Monday 23 November 2009

The new brief....

Hmm... a lot of people arent too sure how to take the new brief.. but from what I understand it is to get us all to imagine we have been given a REAL brief to produce a piece of work that would raise awareness to social and political issues surrounding water and the human races consumption, dependence, fear and understanding of water...

This project is to be more research based than most others, purely so we can produce a piece of work that is informed by facts and information specific to the theme but also to provoke us to delve deeper into ideas and research before we actually produce a final piece of work...

Going off some of the information presented to us today in the briefing lecture I remembered a few artists who have done something similar...

Modern Dog: After purchasing their 20 years of posters book for a previous project, I already knew they had created posters that were sold in order to raise money for the victims of hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans via http://www.thehurricaneposterproject.com/index.php?page=poster

Michael Strassburger and Robynne Raye both produced satirical images that were also so bold and straight to the point, that Robynne's 'Fuck Bush' design was removed from the original exhibition but then later re-instated. They dont shy away from saying what they are thinking or putting thier views out there, as seen in each posters design, but rather than mocking the aim of the Hurricane poster project they are trying to draw attention to the lack of involvement and aid from President Bush...

R.Raye:


M.Strassburger:


In Strassburger's piece, I like how the lack of detail and colour means you focus purely on reading the text on the t-shirt. Although you read the outlines as a figure, giving the slogan a context as it appears on a survivors t-shirt, you dont immediately think of this one person.. you think of the thousands of people effected by it...

Always with Honour: ( http://www.alwayswithhonor.com/ )One particular idea suggested during the briefing was the use of Isotypes and I was immediately reminded of Always With Honour's 'Largest Bankruptcies' piece. The comical imagery of bankruptcy shown as sinking boats and ships draws the audiences attention more so than a standard graph or chart. Although the piece is easy to read, you immediately see and wonder what it is about... upon reading you understand the idea behind it... I personally feel oversaturated and desensitised to certain imagery and issues, for example, there are so many advertisments for Charities that you are often left wondering which one would/should you donate to and why are there so many that seem to be doing the same thing? If I am able to create a piece of work within this project that firstly draws the audience closer and then offers them information for their curiosity then i will be happy.



Isotypes seem to be a speciality of AWH and I think they are highly successful, even if I am purely attracted to them by their visual appeal at first... at least they have attracted me and theres a good chance I will read further into them... however I wonder if the lack of personal details in both Modern Dog and AWH's work means the audience dont connect fully to the issues expressed and merely dismiss it as " it's not happening to me"... ?








(originally found via http://grainedit.com/2009/07/08/always-with-honor-design-illustration-part-2/ )

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