GRAPHICS PATHWAY - 3 WEEK WEATHER PROJECT: WEEK 3

For the final week of the weather project I started to create my idea using illustrator and Photoshop. I took photos of my hand holding a glass up to the sky in my back garden while it was raining heavily and used this as a template to create the imagery. Before doing this experimented a little with some other images found on the internet using a tracing technique in Illustrator that I learnt whilst on work experience. I felt this style worked well and so I carried it onto my final idea. 

The concept behind the idea the the fact that here in the UK we receive so much rain daily that there is an abundance of water and often flooding in some areas whilst around the world there are still millions of people who live without drinkable water everyday. So the glass up to the sky is a metaphor suggesting that we should collect and recycle rain water more to use for something worthwhile. The raising of glasses is also associated with toasting someone around the table so there is also this interpretation to consider. It is a symbol much like those of propaganda posters in a similar style.

Above are some of the photos I took of myself holding a glass up to the rainy skies in my back garden to use a s a template in Photoshop and illustrator. Below are some further developments and sketches of my design, I have made a few different versions to contrast and compare. I feel this helps when choosing the most effective design. 

Once I had made a decision a picked a design, I started to make a few trials experimenting with the imagery and combination of text and imagery. Initially I didn't want to include text but after a few trials I decided that the text worked well with the composition and so I included in the final piece. I thought that the background was also a little plain and we had to include an everyday view so I made a collage of the photo I took of my back garden and used it as a backdrop with the imagery and text on top.

Final A2 poster

I realised that the pictures in the background made the text slightly unclear and harder to read which was a design flaw, so for the final draft I reduced the opacity of the upper half of the background, the increased transparency of the photography makes the text more legible and allows the colour of the cloud/hand to stand out a bit more. Overall, I have to say I struggled with this project for much of the three weeks just because of a lack ideas, inspiration and clarity of the brief. I still feel my final product of the three weeks could have been a bit better but I am still happy with the design and the concept. I may re-visit this in the future and try and get some feedback on how to improve it. 

Images - Author's Own 25/02/14