These WIPs are for the fictional health campaign (under the working title "Choose Your Fruit Wisely" until I can come up with something better). Overall the campaign covers apples, bananas, limes and lemons, but since there are a lot of images they are getting broken up into a few posts. As a reminder, I aimed to take minor nutritional negatives found in fruit and amp them up to look like a health hazard, in a way not un-similar to the Ministry of Sugar Information posters I wrote about last month.
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| Figure 1 |
Figure 1 was one of a few initial style tests I had done but was not really happy with. I had wanted to go for a pop-art-y, Roy Lichtenstein kind of look, as my research work had recently led me to looking at familiarisation techniques in art, one of which that style is. But the halftone tool in Illustrator can be tricky if you are a bit of a novice like me, and can come out a bit harsh on the eyes. I decided that that style might have to stay in the experiment stage.
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| Figure 2 |
Through researching other propaganda/persuasive art, I saw that one of the most recognisable styles was a painterly one, used by artists such as Norman Rockwell and more recently Bruce Emmet. I had a go at replicating it in Illustrator (Figure 2) and was quite surprised by the result. The use of gradients makes the colouring look smoother and semi-realistic, but the fact that is is evidently vector art keeps it contemporary. I find the mix is quite curious but I am happy that I have managed to create something which can be identified as contemporary but borrowing from old styles.
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| Figure 3 |
So far the typography has been a bit hit and miss. I really like the font used in Figures 2 and 3, as fruit is usually quite an innocent symbol in today's culture, and the typeface is quite grungy and gritty which hints that this is not the case in the artworks. Looking at it now I see that I would need to do some altering of the compositions if I were to keep this font, as it is very blocky so takes away from the images of the fruit a little.
The font in Figure 4 was a freebie from
Antonio Rodriguez, an artist who I follow on Behance. He created a set of display fonts which bridged the gap between a vintage vibe and contemporary design - perfect to fit the illustration style here. I do love this typeface as it looks like a classic vintage font, but I'm not sure it woks so well in this composition, so again I will go back and reiterate or try another one. Now I look at it the background colour could be changed too.
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| Figure 4 - The apple took forever! |
Figure 5 was created using a reference image, which was chosen because I wanted at least one of the posters to be aimed at parents of young children and faces are much more likely to be a visual anchor than a piece of fruit is. The vector style here borrowed a little from pop art and graphic artists like Shepard Fairey, created with pen tool shapes and expanded black outlines. Again I think I need to sort the gradient background and maybe shift the size of the boy, but I want the poster to be a little bit understated so that the audience can draw the intended conclusion from it without to being pushed on them in text on the poster. To do this, I used the text at the top to introduce the idea and drew the chemical symbol for toxicity into the flesh of the apple to prompt the viewer to conclude the message.
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| Figure 5 |
I have started creating the same poster using gradients, and tried out a sunbeam backdrop as it is a motif commonly used in a lot of propagandic art, most recently the Luo Brothers, and once again Shepard Fairey. I think the typeface in this poster works well with the backdrop as it is reminiscent of war posters and can be read from a distance. The slogan "Some Poisons Are Hidden" was, like the previous poster, used to introduce the idea of apples being toxic.
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| Figure 6 |
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