Rational

Pro-public schools.

Through my posters I am discussing how excessive money invested in private school education is a poison to children’s’ minds. It causes social and academic pressure to fester, encourages unrealistic expectations and can have negative lasting effects for the child involved.

I aimed to elicit wehi in the viewer by provoking fear. The narrative that inspired this design was a parent looking through a child’s book, only to find a plea for help in the pages. This stimulates the viewer to think about what is really going on in the mind of their child.

The rhetorical devices employed are primarily metaphor and dynamism. Initially, I was working with a huge number of symbols; so I have cut this number down to make the message have more weight, so it isn’t diluted by confusion. The snake is tempting the child to strive for the money, but the child is aware that it will cause harm, and solely wants to learn, hence the child reading. The snake is a symbol from the Christian Bible (which the majority of private schools identify with) of temptation and poison. It creates perspective within the image as it’s coming towards you. The seed has the money sign formed on its hull, representing the idea of money planted in the child’s mind. Gorse is well known in NZ for causing harm if touched, so out of the money seed grows the gorse root and stem. Dynamism is created through the diagonal lines of the snake and it’s tongue, and the plant growing back towards the snake, referring to the endless cycle of pressure for the child. The diagonal is enforced by the strapline being in the bottom right corner. The tone of the poster is dark and disturbed, enforced by the monotone colours contrasting, with the angry voice from the child shown by large and capital lettered type that also looks handwritten. The reason I have kept it relatively sparse is to fit in with the childish feel, and to show that the child torn between wanting peace of mind and being engrossed by the poison of money.

Using the ihi of the aesthetic of a child’s schoolbook, metaphor and intense type, I can successfully elicit wehi of fear from the viewer, and challenge them to think about what the negative effects of going to a private school can cause.

Pro-public schools

Through my posters I am discussing how excessive money invested in private school education is a poison to children. It causes social and academic pressure to fester, encourages unrealistic expectations and can have negative lasting effects for the child involved.

The wehi that I have evoked from the audience is disgust, with many viewers of my poster making exclamations of revulsion from the food, which is baby food with letters cut out of pasta placed on top. The spoons are placed so they feel like they are coming towards you, as if someone is about to force feed you. The tight composition of the poster creates a sense of pressure. Pathos is used to make the audience feel sick by looking at the colour of the ‘money’ spoon. Other devices employed are juxtaposition of the difference in quality of spoons, referencing the idiom “born with a silver spoon in the mouth”, combined with metonymy through the difference in colour of the food. Also used is dynamism and movement, with the line and angle of the spoons drawing your eye down and around the rim of the plate to the headline. The voice and tone is forceful, shown by the bold and all capital type, directed to challenge the parents to think about how they are metaphorically poisoning their child if they decide to send them to a private school. The logo used instead of a strapline shows an immediate call to action, telling the parents to send their children to public schools.

Using the ihi of photographic exploration of food and devices of metonymy, movement and juxtaposition, I have drawn wehi of disgust from the viewer, provoking them to think about the negative consequences of private school education.

Finals + hand-in

At the summative when we arranged the posters on the table. I got some great feedback, especially of the wehi of my spoon poster, and how it used dynamism and asymmetry successfully.

Finals:

Poster wall

I'm very pleased with how my posters look on the wall.
The illustrative style in poster 1 really stands out and shows a lot of materiality and effort. The contrast is effective from far away also, and the headline is readable. The illustration draws the viewer in from far away as there is more detail to discover.
The metonymy and dynamism in poster 2 is very effective and stands out from the rest on the wall. The juxtaposition is also very clear from far away.

Latest developments of poster 2

Changing the headline text
- weight
- using different point sizes
- all bold to match the type in image.
Making the logo more prominent

Latest developments of poster 1

Pushing out the type
Leading the eye around the image more successfully
Making the gorse more obviously gorse
Changing the background from interim (more saturated)
Using 'please' in strapline

Last day critique and final printing

These are the two posters I brought to class today for a final critique. Having had them professionally printed yesterday I decided that there were still a few minor things I wanted to change, primarily type.

Critique (tutor and self):
What are you feeding me:
- right-align text (headline and strap)
- move strap further up, didn't end up changing due to being on the line of the refill
- take away bluey tinge
- grey the headline a bit more

What are you feeding your child:
- florescent down even more, was adjusting to massey printers not professional
- grey (not white) for the logo
- play with fonts more

Printing test and self critique

Printing out ones posters is the true critiquing test, being able to step back and reflect. This is a self-critique to improve and make minor changes to my work.

What are you feeding me?
- Bigger headline
- make headline greyer
- refill more saturated
- more condensed strapline
- use personal pronouns in strapline
- play on wehi of plea from the child
- title = shouting/ anger?
- use 'please' in strapline
- more detail around seed?

