#second module

Furthermore, the aim of the module was to explore persuasive communication as ‘Visual Poetry’ maximising on experimentation and interdisciplinary approaches in line with the course philosophy. As my first solo module, this project was in a way to test my skills. The first time having to properly follow a brief. Meaning; in the first brief we had total freedom of what item to choose and what to create from that items inspiration. However, with this, it’s a little more specific. Which I prefer as in a sense it’s more controlled, I know what the ‘client’ is asking for, what specs, what style etc. To create a poetry poster is interesting to me, I like the ideology of it especially as I’ve made several digital posters before on my BTEC graphic course. The specs are as followed: Size being A2 (portrait), can be printed, digital or interactive and I may consider 3D applications.

Who were you designing or producing work for? On the Main Brief it was made clear that March 21st, 2018 is International poetry day and we were to create a poster to promote our chosen poet. 

From the brief: Using a poem of my choice, create a publicising and meaningful poster to showcase the poet and poem. The use of persuasive language will help engage an audience. Consider using the lectures and workshops available to give myself a head start. Also look into the documents and guides put on to Moodle to help, they may give me important information on the principles and elements of design and typefaces and anatomy. Secondly, I have to make this for a certain target audience; that could be likers of the poet or poem, people interested in to poetry overall or just have a keen interest for typographical posters. In a way as well we are designing this for our tutors to review and receive feedback from, not just to receive a mark and be done with it but to help us better ourselves and tell us what an “audience” would get from it by first impressions etc.

What relevant theory, reading or research underpinned your approach to solving the problem? I started of by using my sketchbook as a kind of journey logbook, which it’s supposed to be anyway. I attended lectures and participated and became more aware of various methods and options which were available to me. Various tasks on the course have helped me in certain ways to come up with my ideas. One of the first tasks was to simply find one principle of design and one element and we were to print out an A6 postcard showcasing our findings. I chose to line and pattern. Pattern being a massive inspiration as for a poster it’d be appealing, and it’d draw the viewer in. More about this is in my previous blog post about Design Principles.

The next task after this was called Micro & Macro, this was again not a hard task and quite fun. We were given wooden letterforms to basically scale and draw out; this doesn’t sound like it would help but the ‘0’ I was given was a very strong and bold character and from doing research into it, turns out to be the typeface ‘Impact’. Which I then went on to use in my designs for my magazine spreads.

What were the best ideas you came up with and how do you know that? & How did you develop your ideas before choosing a particular one to produce? In terms of ideas I was mainly swaying towards creating something digital as I went to a demonstration of Jonathan Jones’ work and he showed us various pieces of digital styles and ideas using Adobe After Effects. Straight away I wanted to do create something digital. I believe one of my ideas was to use After Effects and have a slowed down clip of me walking the canal, with a voice over by me reading the poem and to have the words come up on screen as I say them. My other good ideas were to make the video fast and also have the words come up fast; inspired by the Nike advert which was showed to the group during a presentation. Sadly even after getting a hold of After Effects, it was just too much for my laptop to run. It kept on crashing and I had to try my hand in creating the film again twice. This started to frustrate me, so I thought I’d keep a formal and digital approach, so this is where one of my best ideas stemmed from. The City River Blues GIF. This in a sense was very similar to the idea of the sped-up canal video. But, looking at the video I recorded there was a certain part where I recorded the light reflection bouncing off the water; it was appealing to the eye. I thought this would be a great GIF/Animated poster and with experience in the bag on how to create GIFS, I just thought it was one of the best ideas but not THE best. After designing it I thought it just wasn’t enough; I didn’t feel like it met the criteria like my final design did. My final and best idea was to create an A2 poster and for it to be interactive and 3D. I wanted this to have life to it. Taking the poem into mind and my own experience walking the canal system, it gave me one main idea and that was to create a collage-like painting/sculpture of the river bed.

Which relevant practitioners did you study in order to validate your personal reasoning? I chose to look into Ivan Cherymayeff as I’ve considered his work before and he came to mind when I was walking down the canal and I saw these brown paper bags floating in the water and it looked messy but coordinated and somehow it just reminded of his work, thus getting the inspiration to make a collage type poster. My second inspiration was from Tracey Emin ‘My bed’. I have a separate post about this for more information overall but basically my idea at this point was a collage to do with the canal; linking to the words from Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem. There were certain words in that poem (s***-coloured river, condoms galore) which made me think of ‘My bed’ by Emin and instantaneously I had the idea to make my poster very visual and even have a certain smell to it. I wanted to put the audience there, like there were with Benjamin as he was writing or even living the experience/poem.

