[EXPERIMENTATION WITH FINAL DESIGN]

I thought I'd have a quick bash with one of the suggestions from the crit. This was having the pharmacy logo 'stamping' out the cigarette. Below is no where near a finished article with this suggestion but gives a good idea of the final design.


When I have a bit more time I will come back to some of the suggestions from the crit for the poster, so I have a professional finished article for the final hand in date.

[LOOK AGAIN / THINK AGAIN FINAL CRIT]

The first critique of the new academic year. Overall it was very good feedback. Neil felt it was a good campaign, with a good, strong and simple design; which is easily understandable. It was felt though that it could do with a bit of playing around to make it the finished article. Improvements suggested were that - 

• Need more clarification from the bottom text, maybe explain the campaign a bit further?
• Could treat it as if the law has come into effect and it is a general public info advertisement.

Not major changes and merely suggestions, which is always a sign of a good piece of design. The general feeling was that it was nearly there, just needed wording slightly different. Was also suggested that the green crosses could be seen as looking positive, but I didn't agree with this as the Pharmacy symbol is world renowned. Another suggestion was to have the pharmacy symbol defeating and stamping out the cigarette, and I will look into this further. Overall I am really happy with the feedback from my first unit of the 2nd year.

[STUDENT CRIT & FINAL DESIGN]

We arranged a small critique between a group of about 8 of us. It was good to see how well everyones ideas had come forward and there was some really strong designs. I used my time in front of everyone to gain a general opinion on what they thought was a stronger poster, with or without a frame. A clear winner with 7 votes to 2 was the poster with the frame, and this is the poster I will take forward with me tomorrow to the final critique. One small suggestion was to make the warning label text slightly smaller to give a bit more white space. My final design is below -


Everyone really liked my design and this filled me with confidence ahead of tomorrow.

[LOOK AGAIN / THINK AGAIN PROGRESSION]

After deciding which route I was taking with the poster the designing on Illustrator came naturally. I first designed the symbols using basic illustrator shapes, and added the warning label.


It didn't look right, so I made the pharmacy symbols slightly smaller and added an extra one.


This I felt gave it more of a swirling smoke shape as there was more movement due to more symbols. Next was to add the Green Party slogan that I had come up with to go with the campaign - 'Britain's better without it, Britain's better with the Green Party'. Then I added the logo and tinkered around with the colour green, so it was easier on the eye, and also to fit in with the colour of The Green Party.


After lots of tinkering around to make sure everything was aligned, everything was the right size, and the addition of the I came up with the final design -


But I decided to take away the green frame to see what it looked like -


I'm now unsure which one I like best. We've arranged a small critique between us students in the next hour, so I guess I'll find out which one is the most popular then.

[LOOK AGAIN / THINK AGAIN IDEA GENERATION]

After our tutorial and realising that I had thought far too much about the final piece I took a step back and went back to the research side of things.

The first step was to research into what I had been recommended in the tutorial. I browsed through books such as Communicate and Shock in Advertising to get a better general feel of advertising and to gain a better understanding of smoking within advertising. Even though the smoking related advertising in the books, was all dealing with the anti smoking side of things it helped me realise that I didn't need to make my piece overly complicated. There are a lot of easily recognisable symbols to do with smoking and I should use these to my advantage.

The use of a symbol such as the cigarette symbol that is world wide recognised, would mean that I could stray away from my initial idea of a cigarette packet with a prescription label on it; that from afar may just look like an advertisement for a cigarette company (which is completely the opposite of what I want!). It also means that the could be viewed from from a distance and the viewer would be able to instantly pick up what it is about, without maybe reading the text.

I then started to look into Damien Hirsts' 'Pharmacy'. Even though it maybe didn't have a lot to do with the whole smoking side of things it did generate two big ideas. The first being the whole pharmacy side of things. I had already thought of using simple easy recognisable symbols, and the green cross of the pharmacy is another one I could use to my advantage, especially with the whole prescription idea of things. The second being the simple bold colours used in his installation. It really made it a striking piece of art, and I feel that a few or maybe even one bold colour would make the poster stand out from the crowd, making it eye catching.