What are you feeding your child?
- make logo white
- diff font sizes in headline needed?
- font = squarer?
- font = match pasta?
- not as florescent

Development of head and strap lines

Brainstorm
Is money a distraction to your child

is cash giving your child a rash?

too many pounds many your head pound?

does a dollar make a scholar? dollar = scholar

stick it down their throats

Silver spoon. Spoon fed?

Are our children being spoon fed

Common cents?

does ballin' lead to balling 

Children being spoon fed? Go public

By keeping both the headlines similar the two posters will be more connected, a strong element of my critique at interim. I will be using

"What are you feeding me?"
For the silhouette poster, this will enforce the child's voice and draw wehi from this tone and voice.

"What are you feeding your child?"
For the spoon poster, this is more direct to the parents.

Both of these provoke the viewer to respond and challenge their ideas about what excessive money will do to children that go to private schools.

Iterations for poster 2 (spoons)

I have decided to use a logo in this poster in place of a strapline. This logo is a direct call to action, as if it was in print, eg for a campaign, people would remember the logo and relate it to other parts of the campaign. It also fits in with my photographic/ graphic style and reduces the amount of words on the page, as there are already words in the image as well.
Tests and developments:

Illustrations for poster 1 developments

Developing the illustration I think will best represent my idea.

Change of idea for poster 2

Some of my main points for critique on Tuesday were that my posters were not connected enough. This, along with my dissatisfaction with poster 2 (plates), prompted me to tweak my ideas and generate some new imagery for a relatively new concept. Looking back through my workbook I was reminded of the rapid ideation task that we did with word, and the phrase "born with a silver spoon in the mouth" that fitted so well with my topic. Further down the track, it still resonates with my idea of money and the negative connotations of children that have access to this. From there, I aimed to continue with the rhetorical devices that I had been using and revisit them so that the poster made more sense but brought wehi to the viewer. I continued with the idea of juxtaposition and metonymy, and since I enjoyed the photography aspect so much I tried to utilise this technique again.
Here are a couple of the first photos that I took to trial out my idea and see if it worked out of a thumbnail concept.

The reasoning behind the spoons is that they are often associated with "spoon-feeding" or the idea that information is being handed or forced to the children. These can be good or bad which is where juxtaposition comes in later on. I had aimed to show the silver spoon off more (and yes that one is a fancy spoon!) but it doesn't show as well through the photograph. The childish aspect is brought in through the idea of alphabet soup- which I, along with many others, remember eating and getting excited about at a young age. Unfortunately, it was only available as baby food, and mushy with undefined letters. This was me picking through the mush:

...which didn't turn out very well, but luckily I had a back-up plan to make my own. I cut the individual letters from a pasta sheet. This way it still resembles the alphabet soup (or alphabetti spaghetti as the baby food was aptly named) but the letters are defined and easily readable.

I experimented with the ways in which the line of the spoons could be used in a dynamic way to lead the eyes.

Idea development/conclusions

To move from here to a final refined poster, I need to confirm my ideas for both and work on them so they are cohesive. Both ideas revolve around money, more specifically as 'money is a pressure and distraction to children'.

Poster 1 (silhouette):
Rhetorical devices are; homage, metaphor, metonymy and dynamism.
Main concept: money puts pressure on a child (eg my parents are paying 20,000 what if I don't try hard enough to get good grades)
Metaphor/ graphic concepts that I'm working with: 
Imagine a parent looking through their young child's schoolbook and there are many doodles throughout. They turn to a page with a disturbing image of a vine strangling a brain, cracked glass with a child reading and dollar signs. Above it in small writing is "what will be on my mind?".
With my concept being the pressure and distraction that the cost of a private education will cause for children, I want to have prominence of dollar signs and negative imagery, as this is blatantly showing the downfall of a costly education. The wehi will come from the metaphor of the vine (old man's beard) slowly suffocating the brain (putting pressure on) as it does other plants, potentially a snake showing how religion is tied in with the connotations of the temptation of money, status and distraction from education, broken glass representing how something in the child's mind has been broken and lost because of pressure, the seed representing the idea of money prevalent in the child's mind. The background of paper will show the setting and the tone that it is a child's book, enforced by a child's hand writing and perhaps scribbles creating a border. The doodling aspect of this style/ concept will enforce the idea that the money is a distraction for the child, as the child is being distracted by creating the doodle.
What I need to improve currently:
There needs to be a contrast in elements to show the prominence of money symbols and balance the composition around a focal point.
Draw straight onto lined paper/ book paper
Flood type was preferred (is this going to show my idea better? Could the child be angry rather than passive?)