What editing process did you use to choose the preferred solution? For the actual A2 poster, nothing. It was all handmade But for the GIF, it was simply photoshop

How did you go about producing your solution/s and why? & Why did you choose your particular production methods? Give reasons I started off by buying an A2 foam board from the university shop to follow the brief as that is the desired size. Following day, I laid out a bigger piece of card (which I had left over from the previous module), so I wouldn’t get paint on my carpet; want to make sure I get my deposit back! I chose to use paint as I’m not that strong with painting yet and feel like it needs improving so it was a risk but at the same time I had the paint and the utensils already, so it was more handy/practical. So I started off by painting the board using brown paint which visually is the colour of the canal but it’s also to link to the line ‘our s***-coloured river’. I then painted the board with a wave/swirl effect to have the pattern and feel like it was water. Once that was done I then went over it with ash water to give it the smell and to add a gloss to the paint. But this is also to link the line ‘Got damned lungs’ from the poem. Next was the adding of 3D items; I began stapling the cigarette butts to the board as I didn’t have strong enough glue for them to hold. I decided to add these as again to link with the previously quoted line from the poem and from my experience down the canal…it’s all you see, in and out of the water.

Furthermore, I then dirtied up a receipt and burned up train tickets to look like they’ve been well-used and in the water for a while. I applied these with PVA glue as this was just strong enough to hold these. Putting a train ticket in the top right and bottom left corner; the receipt in the top left. I done this to show pattern and symmetry. This left the bottom right empty and I already knew what was going there. I got a condom wrapper and burned it at the sides and applied this with staples in each corner so it’s stable but also coming out of you in the 3D sense. Lastly this is the last linked item to the poem, the line being ‘And condoms galore’. Now for the centre/main piece. Going back to the whole brown bag/Ivan Cherymayeff inspiration, I decided to dirty up a brown bag and then paint (white) in sans-serif typeface the title of the poem ‘City River Blues’. I then glued this to the board but making sure you can still have access to the bag. This is where my interactive idea comes to play. I then cut a piece of paper out from my old sketchbook and then again began the dirtying process, once dry I drew out in blue crayon a phrase from the poem. Once done I placed it in the bag and that was my final piece done.

In the whole process…

What was successful and why? I believe my final designs overall, magazine, GIF and my A2 Poster were all majority meeting the learning outcomes and brief. 

My poster being the right/required size, being interactive which I think is a whole new term when it comes to my poster and overall, I add another sense into the mix - smell. As I said before I wanted to immerse the audience into my poster, so it genuinely feels like they’re in that environment. My GIF was more appealing and for more of a side piece, I still feel like this was a strong and very appealing visual.

What was unsuccessful and why? I feel like my overall planning and timekeeping was a downfall as I ran into problems near the end, if I started sooner then I wouldn’t of had those problems or at least had more time to deal with them and then giving me reassurance when it came to my final designs. Even though I’m happy with my final poster design, I still wanted to go the whole film route and I just don’t think the poster is visually appealing as I first wanted from the get go.

How will you modify or change your approach in future? From now I will plan and start a lot sooner, straight away work on my blog and sketchbook but keeping it organised and coordinated to help me in the future if I want to look back. I would also like to do more mock-up designs in the future to show my progress and ideas.

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958) is a British writer, dub poet and Rastafarian. He was included in The Timeslist of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.

Zephaniah was born and raised in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, which he has called the "Jamaican capital of Europe".

He writes that his poetry is strongly influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica and what he calls "street politics".

His 1982 album Rasta, which featured The Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, gained him international prestige and topped the Yugoslavian pop charts. It was because of this recording that he was introduced to the political prisoner and soon-to-be South African president Nelson Mandela, and in 1996, Mandela requested that Zephaniah host the president's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Zephaniah was poet in residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases, these experiences leading to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection (2001). We Are Britain!(2002) is a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain.

It was 1996 the book ‘Prop Propaganda’ by Zephaniah was published.  Brutal, honest & powerful, Zephaniah’s book of poems and lyrics, written about british life and politics in 1900s, definitely correlate with current times. ‘The Death of Joyce Gardner’, ‘Back To What’ (sent to ex-prime minister John Major), ‘Acts of Parliament: motion 1′, ‘The president is dead again’ (dedicated to Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his comrades), and ‘The Queen & I’ stand out. And lastly my chosen poem City River Blues which I will delve more into in a separate post. A must for fans of Zephaniah besides those with an interest in modern poetry.