As it is a design project, we can utilize various techniques and design methods used in previous projects. Also apply any knowledge about social justice from the past experience.

 

Depends on the topic I would choose, I will try to use various materials such as screen printing, lino printing, utilizing digital platforms and maybe explore unusual materials as food, coffee, flowers or leaves, to have some creative exploration within the project itself.

Also, I would research the problem by looking at different sources, talking to people who involved in it and looking at relevant statistic and plausible solutions.

 

In this project I really what to develop my understanding of graphic design as a whole and try not to cross the line to illustration, maybe create my own typeface for the posters and try to think outside the box for the future development of my skills. I think a production of my own typeface would be a great opportunity to use a previously developed skill within university and apply it to another project.

 

My ambition is to create a series of posters centred around a social justice problem and hopefully project the issue from a perspective perhaps not often viewed and try to engage with people that may not be the stereotypical person with such interest in the problem.

 

I will research designers who have created strong designs in the past and try to highlight problems surrounding social justice. One of the key example is Jonathan Barnbrook as he created work in response to the first and second Iraq conflicts, Davide Bonazzi who focused on global warming illustrations, Luba Lukova is known for her thought-provoking social justice posters and many others. Ultimately my aim is to research these designers and their creations and use them as inspiration in my own work, viewing how they are able to engage with audiences and present their issues to the general public.

 

 

I aim to encourage people from all backgrounds to develop an interest and awareness of my chosen social justice issue. Therefore, I cannot specify a typical person I will be aiming it at, as ultimately my main goal is to raise awareness to anybody that will listen. I believe if I were to aim it at a typical demographic, then it would not do the cause justice as the ultimate aim is to raise awareness across all faiths, demographics and people.

 

Luba Lukova’s work left a really lasting impact on me. Interestingly, there is seemingly not a lot that goes into her work, its lacking a lot of colour and lacking a lot of detail, but due to this, I think the message surrounding her work is truly undiluted. Her piece on Sudan was particularly moving, with only the use of a white background and a black foreground, showing the face of a desperate Sudanese male, suffering from malnutrition with a wide mouth, appearing to be screaming in distress. However, in his mouth, shows the nutritional value of a food, something printed on all foods in the Western world and something that is often the concern of many people gaining weight and losing weight throughout the West. I think the use of total contrast made the message absolutely clear and as previously mentioned, although something that may appear quite basic, it is extremely thought provoking and leaves a lasting effect on the viewer.

 

  This is digital typography, a clear and crisp text in dark purple against the backdrop of a lighter, lilac background. The collage is made up of 4 tiles, 2 of which displaying the hand signs, one to introduce the signal and one to explain it in words.

     I think the simplicity of this design really aids the viewer in understanding the seriousness of the issue. Once more, I can imagine that when one is in such a dangerous situation of living with somebody that is harming them regularly, the idea of reaching for help must seem complicated and dangerous, but the simplicity of the design further emphasises the simplicity of the signal itself.

    This is an online initiative that has been shared across multiple social media platforms, the idea of which is to share it as far and wide as possible to reach as many people as possible.

     I think this has been designed to be viewed by both victims of domestic violence and also the family or friends of somebody that may be going through it. This is as the signal must be performed by the victim, but also must be understood by the receiver.

.     I think it is reasonable to suggest that this may be aimed at females based on both the colour pallete chosen, the lilac and purple colour scheme is one often associated with females.

    This particular image I believe is more to draw awareness to an individualistic approach one could take if they found themselves the victim of domestic violence, but does not necessarily shed information on the topic to an outsider.

    I believe this particular case studies success can be judged by how many people it reached and as it has been featured in the Sun, The Mirror and Birmingham Mail amongst others, I believe it has got the signal out there well and may have played a part in saving domestic violence victims lives.

     This is a simple yet effective typographic design.

    This is four lines of bright, bold type, the text itself has slight fading, but the message is as clear as the text is bold and the boldness and explicit nature of the text drives home the message well.

   The bold, simplistic text does well to disguise a complex issue into something plain and simple, the red acts to highlight the issues.

     Burrill himself is a printmaker and this particular image has been pressed onto tshirts and worn across the world and a full digital design displayed across websites and social media.

     The audience is of course the general public, raising awareness to the issues of suicide.

     This image has been put onto t-shirts to be worn by men and women worldwide and can act as a conversation starter amongst people, the fact that it is plain text, bold and bright with a firm meaning, without extra design or effects shows the wide audience it hopes to contact. 

     This project is less informative and more of a conversation starter, allowing people and society as a whole the opportunity to discuss something that is seldom spoke about, but should be. 

    I believe it has been a great success, Burrill’s work has been worn and displayed across the world and has worked wonders in highlighting the ongoing problems of suicide.

 

     In this poster they use photography with a brief overlay of text.

    The photograph has an assortment of flowers spelling out ‘Don’t bring mum flowers’ with the backdrop of a London estate where a lot of the knife carrying teenagers have grown up.
     The use of this photo should be incredibly thought provoking, drawing on the youngsters care for their mothers and drawing on the mothers day message (it was released around this time).

