Women's Rights

As I mentioned previously, I was considering creating a poster based on the need for people to acknowledge women's rights. Well, I ended up creating two posters! One for mental illness awareness, AND one for women's rights. Since we can technically only bring one to the critique, I decided to just share the women's rights poster on here. 

Firstly, how ironic that Professor Greenan posted a blog about a local movie reviewer who lost his job because his publisher didn't agree with his support (reviewing) of films that displayed women as strong and independent individuals.

Here's a quick excerpt from the article she linked us to:

I found this extremely disgusting and upsetting. The fact that a grown man feels that manhood is being threatened by the way women are being portrayed in films is almost laughable. However, instead of using this  blog entry to rant, I'll let my poster design do the talking for me.

Here's my poster:

I wanted the message to be direct and show just how important and powerful a woman is in this world. The woman's silhouette was what I had envisioned from the beginning. The idea of having a strong female taking up most of the poster helped the message take on a life of its own, in my opinion. As for the text, I wanted it to be simple, but bold and firm. "MY BODY. MY CHOICE." Says it all really! I needed the color scheme to have a bold color, so I figured a deep crimson was a good fit. I honestly feel that colors like red, black, and white have the ability to be clean, yet give a piece some emotion.

I'll be sharing my second poster later this week! Thanks for reading and checking out my blog. :) Any thoughts or comments are welcome, as usual.

Album Cover Art and Film Credits

This past Thursday, I went to see Breaking Dawn: Part 2 with a group of friends. Yes, it's possibly one of the worst teen book series, but it's a guilty please of mine. As the film started, I realized just how much my perspective and senses have been effected since taking this course. I was immediately mesmerized by the opening titles and the design. Unfortunately, I don't have any images to share since the film just premiered this weekend, but I can honestly say it was pretty fantastic. As they displayed each actor's name, the screen flipped between three color filters, red, black, and white. The images they were layered over were of snow-covered mountains, deep valleys, and rivers. Something so simple was already giving me chills!

After experiencing that excitement, I decided to share a few other designs that stem from album cover art to again, opening film credits.

First up is British singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran and the cover art for his most recent album, "+".

It is a very simple concept. Ed's face. Ed's name. A plus symbol. And a paw-print. Each of these things reflect that artist. All of these details may seem minor, but they are now the basis for anything that Ed releases or designs. Ed, who is a ginger, has always been very enthusiastic about the color orange and paw-prints. The font has become his "go-to" font for clothing, tour buses, stage backdrops, and so on. I think I enjoy this album cover so much because it embodies everything that is Ed Sheeran without the actual music.

Second up is the opening credits for the 2011 film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I read the series prior to seeing the film, so I was absolutely pumped to see the film! If any of you have read the books, you know that they are all fairly dark and twisted. The opening titles reflect the books by using footage/images of people cover in a black liquid with a black backdrop and a simple light filtering through. As you can see in the picture above, they selected a font that adds to the creepy and eerie feeling that surrounds the movie.

Just a few things that I wanted to share with all of you! Any album covers or film designs that you admire?

Poster Ideas

For our next class project, we have been asked to create a poster that addresses a social/humanistic problem that means something to us. I was instantly excited for this project because I've always loved showing support and bringing attention to issues that truly resonate with me. Unfortunately, I'm currently struggling with deciding between two separate ideas.

Since the election just ended a week ago, I'm still buzzing from everything that has been described as a "hot topic" over the past five or six months. I'm very open with the fact that I am indeed in support of women's' rights and gay rights. Being a woman, I feel that we are all individuals and should have control over our bodies, whether it be the right to have an abortion, not to have an abortion, receive contraception through our work's insurance, or define the different "levels" of rape, it is our right. As for gay rights, I've always believed wholeheartedly that everyone should have the same rights no matter who you're in love with. Love is love. One of my coworkers is openly gay and I can not image missing his wedding solely because the state tells him his marriage shouldn't count.

So, now that my rant is over, I'm between the possibilities of having a poster that reads "My Body. My Choice." for women or even being a bit more rash and saying "My Uterus. My Choice." or a poster supporting gay rights that reads, "Love Is Equal."

