Task one - poster concept

 Notes

Sketches

For the initial poster design, I want to explore the concept of non violent imagery to convey political messages; this was a dominant factor in the anti nuclear power movement, and was the OOA's way of sending political messages without seeming disruptive or aggressive. Due to this, the visuals that I explored for my poster align with this non violent standpoint, and were very much inspired by Anne Lunds message in that the Smiling Sun had to be 'pretty enough for women to wear'.

The illustrations that I sketched were heavily inspired by the Smiling Sun, as I wanted to pay homage to the influence of the OOAs 'atomic power? No thanks' logo. This allowed my poster to come across as light hearted and friendly, but also serving as a platform to discuss the intentions and history surrounding the anti nuclear movement. In order to generate a fun and playful tone, I explored with creating a cartoon character for the Smiling Sun, through anthropomorphising the design; this also payed a subtle reference to the innocent nature of stickers. The poster design also needed to be very much focused on positivity and sending messages that aligned with the OOA; I experimented with creating other cartoon characters like a flower and globe, which had connotations of purity and world peace.

I also wanted to play around with a fun typeface to further convey this lighthearted undertone; the type ended up being very unrestricted by rules, which aligns with the casual approach to politics that the OOA conveyed. 

Digital developments

In terms of the colour schemes for the poster, I wanted to further expand on fun and non violent imagery by using a bright and colourful palette; this took inspiration from the Smiling Sun logo, in how it uses cheery oranges and reds. Consequently, the colour palette of the poster had a lot of warm hues, and was vastly dominated by the same oranges and reds. I also wanted the visual message to take up the majority of the posters' format, as it allowed the design to be very powerful and impactful on the audience.

Reflection

Even though the poster task was produced in a day, it definitely has given me further insight into what concepts I could explore in my publication. I think there is a lot of deep rooted history and context surrounding the relationship between stickers and politics, as stickers serve as a platform for people to customise their belongings and share their views and interests. 

As well as this, another concept I have explored in this task is the idea of conveying serious and political messages with fun and innocent visuals; I could definitely look into creating some more political designs but juxtaposing the messages with lighthearted and playful visuals. This could align with Anne Lunds non violent message in that the Smiling Sun had to be 'pretty enough to wear'. Especially in todays political environment, this could work really well in creating a space for politics to be discussed in a casual way; creating fun and playful stickers would normalise political discussions (especially for a younger audience) and break the stigma that politics is a male dominated subject area, and that it is 'boring'. Bring fun into politics with stickers!