I chose the Imperial War Museum as I had recently visited it and found it absolutely fascinating for all ages. I visited it with children aged 5-11 boys and girls and adults of both sexes. So the only market that I had not any representation from was the Teenage market.
The children were most interested by the Blitz Experience, the Trench Experience and the 1940s house, particularly the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask appealed to them.
As they had largely failed to appreciate the real experience of the trenches, I decided that the Children's War exhibition which featured a great deal of memorabilia of the time, personal journals and drawings done by evacuees and the Blitz Experience were the best suited to the Children's Market.
I chose the Trenches for the Teenagers as some of the youngest recruits were less than 16 in the first world war.
the Holocaust seemed to be a possible for the Adult market, but I wasn't so sure about that.
I then set about a visual brainstorm
.From there I opted for the 2 sided notion of parallel lives reflected in the two halves of the 'family' of posters. On One side the Child/Teenager/Adult in wartime and on the other side going about their modern lives.
Note: I used a lot of photographic references for bombs, costume, props etc as well as for the modern sides... too much to place on the blog!!
Child: Going on Holiday v Being Evacuated - gave me the Blitz as a backdrop for one side and the parallel Holiday paraphernalia on the other side. I decided to use a Girl - but have planes and a boy in the background to cover both sexes. My thought was that boys seem to want to see planes and bombs whereas girls are more empathetic. Massive generalisation, but perhaps an element of truth? Disney gave me another idea as a modern parallel - the Disney Gas Mask and Disney Ears that you can get in Disneyworld...
Teen: I wanted to go for the idea of a Boy in the Trenches unaware of his birthday, and a boy in modern day off to Glastonbury - mud for mud!! What are you doing for your 16th Birthday?
Adult: Commuter - getting off a train at Waterloo (nearest to the Imp War museum) and an Auchwitz prisoner arriving at the Gas Chambers on the wooden trains. Off to Work?
I worked up the compositions, but really wasn't sure how to render them. I wondered about a sort of negative image on one side and positive on the other, to highlight the two different eras. I wanted to stylise the figures a bit, but not too much. I also wanted to make the 3 into a series that were clearly related.
the other note I had to myself was that I wanted the images to be arresting to all ages, but also to have something more to them on 2nd, 3rd and 4th glances. I wanted the passer by to look, be interested and understand.
My first attempt was the Child's Poster. I was aware that the audience was divided as it always is for children; the Adult is the one that decides what the child will see or buy, so it has to appeal - look fun, interesting and educational. First a did a pen and ink version of the design and then added texture, photographic images and colour. I wanted the foreground image to stand out and never quite felt it got there in this one. The other problem with this was the Mickey Mouse Mask. I'm not entirely sure that people will know what it is. I tried using a photo - but I couldn't find one that was quite right. If I were to do it for real, I would take a good photo of it in use and montage that on. Instead I put the name into the title for the sake of this exercise.
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| Initial pen and ink drawing for photoshop |
I added a texture from a painting that I had done some time ago, which had a good swirling misty effect which could be water or smoke.
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| Composition with colour felt a bit thin |
I layered and played with the effects to create more of a sepia tone and added some photo montage.
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| Final Visual |
Perhaps the dress should change colour in a straight line, on reflection.
For the Teenager I tried Collage for the foreground figure while keeping the same photo montage and texture in the background. I felt the this created a more stylized effect and as such I think has a bit more impact. I'm not sure if it is clear that it is glastonbury, but I think you get the idea of the Guitar on one side becoming a bayonet on the other side. I chose a night time filter type blue for the Glastonbury side and a sepia toned burnt muddy brown to represent the dirt and fire of the Trenches on the Trench Side. I used 'Text speak' language to try to appeal to the modern teenager.
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| paper collage and pen detail |
Perhaps the sepia tone blended him too far into his background?
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| Final Teenage Poster |
Onto the Adult poster, I took the negative idea a bit further in this version, playing with the black stripes on white of the Auchwitz uniform and the Black of the Commuter's coat. I'm not sure how well this works. I also split the face into two using a grey tone for the Auchwitz side. Again, the wording would be crucial, I played with a simple 'commuting?' then 'Auchwitz or Waterloo' to bang the message home and then 'Single or Return' to make a play on the fate of the prisoners and commuters. I think that i like the 'Single or Return' idea best, as long as the image is recognizable enough as the Auchwitz uniform?
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| the collage which I then layered in the computer |
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| Final Adult Poster |
I am a bit dissappointed in all of them. I think perhaps the Teenage one is the clearest and most direct. If I were to have access to the Mickey Mouse mask I would photograph a child wearing it and use that so that it is crystal clear what it is. I am worried the the Adult one is a bit difficult to understand. However, I still like the concept - just not sure about my ability to get it down on paper!
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