Process Workshop & Posterheroes Warmup Project Goal make a poster about smart cities Process Restrictions Do it Upside-Down 100% Black & 100% White Make it a Question do all visual research off-screen (personal goal)
experimentation Going into the workshop, I knew that I wanted to keep my production off the computer for a change. I have a regular on-screen visual research process, and I wanted to see what would happen off-screen. I brought in paper, ink and watercolors, paintbrushes, markers, glue, scissors and other crafting supplies; I found cellophane, tape and vinyl. Then, I got my restrictions: 100% Black & 100% White
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Aha! Black ink on white paper.
Do it Upside-Down
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I’ll paint upside-down, in drips.
Make it a Question
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Perhaps I’ll add curious text?
I took all of my white, black and clear supplies and got going. The experiments resulted in several groups of outcomes, as follows.
Drips created by dripping ink down coated paper, at times creating traps with tape or vinyl
Crumples created by painting the ink on tracing paper or cellophane.
Pools & Splotches created by painting the ink on tracing paper or cellophane
Hidden Type created by covering painted words with tracing paper, at times inverting the result
Residual Type created by placing cellophane on top of wet painted type
refinement + poster concept After pooling together all of the results, I decided to pursue one of the drip images and one of the crumple images. The drip spoke to me about water conservation; the crumple looked organic and filthy. I was captivated by both of the type outcomes, but after spending a good amount of time filming the hidden type and trying to create the perfectly hard-to-read residual message, I decided to save these processes for another project.
poster iterations I made small tweaks to the clean water poster, making the message more clear and adjusting the imagery.
Final Poster & Writeup This poster depicts a simple fact about our planet: in order to have healthy plant life, we must have clean water. This is especially significant for cities, where natural water sources are often scarce and pollution can be a major issue. As we grow our cities, we must maintain access to clean water sources. We can do this by reducing our use of water, managing pollution and harmful industrial output, and increasing water collection and treatment methods. The need for clean water is a basic fact of life, and one that we must not neglect. To create the poster, I began with ink. I experimented with ways to use the ink that resembled water, rain, and other natural processes. This image resulted from pressing a full paintbrush on a vertical canvas. The ink collected below in a pocket created by tape. I then altered the image on the computer, adding color and flipping the image to form the sprout.