Poster 2 (plates)
Rhetorical devices are; juxtaposition, metonymy.
Main concept: money puts pressure on a child (eg what if I don't live up to their expectations of embellishment, decoration is distracting me from my learning)
Graphic/ statistical content that I am working with:
Initially, I wanted to work with the statistic that only 5% of children go to private schools, therefore they will not have the same understanding of values in the real NZ (ie not in school). The phrase that I started off working with was "what are you feeding your child", using the food/ feeding aspect as a visual metaphor for values.
What I need to improve currently:
Taking food out of the equation, I will be using the plates as a metaphor for values. Plates are a practical item, something to eat sustaining food off, yet some people with more spare change will value the decoration of their plates as highly as the function. This is a metaphor for how money is a distraction, a school with frills and extras will take away the focus from education, and turn into a pressure for children to worry about their status and how others perceive them. Incorporating this into the statistic, there will be 19 of the plain plates in black and white or neutral colours (perhaps with food stains on them to show that they have been used in a practical sense) then 1 decorative, delicate looking plate that hasn't been used.
A strong juxtaposition between the public and private school plates
Working on the tagline/ headline to enforce the distraction and pressure of a private school, and to connect the two posters together strongly.
Using a different typeface to pull the ideas together more and look like a professional poster

Overall I really need to tie the ideas together more and enforce my message and main linking concept: MONEY IS A DISTRACTION AND PRESSURE TO A CHILD'S LEARNING.

INTERIM Week 5 session 2

These were the two posters that I brought to the extra interim presentation today. I have started the new illustration for poster 1, however I didn't think it was refined enough to print out. Poster 2 is a new concept working off yesterdays feedback. Below is my feedback and what I will be doing over to the next few days to change my posters so they are less confusing.

Poster 1: Feedback from tutors
> use the illustration like a teaser, as it gets closer more detail.
> is the relationship between headline and image to obvious? the viewer wants to figure something out for themselves
> poison ivy not relatable to NZ, choose something such as old man's beard, a strangling plant
> snake could be seen as related to religion
> is the background the best? is it fitting? conformity, uniformity, could show a textbook or book scribbled over
> visually flat and not exciting
> fix the margins

Feedback from peers:
> try thicker weights for illustration
> try lined paper

Action: continue working on new illustration, maybe don't use the snake, replace poison ivy with old man's beard, use thicker, bolder lines then once the person gets up close they can see more detail. Make the money the most prominent part, showing pressure. Try using a different background. Scribble over the paper. Tagline/ headline- change to something money related.

Poster 2: feedback from tutors
> tagline is contradictory
> the food is ambiguous, maybe use decorative plates instead
> are the posters about distraction?
> "the real NZ" isn't needed
> iconography and symbolism confusing
> both need to be more clearly about money

Feedback from peers:
> looks like a face
> use the darker plates as a shadow showing the inside of a plate
> makes them want to send their child to a private school because they'll get food
> doesn't look like plates from far away

Action: photograph plain vs decorative plates. Try making image and composition simpler by using 20 rather than 100. Message: money is a distraction? I need to reconsider the ideas for this poster, as it did not seem to come off very well to others.

Week 5 session 1 interim

Unfortunately I missed out on the interim critique as we ran out of time! However, Caroline gave me some quick feedback on my posters so I could tweak a bit before tomorrow.

Poster 1: 

> Illustration a bit unclear in terms of emphasising the money symbols. Make these more prominent.

> The child should be sitting in the broken glass

> The tagline needs to be larger

Poster 2:

> Doesn't need background

> Portrait instead of landscape

> tagline larger 

> composition (centred in a circle with public plates going through the middle, tagline centred below)

I will start tweaking these before my presentation/ interim critique tomorrow.

Poster 2 (plates) with photography

Trying to emphasise the juxtaposition of rich vs average by making the 95% black and white and arranging the composition so that the fancy meals are more prominent. I think the landscape looks less confusing. Still need to improve this so it's easier to understand.

Poster 2 (plates) photographs

Some photographs taken for poster 2. 

Iterations for poster 1

Different options, still need to decide which one is the final that I will be presenting on Monday's interim. At this stage I think the yellow is more jarring and eye catching, however the graph paper is more aesthetically pleasing and school related. I like how the photocopying has shown the date lines and the company up the top of both. The first typography is very in your face and the capitals are yelling, whereas the other typeface is relatively quiet and unassuming, almost like the child is asking the question to a parent which I think is successful. 

"Public - the real NZ" - Elements

Drawings and edits for my 2nd poster. The drawing of stacked plates is another option to show the statistics (95% of children going to public school and 5% going to private). However I want feedback on the bird's eye view before I begin to explore this composition more. I attempted to execute this by using the computer to colour in. Next I will explore this through photography to further reinforce the ideas and contrast, and refine the composition. 

What will be on my mind? -Elements

These are some of the potential elements I will be using for the "what will be on my mind?" poster. The last image is of the illustration for inside the child's head. I have attempted to keep them as gender neutral as possible. The image inside shows a poison ivy seed (money symbol on outside) with the root and stem branching out into leaves and, along with the snake, wrapping around the brain in the shape of a money sign. The snake is leaning towards the shattered glass, all the while the child is oblivious of their surroundings, concentrating on reading (education).

The papers I have photocopied as potential backgrounds, showing the school setting/ surroundings that the child is placed in.