For the compassion poster, I wanted the design to be straightforward and not chaotic for the viewer. I chose Earth to be compassionate towards and picked two specific problems that Earth faces every day, which are factory pollution (smog) and misplaced recycling objects being thrown into the wrong bins. For the factory pollution, I went with setting the world on fire due to the heating up of the atmosphere from the chemicals in the air mixing with smog by cutting up many pieces of magazines and collaging them together. I initially had a lighter underneath the world on fire but figured it might be misinterpreted or unclear as to what that could mean for the viewer. I filled the background with factories and smoke blowing out of them to specify where and what smoke I was talking about specifically. I then centered the text using Canva, which wrote “Clear skies save lives,” to indicate furthermore where the problem lies. I was going back and forth on what would be too distracting as a font or if I wanted the letters to fit in. I decided to stick with the outline of a text rather than filled-in text because it took away attention from the design. To make people allies to my cause, I provided a direct link to how we can be better as a community to lessen smog even if we can’t completely stop it. I felt really good about my compassion posters because I felt I provided a clear message of what I wanted to get across to people, and it feels good to see that despite all the trial and error, I was able to make the design look clean and unified. While doing this project, it’s really been an eye-opener to how little things come together to contribute to making smog worse.
With the recycling poster, I hit many walls before getting it to really be clear on the issue of recycling, which not everyone knows that you can’t just recycle everything into one bin. I got to educate my family, along with myself included, on what it would mean to throw an item into the wrong bin means and where it goes. I centered the recycling bins and included some recognizable items on them to make it clear what category of items were for which bins. I collaged a ton of variety of different colored paper and magazines I found and measured the distance and height of the bins to be visually pleasing. I learned so much in the sense that if I want to bring awareness to my cause, it needs to be clear and brainstormed. You also learn so much through a compassion poster and, in turn, educate others while getting to educate yourself as well while still making it look unified and harmonious. The format of the writing is so important because anything too bright or decorative could take away the power of what you’re trying to communicate to viewers, and I wanted good proximity between the letters as well. I learned so much about the toll it’s taking on Earth and got to see just how big and terrifying the amount of waste that’s going into landfills along with improper recycling. Overall this project has taught me the importance of meaning, detail, layout, color, and composition of pieces in a compassion poster and art in general, and I had a lot of fun doing this.
