Final Posters

Rationale:

For my two posters, I wanted to explore the issue of domestic violence as a part of gender inequality. My concept uses Barbie and the slogan “You can be anything” to highlight the fact that if you’re in a violent relationship you can’t always be anything you want to be. I have used Barbie as a metaphor for the perfect woman and perfect life which I have then juxtaposed with the bruises and abuse. The posters are effective because they contradict the associations with Barbie’s perfect life with visually confronting images. I have used pathos to create uncomfortable feelings for the viewer. The poster with her wearing glasses shows that women in abusive relationships often try and hide their bruises because they are afraid of the consequences if they ask for help. Despite her bruises and cuts, Barbie does her hair and makeup, continuing to pretend nothing is wrong. The crossed out subheading “it’s time to stop playing pretend” brings to light the fact that New Zealand is pretending that domestic violence is okay and not a big problem when we have the highest rate in the world.

My posters respond to ihi and wehi by making the viewer feel uncomfortable because they are looking at an abused Barbie who is usually associated with living the perfect life. I am demonstrating that reality is not always as perfect as it seems. I have used pastiche to imitate a Barbie advertisement and juxtaposed this with the bruises and cuts and subheading. I have used subversion with the Barbie silhouette and added a crack in her head to illustrate my concept for the second poster. 

Week 6 Monday 21/08/2017

Today I got some final feedback on my posters. My strongest two are the silhouette and the Barbie advert one. I have been doing some iterations on how I can combine type the ith image more cohesively as they look a bit awkward at the moment. 

Iterations

I have been experimenting with my images using different type and size of both the text and image. Both my posters use pretty similar strategies so I started developing another poster using pastiche and subversion to take a Barbie advertisement and make her bruised. I have also changed my tagline to the Barbie slogan "You can be anything" as this pretty powerful when juxtaposed with the domestic violence theme. I have also been playing with fun/ playful round fonts as this suggests happy and childlike playfulness with Barbie which contrasts with the violent confronting image.

Week 5 Thursday 17/08/2017

These are some more iterations of my two posters I have done. I am just testing out the text image relationship, types of fonts and sizing of things.

Week 5 Monday 14/0/2017

Today we had our second interim presentation. These are the posters I presented and the feedback I got. Most of my feedback was positive which means my idea, concept and strategies are clear. The only criticism I got was to remove some of my body copy as it is too long. Some more constructive feedback on how I can improve my compositions would have been helpful.

I am still undecided which 2 posters I am going to refine because I also like the Barbie box idea.

Week 4 Thursday 10/08/2017

After receiving some feed back from my latest strategies my strongest 3 are the silhouette, mirror and box. I realise I need some sort of call to action that inspires the viewer to want to help domestic violence. I think the headline it's time to stop playing pretend" works well to clearly define the issue that domestic violence needs to stop as well as tying in the Barbie metaphor well. In my body copy, I need to add a strong statistic to back up my point as well as some sort of statement about supporting women's refuge or are you ok. These are some developments of my 3 possible strategies.

Week 4 Monday 7/08/2017

Today I continued trying out different concepts and styles of using Barbie. These are some more ideas I have been trying out. I have been trying to see how text and image can work together to creat a powerful visual.

Week 3 Thursday 3/08/2017

Today we clarified our aim, concept and strategies. My aim is to highlight the issue of domestic violence in New Zealand. Initially, I thought my concept was the "domestic dream house" which is about the perfect women and the perfect life being projected on the outside but in reality, at home, there is domestic violence hidden. I had Barbie, a NZ dream poster, barbie and ken house and shoes as my strategies. Now I think I am focusing on using Barbie as my actual concept as she represents the perfect life everyone wants to have. My strategies will be to use her in the box as pastiche, her out of context as subversion, her feet/shoes as subversion and maybe the Barbie logo as pastiche. I am still developing different ideas of how I can use Barbie. These are the posters I have been testing out.