new way to approach graffiti

I was incredibly focused on the idea of graffiti being on a wall, so I tried to move away from that taking inspiration from various canvas graffiti and comic artists to come up with this illustration.

The colours and imagery are striking and bold, but they don't really portray the message I want. Also I could not for the life of me figure out how to incorporate typography into this. It just did not work.

This is quite frankly the best result of incorporating some type into the image and it really doesn't look great. Back to the drawing board again.

Working with typography

I used one of my early Anzac concepts in an exercise with type, seeing how different fonts, sizes, words and layouts could work on the page.
I know that type is my weak point and I think this exploration page has been helpful and will serve me well in this assignment and the future.

I have experimented with all kinds on this page in terms of size, colour, boldness, lower and upper case, as well as the words themselves and their placement on the page. Playing with the balance between image and type has been a good experience.

Going ham on the graffiti concept

I fleshed out a bunch of different ways I could graffiti over the Anzac soldier's face.

In the end I was aware that the solider photo could only be a placeholder for so long, so I illustrated the soldier using the original image as reference. However I soon discovered that this didn't have the same emotional impact as the photo, so it was back to the drawing board.

A quick idea

I wanted to parody a scene from Batman comics where the Joker stands ominously over Robin after having beaten him with a crowbar.
In a twisted way I was drawing parallels between this idea and the idea of John beating the crap out of a soldier for the sake of a new flag.
I quickly saw however that this idea could be misconstrued, as well as the reference being too obscure for those who don't read comics.
I'm scrapping this idea but it was good to explore how far I could swing this.

Desecrate our History

I settled down with the idea that changing the flag was essentially desecrating our history. Specifically I would use the ANZAC soldiers to invoke a sense of Wehi. How could you want to change the very flag the fought for? Was their sacrifice worthless to you?
I somewhat wanted to put people on a guilt trip, but also open their eyes to the further smaller consequences of doing something so simple as changing our national flag.
I went through some incredibly rough sketches in my workbook and then some more rough digital thumb-nailing, temporarily pulling some images in and fusing it with my own digital drawing to get my message across.
I really liked the idea of putting graffiti over ANZAC soldiers or statues of them in order to symbolize the disrespect towards our own history.

Though these ideas are incredibly rough they should be able to give me a way forward onto better compositions.

Initial digital concepts.

After some heavy thumb-nailing and conceptualizing on paper, I took my ideas to some fairly detailed digital concepts, which I brought to the first interim.

My initial idea was very strongly influenced by communist propaganda posters. The colours and imagery are very reminiscent of the style. I wanted to incorporate John Key in some way, give the viewers of the poster a visible villain. I later discovered that this would be too literal for what I needed.

The next idea was an issue that made me choose the anti flag side in the first place. The amount of money spent on the flag change could do so much good in New Zealand, and my initial focus in my physical thumbnails was on kids starving (though that too was too literal). I wanted to symbolize childhood, and the money that could be going to it taken away, and so I used the alphabet as a recognizable symbol, and a suited hand about to pick one up.

 Perhaps my strongest example form my initial digital explorations, as a an illustrator this idea immediately connected with me because of how I could use me skills to further develop it. I also really enjoyed the idea of John desecrating this sacred thing, I thought that was something that invoked a lot of Wehi. The Flag we have is the same that our ANZAC troops fought for, the idea of changing it and disrespecting that history that we should be holding dearly was an idea that actually sickened me. I found myself more invested in this idea emotionally than the others, which is why I think I am going to pursue it.

The last idea which I was also invested in because of my illustrative background, was the idea of John pulling off his face (the current flag) to reveal a face beneath, tearing and wrecking his initial identity as he pulled. The face beneath has a blank eye to further enforce the idea of a lack of identity. Overall however I feel this idea gets slightly confused in itself. 

A look into communist propaganda posters. Visually they are incredibly striking and demand attention. Using oranges and reds in contrast with off whites and yellows to invoke a sense of action, alongside heavy focus on the imagery and the way that they are presented in terms of perspective. The designers behind these pieces of propaganda were true masters of their craft.

I think this style could be applied to a poster concept so as to instill a sense of revolution against the flag change.