     This poster itself was from a TV advert, although it has been displayed across the UK on outside adverts.

     This is directed at youths between the ages of 11 and 18 I believe that may be carrying or may be considering carrying a knife. 

    I believe as the poster is centred around the feelings a mother may feel if their son/daughter were to die due to knife crime, I think this may be more prominent to a youth than an adult.

     Although this is mostly thought provoking, it also supplies the information that one is three times more likely to die if they are carrying a knife and also supply a website to get more information on the topic which I think is key to such a poster.

     I think they get the point across really well, drawing on the heart strings of the youth and making them think twice about what may be perceived as normal in their friendship groups.

     This is an illustration of a polar bear standing on top of a melting ice cube and inversely the top of the image is an oil spilling down towards the bottom of the image.

    The lower part of the image is of the blue sea, leading into the white ice cube which has a polar bear standing on top of it. Inversely the image has a black oil spill leaking down towards the ice.

     This image is so thought provoking as it covers so many issues in just one post. It looks at the melting of the ice caps, how it is effecting the wild life and also the oil the countless oil spills that have effected the environment.

     This is a poster that has been spread across social media, with two hashtags to increase the awareness and depth of its audience.

     Through the use of the hashtags, they are able to make it trend on various platforms which will allow people that may not necessarily be looking at the issue to see such posters and ultimately become more knowledgeable on the subject.

     The poster conveys the issues in the arctic very well with a lot of imagery and thought provoking aspects.

     

 

One of these examples is Russia, although on the outside is attempting to portray themselves as a strong nation with their foreign politics integral to the political landscape of the world. But the truth for their citizens is that Russia has a dark secret that at this time appears to only be getting darker.

 

In 2017 the government decided to downgrade domestic violence from a criminal offence to a misdemeanour for first-time offenders, as long as the victim doesn't need hospital treatment.

 

But as much a legislative issue, this is as much a societal problem, there is a Russian saying that says “If he beats you, it means he loves you”. Which although is a long standing saying, it is still very much used to this day, which shows you that domestic abuse in Russia is not just condoned but encouraged.

 

BBC news reported A Russian woman had a heart ranching experience when she reported the beatings she'd received from her husband to her local police force, they immediately called him to the station. Then, when he arrived, much to the disbelief of the victim, they ripped up her statement in front of him. She never bothered going again.

 

Sadly this is not an unprecedented experience for the Russian woman and it has led to victims of domestic abuse feeling disillusioned with the police and feel as though regardless of legislation, they are not there to protect them.

 

As there are 36,000 women are beaten by their partners every day and one woman dies from domestic violence every 40 minutes. 

 

 Russia is a very religious country, however unfortunately the church has become politisized and are very progovernment and due to this have been very supportive of the change of legislation. Unfortunately the support does not stop there and clergymen and high ranking priests have even been quoted as saying that foreign agents have infiltrated their society and supporters of radical feminist ideologies bring this violence upon themselves. It is a sad state where abuse at the hands of your husband is even encouraged by your church.

 

Once more, politicians, both men and women are supportive of domestic beatings, with a prominent politician, Elena Mizulina even quoted as saying "We women are weak creatures and do not take offence when we are hit."

 

In December 2017, Margarita Gracheva, a woman from the West of Russia attempted to divorce her husband Dmitri and upon receiving these divorce papers, became enraged. He attacked her in their one bedroom apartment , waking the kids, who saw the bruises on her body. The next time, when he threatened her with a knife, she could not take anymore and went to the police. 

 

"I wrote a statement and the desk officer said they would get back to me in 20 days," Margarita says.

"I pointed out that by then he might well have tried to kill me 20 times over."

The desk officer explained that women often made complaints only to withdraw them later, which just swamped the police in paperwork. "So what is the point of getting involved?"

 

Five days after the case was dropped for lack of evidence, Dmitri offered to drive her to work but instead he drove her to the forest and chopped off Margarita's both hands with axe. 

 

There are millions of cases like this but sadly a lot of women’s experiences will ultimately take them to their grave. The government has cut funding for domestic abuse victim shelters and charities and offer very little in the way of financial support for these victims, leading to a feeling of being trapped for these women and it is often said that in these cases there are two ways out, either the husband will end up killing the woman or the woman will not be able to take anymore and will kill the man, sadly with no help from the state and a society keen on shaming the victims, amicable separations do not appear to be possible.

I found the discussions around ‘overshooting’ particularly interesting, learning to create a balance between the curves and straight lines. We were also taught in certain instances to make a ‘cheeky O’ were you make the letter ‘O’ larger than the other letters as if you do not, visually it will look smaller than the letters that surround it.

We also recapped some of the topics we discussed previously such as ascendeing and descending (the top and bottom lines), cap heights and some others.

We did some exerercises to explore letterforms and prepare letters to Digitalise for the next session. 

The we began by drawing some curves and lines, with 2 pencils stuck together, it was half of N, O and then N, O, P and A as these 4 letters are a starting point in typography for lower cases. 

