DVB102 WEEK 4
Assessable work completed for QUT unit DVB102 Image Design and Production.
As mentioned previously, Week 4 was partly consumed by the missed content from Week 3. However, our Week 4 content centred on persuasive posters.
An exercise for this week was to sketch as many ideas as possible to visually represent ‘freedom’ in a short space of time. As such a broad word, I drew a passport, an EFTPOS machine and card, a flag on a flagpole (blank), and someone bungee jumping. This was followed by a paired exercise in which we were required to expand on these ideas and use our taught knowledge about rhetorical figures to represent ‘freedom’.
This then, gave us a platform to go and create our own persuasive posters about a cause we cared about. The audience chosen for my poster was young adults, with the cause being Depression awareness (mental health awareness).
In my own personal view, as someone who deals with depression and anxiety, I view the public treatment of R U OK? day in a somewhat negative light. The second Thursday of September is annually awash with yellow, public-relation-positive corporate philanthropy, and individual social media posts of support – but it feels it has lost the semblance of genuineness and care for a fellow human it’s intended to inspire. I certainly believe it’s okay for individuals to share for the awareness of a cause; not all of humanity are capable of fixing, solving, curing various issues in greater society from climate change to AIDS. The act of simply asking if someone is okay is not restricted to a singular day a year, nor is a person’s troubles and emotions.
Therefore, my poster aimed to persuade the viewer to reconsider how they view this act of asking ‘R U OK?’. It features a simple, to-the-point use of personification in the top-aligned headline “Depression doesn’t wait”. This is visually alluded to through the use of a hypothetical person's 2022 calendar which has 8 September circled and tagged with “R U OK? day”. This indication is preceded throughout the year with stamp-effect styled red circles. Red is commonly attributed to show something negative, in this case a bad day. As English speakers tend to read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, the poster is simple in its linear transition between elements. Headline > calendar > reinforcing statement > call to action.
Tools used: 2B pencil, Adobe Illustrator CC.
Idea sketches for the topic.
Black + white + one colour version.
Full colour version.
