No News Is Good News- Message and Interpretation

This part of the brief is entering visual design territory and leaving behind research, the deliverables are 3 posters in 2:1 format, which must be high impact, clear, memorable and challenging, but certainly not offensive. The first poster must be produced using text, and text only, the second must consist of just imagery with no text, and the third must be a combination of both.

At first I was going to use the exercise from before to help me with the posters, but decided if I was going to create a piece that is hard impact, I need to think of something that will have a major impact because not everyone would be affected by Stephen Gately's death, but everyone could be affected by an undiagnosed heart condition.

From here I set my own brief:

Brief- to produce 3 posters in different styles that communicate the importance of checking for undiagnosed conditions when illness runs in the family.

Target Audience- families with a history of illness.

Tone- concise, immediate impact, hard-hitting.

Format- portrait/landscape- I will investigate both.

I have included some of my development work as to how I arrived at my final outcomes.

For my text only, I didn't want a massive body of writing, just a few lines that are clear and concise, and engaging which would encourage the audience to visit a GP. My first set of ideas focussed on the idea of involving the word fact, in large letters, as people tend to pay attention to facts especially when it is a fact that may affect them. The wording first started out as, If your family has a history of illness, you should visit your GP however that did not sound as good as If there is a history of illness in your family, you should visit your GP.

This was my first idea I had, initially I was quite pleased with it, the choice of colours; red, black and white were colours that I like, and felt it would be an appropriate colour scheme as black is associated with death, a possible outcome of having a medical condition, the red is associated with blood and the heart, which sounds a little gory but it contrasted well with the black, and the white just brightened it up a bit more, and white is associated with clean and I personally associate it with doctors and the medical industry in general. To portray the idea of the information on the poster being a fact, I felt a stamp style font would be appropriate, to show that it is final and legitimate, which may make the information more trustworthy.

I then experimented with different layouts of the same concept;

This idea looks at using all of the text in the stamp style font, 4YeoStamp, I am not sure this communicated the right kind of message, however I was intrigued as to how the idea would look on a diagonal, as if it had been stamped, as stamps aren't always that precise.

I don't feel this works too well and seeked guidance from a peer and once the idea had been reviewed, it was decided that the stamp font was inappropriate as it portrays the idea of the army, rather than an important medical warning.

Just to be sure, I wanted to try the idea in reverse, so a black background, and white text;

In terms of colour and contrast I feel this works better, however, it has become clear that the stamp font appears quite complicated and makes the text appear less legible.

I wanted to try another idea, that would still use the stamp but be smaller and more subtle instead of being so 'in your face'.

This looks much tidier and clearer, but I still feel the design is lacking something, until I feel happier with my design I will continue to develop my ideas. This particular example loosely reminds me of a card from a board game, for example a "Community Chest" card from Monopoly, which is not ideal as I don't want my posters to be confused with anything else as the message I am attempting to communicate is very serious.

I have not decided on which way round my colours will be, as the white background brings across a clean, clinical feel and the black is much more sinister.

This is much clearer than the previous black background example, I feel I am getting closer to producing a final piece. I think the stamp font needs to be swapped for another bolder font, as this now appears to be unclear now it has been made smaller.

The word fact looks much better in the same font as the body of text, but bolder, however, I tried to change the font layout, and I do not like this at all, I will stick to the left alignment for the main text, and right alignment for the word fact.

I felt it was time for a review with my tutor, and after a chat, I came to realise that the word 'fact' seemed unnecessary, and it didn't really serve that much of a purpose. The text itself seems quite self explanatory and is based on common sense, although it did seem a good idea to use this word at the time.

I feel quite strongly about this piece, and think it could be a potential final resolution to my text only poster. It is clear concise, and I think the colours work well. The words kill and you are red to make them stand out from the rest, to make the audience read the full information so they are aware what might effect them.

I think if I tried this idea with a black background, that it could quite possibly be the final outcome.

I am really pleased with this outcome, I think the colours suit the message being portrayed, as the message is quite urgent and having the words 'kill' and 'you' in red against the black, makes it that little bit more sinister, and quite directive to the audience, as if the poster is speaking to them personally. The text is clear, and the order in which it is read is appropriate, as the audience will view the red text first, and wonder what the poster is about, and what could harm them, therefore making the reader continue to read.