After experimenting with a few ideas I decided to go down the symbol route, and produce the campaign for The Green Party.

[LOOK A BIT MORE AND THINK A BIT MORE]

This morning we had our group tutorial for our new project. I found it to be very helpful, and it was a breath of fresh air to have my whole group talking and debating as I found at times last year this wasn't the case. I was the first to discuss my idea with the group and I had a mixed reaction. The general consensus was that I had thought to much about my final graphic/illustration and I needed to take a step back and to research a lot more and to think about the title Look Again / Think Again. But they all felt that my idea was very interesting and that I should build on it, as it would make an interesting campaign.

I needed to step away from the anti-smoking side of things as this has been done to death. Neil and the group felt my idea was strong but I needed a different stance. That stance maybe being a government campaign for a fringe party. The feeling was that the language and tone of voice was going to be the most important aspect of my poster. Neil went onto explain how he believed that shock tactics no longer worked. Yes in the 80s they worked, but now everyone seen it before. The same was with statistics. A quick Q&A with smokers in the group proved this, they didn't care how many people died etc. as it was their choice to smoke.

So I needed a new stance for my poster, and that was for it to be a public information campaign. It was to present my 'campaign', in such a way that explained pretty much everything on an A3 poster. It needs to have a catch to draw people in, such as a witty strap line or a striking image.

I was told to look into artists such as Damien Hirst and his 'Pharmacy', as well as into Government advertising. Neil also felt that it would be beneficial for myself to look at 1920s advertising in New York as well as more recent communication adverts. Books recommended ranged from Graphic Agitation to Smile in Mind to Shock in Advertising.

I feel excited to start this brief properly, and can't wait to jump into the research and generate ideas.

[LOOK AGAIN / THINK AGAIN]

Today we were given our new unit - Visual Communication in Context 2. As with our first unit last year this unit is split into a series of tasks. Task 1 being Look Again / Think Again.

Our task was to produce an A3 poster either -
Choosing a social issue that in our opinion has been over looked and needs addressing
Or, choosing an object that carries values that go beyond its intended purpose or everyday use; it may evoke certain memories or feelings that give the object a sentimental significance.
Unfortunately I see myself as a bit of a nomad. There's nothing really that sentimental in my life, that I feel carries values beyond its intended purpose. Rather sad I know! So it looked like I had to go for option 1.

At first I was pretty bamboozled. Surely if I knew of a social issue then it couldn't have really been overlooked, as it would have been brought to my attention. I produced a brainstorm listing issues that I knew about. Things such as racism, drugs, religion, drinking all popped into my head. However one did stand out - Smoking.

Yes the issue has been raised. There have been smoking bans in all enclosed spaces such as work and pubs. But even though we all now know of the dangers it has to us and the others around us there are still teenagers and even younger starting it up every day. Why? Because they have the choice to do so. Maybe because of peer pressure, or maybe to look cool. Who knows. I strongly believe they shouldn't have the choice. It should I feel personally be completely got rid of. But then there's the problem of all the addicted.

Another way round it would be to phase it out. Stop letting people start it up, so eventually it would die out. The only way to do this would to be to stop selling it in shops. Make it be like a prescription, where you would have to prove that you are already a smoker, and then you are only allowed a certain amount a week (that you would still have to buy) so you could not pass on your spares. Then their 'prescription' could be cut down, eventually helping them to quit completely.

I had a quick brainstorm, thinking about maybe just having a packet of fags with a prescription label on it, and having the typography follow a swirling smoke shape. Maybe a slogan "Don't give them the choice". All pretty basic ideas, but would it be hard hitting like all the anti-smoking campaigns we know? I decided to have a quick chat with Neil, who said that I should think of it as a political campaign. It needs to be a persuasive argument. One example he gave was that of the Conservative campaign against Labour.


A simple hard hitting design using statistics, that won the Conservatives the election. I then started to research into existing anti smoking campaigns. Whilst flicking through the book 'Creative Advertising' I came across this anti smoking poster -


A very simple design, with a very strong statistic linking in with the image. Tomorrow I have a group discussion of our ideas so far with Neil, so tonight I will be doing more research into previous campaigns and smoking statistics, jotting down any ideas I may have on the way.