Exercise: Too Much Plastic

Brief

This exercise is a client-based open brief. In response to the global plastic pollution crisis, a local environmental group is launching an awareness campaign designed to encourage the public to think carefully about the amount of plastic they are using in their daily lives. 

They hope to bring their message into schools and public places, to educate the public about alternatives that are available, and to show how powerful the consumer voice can be. 

They have asked you to assist with the campaign by creating visual material like posters or leaflets to bring the public's attention and promote their events. They are open to any ideas you may have to reach as broad an audience as possible.

To develop your visual response, you could apply the creative strategies described so far and: 

• Analyse the brief by unpicking the issues involved. What’s the problem that needs to be addressed?

• Identify what research you need to do to inform your thinking and awareness of the issues. What questions do you need to ask?

• Think about how you creatively go about solving the problems you’ve identified. What ideas can you come up with to visualise both the issue and how it can be resolved?

• Reflect on your proposals from a range of different viewpoints. How can these help move your ideas forward?

• Take a critical perspective. Can you identify larger issues than the immediate ones set out in the brief? Do you have any radical solutions to solve these issues?

Use your sketchbook to record your creative process, create thumbnails and design draft visual material. You do not have to produce a finished outcome for this exercise, but take the opportunity to create some rough ideas as if you were preparing to discuss your ideas at a meeting with the environmental group.

Use your learning log to reflect on the process and to summarise your findings. What has this exercise told you about your approach to responding to briefs?

Research notes on Plastic Waste, the damages and what we are doing to improve the environment

Thought process moving forward/Notes

Reflecting on what I've seen previously, I feel like shock value is important to get people interested. Also, talking to people than at them is also important, so if I was in a meeting with clients I would suggests this.

Presentation

I've created a little presentation, as if I was going to present to clients-- I am not very good with talking so it might be a tough watch. Hopefully, with more experience I'll get better at recording my voice.

Imagery on its own

Reflection

This exercise was really interesting to do, I found myself drawing a lot for fun in this task to create visual draft; I also took some time to "present" my work and talk about them more in-depth, I feel like this way I was able to get my ideas across and my thoughts behind them better than I would when writing.

I really like the ideas I've done, especially with the food idea and the fish in a bottle, and also the plastic lung idea. They are great ways of showing rather than telling, which could be great for posters. Leaflets were a little harder to explore since a lot of information makes up most of the work and I feel like less is more with leaflets, simple key imagery would be ideal for this. I feel like my previous research task helped since I was able to take a look at #unplasticIndia, which used strong imagery to create a campaign.

Looking back, maybe I should have explored even further, maybe I haven't done enough work but I learnt a lot with this exercise-- learning about plastics and microplastics as well as expanding my art skills.

This exercise has taught me to research deeper into briefs and ideas before thumbnails and sketching as it could create a strong start to sketches which lead to better and stronger sketches, it helps gather initial thoughts and feelings about the brief which can be developed further with research.

Developing further based on tutor feedback

One of the main points I wanted to improve on with my work with thanks to my tutor's feedback was to include colour and create some more thumbnails rather than finished pieces.

I grabbed some pens and pencils to try out some experimental thumbnails, I had some fun with drawing in gel pens. The thumbnails I produce were interesting, there are some that stand out the most, for example, the fish choking on a bottle, a gore-y fish with rubbish in it's mouth and the little fish in the bottle.

I think it portrays the devastating wildlife that suffer the consequences of our actions, suffering and dying with plastic in their system. You could aim different thumbnails to different audiences, or similar to that of the previous research task where the penguin was being strangled-- shock people to realise what they're doing.

Colour palette-wise, when I used the orange and blue together it really stuck out to me. I wouldn't know if the client would like a vibrant and eye-catching colour to grab people's attention-- or show the bleak and dull reality of what is going on. I'm leaning more to the vibrant side of the colour schemes since it will grab more attention.

Reflection (Part 2)

Looking back over the work and expanding on it makes me realise that the best way to come up with ideas is to create a variety of different thumbnails, all while experimenting with different mediums as they can help ideas come to you. I also found that not thinking too deeply about it and just creating help generate more pleasing ideas-- trialing with colours helps incorporate different elements that could enhance the image. I'm really glad I revisited this exercise and did what I did, I feel like I can reflect on how far I've come since the initial release of this blog.

There are some elements where I focused on particular elements this time, thinking about shape language or sharp and round to create different mood or indicate different tones. This way the audience can look at it and immediately identify the specifics of the illustration.

1 U/A, University of Portsmouth 'UK's largest plastic waste survey reveals 1.7 billion pieces of plastic packaging still being thrown away by households weekly', April 17, 2024. https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/uks-largest-plastic-waste-survey-reveals-17-billion-pieces-of-plastic-packaging-still-being-thrown-away-by-households-weekly#:~:text=Further%20results%20from%20The%20Big,at%20one%20second%20per%20piece. Accessed Jun 6th, 2024.

2 UNEP, Africa Renewal 'Understanding plastic pollution and its impact on lives', May 2023. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2023/understanding-plastic-pollution-and-its-impact-lives#:~:text=Unlike%20other%20materials%2C%20plastic%20does,can%20cause%20serious%20health%20impacts.. Accessed Jun 6, 2024.

3 Ewan Thomson, World Economic Forum '5 innovative ways we are tackling plastic waste' Dec 8, 2023. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/12/plastic-pollution-solutions-uplink/ Accessed Jun 6, 2024.