FINAL - in progress

Surrealism with Photoshop

FINAL

Essay:

The topic of my poster and the message I want to convey to the Academy is the juxtaposition of global poverty and the privilege we typically see in both the Western world and Woodstock Academy itself. One perspective shown in my design is the suffering that comes with aspects of poverty (specific to this design is hunger), whereas the other perspective is overindulgence and satisfaction that comes with it. I find this subject of great importance since I have witnessed both sides of the situation and feel that there is not enough true awareness of what’s happening with global poverty or even why it’s happening. It’s frustrating to see students being unaware of the advantages they have compared to the other half of children that don’t have the privilege of experiencing anything close to what we experience. My hope with this project is that students are able to see both perspectives and lifestyles and can feel both empathy for those with disadvantages and appreciation for what is offered to them. I plan on students going through the process of identifying and understanding the images presented in separated and split up strips. Since the images overlap are are broken up with each other, it is more of a process to see the images.

I chose a poster as my media and feel it was the best option for the subject matter, since posters are typically the most recognizable form of communication amongst the public. I’d like it to be displayed in an area of school that a good amount of people pass through throughout their day or week - probably in a main hallway or towards the cafeteria.

To creatively communicate my idea, I aimed to make my poster visually pleasing while also making sense compositionally. For colors, I chose black, white and a blue toned grey in both the images to create a somber and empathetic vibe while also connecting the images, since they are broken up. I used a bright red color in the text to make the phrases stand out against the duller background. I gave both the image representing the poverty and parts of the text a roughened texture to give a more visually pleasing image and convey feelings of discomfort. I oriented both phrases towards opposite sides of the page to create balance and to draw the audience's eyes to both sides of the image. The reasoning for splitting up the images is not just to add an interesting element; since I wanted to show both lifestyles, I decided to evenly split the images and overlap them to connect the images and not have the divide of showing both images separately. I also made the columns uneven and inconsistent to both reveal certain parts of the images to what I felt was appropriate and to not make it as uniform. To add more visual appeal and to overlap the images further, I had varying opacities within different columns. I decided to have a landscape orientation rather than a portrait orientation because this made it easier to show both images as well as the font, and students in the halls can look at it for longer as they walk by.

There is not one focal point in my design; rather, I have a certain focal point in both images (the poor boy’s eyes’ and the face of the boy who’s eating) and then the text. The columns/lines that I mentioned earlier helps the audience move through the image and draws interest that they can ponder further and work harder to identify the purpose. The placement of the text also moves the audiences eyes from one side of the page to the other by being placed a bit outside of the visible frame. I used filters from the filter gallery in Photoshop to edit the images and make them more visually interesting with texture and colorization. Since I used a multitude of textures, opacities, and values, there is more variety in the poster as a whole.

Finished movie

This animation is supposed to evoke moods of isolation, change, excitement. To show a static movement and showing an extraterrestrial theme, I changed the texture different frames from a normal resolution to a pixelated and colored resolution. I also used this variation in the words, and applied a different pattern to the phrases on every other frame on which it appeared. To gradually reveal the orb, I built layers of color in one specific area and increased their opacity frame by frame.

photoshop animation

Finalized Poster

The message of my poster advocates for the education of younger girls, especially in areas where there is little to no access to education and where females are marginalized and mistreated. To illustrate the subject, I used imagery of a young girl (my own image), who represents the Middle Eastern child refugees who are stripped of their access to education, and more specifically young female refugees who are often mistreated. I integrated arabic script from a book into the words to further specify the child's identity and portray the high illiteracy rate among refugees and especially refugee children. I intentionally used the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) as my color scheme because those colors are often associated with early childhood education. I believe the most successful part of my poster is how I integrated the letters into the image of the girl by manipulating the opacity letters and the fill. 

Typography

To visualize each selected words, I:

"loud"

- Chose highly saturated and bright colors

- Used a dull background to emphasize the bright colors

- Used related imagery (ear)

- Used a jagged border on both the word and areas of the ear to express the discomfort in loudness

- Manipulated the shape/direction of the word to make it appear to be going into the imagery (showed what hearing loudness feels like)

"imply"

- Made the word backwards (imply - not expressly stated)

- Used the same yellow color as traffic signs, which grab attention with strong colors and implies traffic directions

- Used the font used in traffic signs, bold, dark and strongly insinuates something

- Created a border around the word (draws more attention to the word)

"active"

- Repeated the same word in the background in a different direction, with a different opacity and lowercase (shows the movement and variation of activity)

- Used two bright colors to show the excitement and boldness of activity

- Created a border on the word with multiple lines of multiple lengths to show more variation and movement around the letters

-Made the letters of the word large to cover the page and show activity throughout the entire page

- Moved the word in multiple directions

"stable"

- Used two very basic colors to express a lack of business

- Placed the word on the bottom of the page to ground it and stabilize it 

- Used lines in the background to show organization and repetition

- Made the entire page, including the font, strictly geometric rather than organic to show stability

- Used the blend tool to connect every letter of the word to further show connection, dependence and stability

"quiet"

- Used a dull color scheme rather than an expressive and bright one

- Camouflaged the word by using colors similar to the background

- Manipulated the opacity to further camouflage it 

- Used a very soft border to mask the word and give it a daintier effect

- Made the font small and placed it away from the center to draw less attention to it 

"camo"

- Used imagery of a busy city to express how easily one can blend into a crowded region
- Made the fill of the word the same as the background to camouflage it, but placed the fill strategically so the word didn't disappear into the background completely
- Chose a thin font to make it less obvious
- Elongated the word to thin it out even further
- Chose a font that mimics the feeling of an urban area