Visual Advocacy Poster

Well the first thing I had to do was to choose a topic, and when Ms. Silverman announced this project I already had a topic in mind. The topic I chose was on visible minorities who are incarcerated, specifically focusing on Native Canadians. I found some statistics on the topic while deciding if this topic was for me and the statistics I found were alarming. For example I found that 'Native youth are more likely to go to jail than to graduate high school' and I found that 'Black men are searched 6 times more on average compared to white men'. Once I seen those statistics I knew that this topic was for me and that I needed to find more statistics. I ended up finding many more alarming statistics and at that point I had enough to do a written statement of intent. Once I wrote my statement I found I had more feelings about this topic than I thought I did and I found that this topic needed more awareness. Moreover, my next step in my process was to do some thumbnails and brainstorming. That came fairly easy to me because I had a lot of ideas, I had a lot to say, and I found many thought provoking things on the internet. I ended up with over 30 thumbnails and three pages of words and paragraphs of brainstorming. Furthermore, the next step was to present our ideas in front of the class. I gave some feedback and I got some feedback, and I felt that it helped to get others' opinions on my work. After the meet up I went right into drawing my full scale poster ideas, and I ended up with about five. I decided on the one I felt was the most interesting, easily readable/re creatable, would create awareness, and most thought provoking. I consulted with Ms.Silverman and she agreed with my decision. I then recreated my idea on Adobe Illustrator, with two fists holding jail bars that are cut off with surrounding jail bars that are full length. The statistic went in-between the bars, and I only used two colours on the words.  I put my slogan in the bottom right corner. I then played around with the sizes and made sure that it was easily readable and was eye catching. Once I decided I did my best work I looked at it one last time and saved.

The program I chose was Adobe Illustrator because I was going to draw fists for the focal point of my poster and Illustrator is the best suited program for that. After I chose my program I looked for images of fists holding bars for inspiration. I looked at few, altered them to be more graphic and ended up drawing the fists from the inspiration I got. I used the pen tool and the direct selection tool to draw the fists. The next part I had to do was draw the surrounding bars and I use the rectangular premade shape for that. I then decided where the text was going to go and decided that between the bars would be the best place. I altered the colours and realized that the most effective colours would be black, white and red. I ended up having a minimalist feel to my poster to make it very effective.

I feel that I used images in combination with written word to create a very persuasive and effective message within poster format. I used fists holding jail bars to represent the struggle and pain these inmates go through. I used black fists to show that the people who face these inequalities are those of colour, and at the same time that creates effectiveness because of the minimal colour. I wrote the text in-between the bars to create balance within the photo and to show that this is what is going behind the bars (play on words).

Instead of having a poster to create awareness I found another way to effectively inform people. I found that since most people take public transit and public transit has a lot of advertisements this would be a perfect way to get my message across. What would happen is that my poster would be on one of those rectangular spaces for advertising on the TTC, and once a person would get closer a video would start playing showing all the ways my issue affects everyone and why they should care. From far away my poster would just be the advertisement but once someone came within 50 cm of my poster the video would start playing. This would be interactive and I feel would be a lot more effective since the video catches their attention right away.