I definitely struggled to create the letter O in this instance. At home I will try to practise it more to perfect it as I believe it is simply an issue around practice. I found the tutor very helpful and helped us in every stage of our exercise which is always appreciated when you try something new.

Then we were given 4 briefs with different kind of type(different thickness, with and without serif, weight and contrast). We used tracing paper on the top of the letters we created and tried to customise it for each brief.

 

For the him task we need to practise more with briefs and then perfect them for the coming session for them to be ready to digitalise.

I found the session extremely productive and very excited to continue it.

Then we needed to work with negative space to create 3 more images with various compositions using patterns.

The first collage I made from my original image is quite interesting as I moved the knife from the neck to the eye and removed some text, leaving ‘he loves you’ and then a knife on the eye with ‘Love?’ By questioning the action and the validity of the saying. It is not an approach I would usually take, but I found the result quite interesting.

I don’t like the second one with the fist on the lips, as it looks too obvious, and the composition feels wrong and unbalanced. But the way the text changed is quite interesting, I removed word “loves” and replaced with knife with the same word. 

The third one is quite interesting however, as the text is the main concern in the image, leaving the face of a woman in the background. Concentrating more on the problem and saying rather than the graphic in the background.

I cant say that I prefer the original piece, but I like the details I used there which were lost when I cut the image, I would definitely use this process of thinking for the future developments in my project to see what I could do with the composition and how I can play with it by moving and removing parts. 

I didn’t take all the action as I’m still in the process of researching all the issues and possible solutions to them, but I thought about to who I would want it to be addressed. I told the group that I wished to direct my work towards the people, rather than the government as my belief is that the government will not take action on the campaign regardless.

I got positive feedback and that I should focus more on how I would address it and it’s nice that I focus on something that is quite underrepresented and I am shedding spotlight on things people should know.

I would definitely try to focus on how I want to address it more and what I should highlight for general public.

One of the first thing is to add more reflections on my observation drawings, to see what I can learn from it, emphasising on colour, composition, use of positive and negative space, which I can apply to my own work for future development. 

Also, I need to add some more reflections about make morning about how I might apply this learning from this session in developing the visual language for my campaign.

Another thing I need to look at tis he visual language of some campaigns and challenge myself to find a way of visually 'talking' about the theme of domestic violence in a less literal way than I currently am. My tutor included some resources which I would take on board and reflect upon throughout my work.

Also I need to think how I can weave in the visual language of Russia without straying into cliche. To do this I should use my research as a launching pad.

And the last action I should look at is about the Russian doll and how I can develop the idea using a strong connection between the symbol of the doll and the domestic violence issue and really work on how I am to connect them together.

After reflecting on the problems and improving my work I think it will help me to develop a stronger context for my social justice issue which will be very informative and unique.

He didn’t finish high school and worked as a milk man and then on the railroad as his first jobs and then at 22 he decided to go to college where he was first introduced into lettering and where he ultimately began his journey. 

It is very inspiring watching someone coming from such a difficult childhood and without anything in life climb to such a successful level as a designer where his works are published and he gets rewards at TypeCon conferences and is someone with a big input into the typography world.

I like his explanation behind his love for typography as so little of typography has changed throughout the years and the stability of that but still so unique.

Also, he gave a lot of good tips for young designers in his talk stating a logo must always be legible and we should always do a lot of sketches with little changes to see and contrast them together.

The ultimate goal is no one letter should stand out when creating a logo or a font. Also, that we should always sketch small first, so you can go faster and experiment more with the ideas and changes.

There are many rules in typography but the ultimate, one rule is how does it look? Does it work in the context? We always need to think about the audience and how it looks and works for them in this context. 

Moreover, in his speech he was talking about the people he is inspired by and whose works are great examples of typography. For further research, I have looked at them as well and one of my favourite was Jean Larcher as I have seen his works in a calligraphy exhibit before, so I recognised him straight away. I love his work and the contrast between thin and thick lines within his letterforms. 

This was a very informative talk where I learned a lot of things and he definitely inspired me for  future works, I will try to take on board advice about sketching small and try to do small changes and then contrast them for better understanding of the image/lettering for this project.

 

It was particularly interesting the fact that she was working in typography in both English and Arabic and was able to be successful in both languages and scripts. I also enjoyed her piece that looked at where her family had been through the years, it’s given me great encouragement to draw on my personal life for inspiration in my work itself.

 

Once more, seeing how relatively fast she was able to go from working for companies, constrained in the pieces she created to going freelance was also encouraging as that is my ultimate goal and the fact that she was able to go freelance so early in her career is great and somewhat of an inspiration to me.

 

Having done a workshop with Naima only a day prior, it was interesting to take a deeper look into her broader work and even her career as a whole and seeing how the things she taught us the day prior she has used in her personal work.

 

Naima created a really good image of the industry and it is certainly an industry I would like to be involved in in the future, whether that is as a branding industry or as a more broad graphic designer with a really good base in Typography, Naima was definitely able to show the industries pros and cons that she has encountered personally.