Skip to main content

Self-Portrait Propaganda Poster




    The social issue I chose for my propaganda poster is rhino poaching. I chose this issue because rhinos are a critically endangered species with less than 30,000 rhinos living in the wild today. At the start of the 20th century, there were over 500,000. Rhino horns are used in traditional Asian (Vietnam and China) medicine and used as a status symbol among the middle and upper classes of Vietnam. So, why should we save the rhinos? 

    Rhinos play a crucial role in their ecosystem. They are grazers and consume large amounts of vegetation, which helps shape the African landscape. This benefits other animals and keeps a healthy balance within the ecosystem. Furthermore, local people depend on the natural resources within the rhino habitat for food, fuel, and income (tourism). Therefore, if we save the rhinos we’re not only benefiting other wildlife but also supporting local communities and their future generations.

   The rhino horn is made of keratin, a protein also found in human hair and fingernails. The keratin is used in Asian medicine but there is no scientific evidence that it is beneficial as a remedy. I decided to incorporate this concept into my poster by having a rhino scalping my hair with its horn. This not only makes the connection between the keratin found in rhino horns and human hair but also provokes the viewer to think of what rhinos have to go through. If humans were being scalped and killed for their hair to be used as medicine or a trophy, there would be severe outrage. 

    I then had the rhino be vocalized by putting a text box that says "I am not your trophy or medicine". I got this idea from a rhino poaching awareness poster I found online (look below). The color theme I chose included grey (rhino), red (blood), brownish (my skin tone), emerald green (background), and black (font, hair e.t.c). I made my hoodie grey to symbolize the position I played as a rhino being poached. I made the background emerald green because it contrasted well against the red of the blood and my skin tone. The font I used is called Bernard MT Condensed and I choose it because it looked stern and sturdy, which helps communicate the seriousness of the message. 

    I think what makes my piece successful is that it provoke pathos within the viewer by forcing them to put themselves in the position of the rhino. Once in that position, the viewer is able to see that my stance on this issue needs to be supported. 


Original Photo:


Inspiration:

Comments

  1. nico.baker9 November 2020 at 12:47

    I love how clear your message is and the approach you took to the project. Your color scheme is bold and fits the message of the poster. And switching the roles of poacher and poached was very effective. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kylie Odonnell29 November 2020 at 09:46

    I absolutely love this work you created. I think all your work is so amazing and you clearly have a lot of talent. This work is one of my favorites of yours. I think this is so created and makes the viewer understand and care about the message. Switching the roles of yourself and the Rhinos was brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Portfolio

      The final project was to make a portfolio showcasing all the projects I made during the semester. I made this portfolio using InDesign. I had initially sketched a completely different cover, but as I began working I came up with a new cover idea. The idea for the cover was inspired by the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.  The painting of the Creation of Adam depicts an image of God stretching out his finger to give Adam a spark of life. However, in my version, I am reaching out to touch the mouse I used to make the projects this semester. I made the image using Illustrator. I then added a cloudy background to match the heavenly scene within the original artwork.      The next two pages welcome and introduce me to the reader. I used the colors within the portrait of myself to color the font on the welcome page and the two squares on the corners of my portrait. The index pages utilize the cloudy sky background and layout the sections according to the Adobe software I used.  The co
1 comment
Read more

Somewhere

     The basic idea of this project was to photoshop yourself into a tv or movie scene. I decided to insert myself with the female cast of the tv show Euphoria. This is one of my favorite shows from last year because the characters are so complex and realistic. I think it's quite hard to capture teenage characters, but this show does a good job of accomplishing that. Therefore, I took a picture of myself in a red dress and added myself to the bottom right corner.      The first thing I did was mask myself out and position myself so that my elbow was leaning on the table. I then added a few adjustment layers so that I blended better into the picture. I also put a glow filter on myself to match the bright highlights found on the other people. I then added horns so that I could look like I was wearing a devil costume. I tried to blend the horns by stamping my skin around the edge of where the horn meets my skin. I then added my reflection on the table by creating a duplicate of my mas
3 comments
Read more

BW to Color

Square Analogous Complementary                      I created these images using the polygonal lasso tool and masking on Photoshop. The basic idea of the project was to turn a black and white image of yourself into a colorized version. The three color themes I chose are Analogous, Complementary, and Square. The technique that made these images possible was selecting different parts of the b&w image using the lasso tool and creating a new layer with a layer mask. After creating the layer mask you can create a new layer and color the area using the colors from your color palette.      I chose the warm-toned analogous color palette because my original photo was mostly warm-toned. Therefore, I wanted to see if I could incorporate that into the image but make it more stylistic. I then decided I wanted more contrast for my next one so I chose a complementary color palette. The pink and green really stood out from each other and made my image pop. The last palette was made using square co
Post a Comment
Read more