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.

The talk was very inspirational, as she is a young designer who graduated 3 years ago and already appears to be on her way to having a really successful career, it shows that it’s possible to achieve something so quickly and straight after university. 

This particular talk was very influential to me personally as she is a graphic designer who studied at the same university with similar experiences to myself. I like her way of thinking and finding inspiration in nature and in just very extraordinary places not just usual research and books.

 Her style is very minimalistic but she adapts for Penhaligon's the British perfume house as their style is quite chaotic and not necessarily in line with her traditional approach. I like the way she devides two separate styles for work and for her own pleasure. 

She talks about mental health a lot and portrays in her work her own personal struggles with anxiety, which is very similar to what I feel myself and definitely made me feel more confident about the future and the opportunities that may meet me following university.

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.