Does anyone have any suggestions?

And just to make sure I'm not offending anyone, I want to say that I respect all of your opinions in regards to these subjects. These are my opinions, I am not forcing them on any of you. Please understand that.

Completed: Instant Book

Last Wednesday was our critique for the instant book project. As I previously wrote in another post, my book was pretty personal, so I was a bit nervous about sharing it with the class. I've always loved expressing myself through poems, song lyrics, and writing in general, so I was excited for the class to read one of my little poems. I was definitely pleased with my final project because I felt as though the images I incorporated brought the poem to life.

Professor Greenan mentioned the fact that images almost took us away to Paris and made it seem as though this story was happening elsewhere. She also commented on the fact that I wrote the story in third person. To be honest, it happened quite subconsciously and as I look back, I think I wanted to tell the story as though everything that I was talking about had happened to another girl and not necessarily to me. One of the main themes of the book was also the importance of numbers. I know for a fact that I will never forget the time that my Dad passed, his age, my age at the time, or the date. Those numbers are burned in my brain and I think that by emphasizing them, I was able to make the readers realize just how much losing someone can impact your existence.

Here's how my book turned out:

*There is spelling mistake (clock), but I did correct this before the final printing.

Here's the inside poster:

 

I wanted the font that I used to tell the story/poem to look handwritten and give the reader the sense that they were maybe even reading a personal letter or journal. Everything from the photographs to the text is original, except for the final quote on the inside poster. I wanted to include that specific quote because it describes my Dad and the fact that he never told me what to do with my life or how to carry myself, he merely set an example and I learned from that. 

Any thoughts or comments are more than welcome! Thanks for checking this out. :) 

I would also like to dedicate this post to my Dad. Thank you for being such an amazing person and teaching me to love who I am and never give up on any dream no matter how massive it may seem. You were the best and I hope to make you proud. I love you, dearly. 

Importance of Color

I'm noticing more so now with the election right around the corner, that news shows feel very strongly about the colors they use to design their sets and graphics.

I'm currently watching the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, which airs at 9pm ET, and is a political opinion/current news program. I usually tend to watch CNN, but over the last few months I discovered Maddow and really got hooked on her interviews and commentary. Until now, I hadn't realized just how american pride her set and graphics were!

The studio is adorned in all red, white, and blue. The graphics that appear when the show turns to a commercial are red, white, and blue. The headline designs, the poll graphics, the news ticker, and even the cup on her desk, are all RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

Coincidence? I'm thinking not.

Rachel Maddow, whom I would consider to be a liberal individual, is pretty aware of the importance of displaying the fact that her program is meant to bring serious and vital information to the American public. No matter her political positions, we automatically associate the program with the country and the governmental aspect. Who knows if Rachel is even that massively proud of being an American, but her program's design seems to speak volumes. Could the point of all the american pride color schemes be to attract "channel flippers," who might otherwise mistaken the program as something more boring and lackluster?

Here's a promotional graphic for The Rachel Maddow Show.

Thoughts?

Instant Book Update!

Today I officially completely my instant book. It differs in a few ways from the draft I created last week, but I'm pleased with those changes that came along as I designed it. Instead of including hand drawings, I opted to select some photographs I took recently and not so recently.

Two of the pictures I included are images I captured on my trip to Europe back in the summer of 2010. I went overseas for two weeks and spent time in London, Paris and Rome. Needless to say, it was amazing and I would love to go back in the future. Who knows, maybe even live there for some time.

Anyway, the pictures gave the book a more "dressed up" feel, in my opinion, but with the fonts I selected, you can still tell that the book is meant to be personal. I honestly love that we had to do this in gray scale. It challenged me at times. At one point I was designing the cover and thought that only using black, white, and RED, would be a great look for my book, unfortunately, red is not black or white. Whoops.

I'm honestly a bit nervous about the critique on this project because I took a few chances and decided to be slightly less conservative with my design, but I'm truly happy with it. Fingers crossed that it's well received!

I'll be photocopying the final product tomorrow, then spending some time folding for Wednesday!

Look for my final product sometime on Wednesday or Thursday evening. Can't wait for everyone to see it!