Project 03- Smithsonian Posters
For this project we had to choose two points from our timeline we made and create two posters on those two objects. The posters were to be from the Smithsonian Musuem of American History so we had to incorporate their logo into the poster. The first poster was to advertise an exhibit about the object and was to be posted (hypothetically) at bus stops. So people would be in a rush and wouldnt have time to read a full poster, so it could only have the exhibit name, date, and Smithsonian logo as text. The rest had to work solely by imagery. The purpose of the poster was to get people to come to the exhibit.
The second poster was to be posted in a high school setting and was to be much more informative than the first poster. The purpose of the poster was to inform the audience of what the object in a more full way, and assumes that the person is not coming to see the musuem, so they must get the information through this poster.
Sorry if the text is too small for you to read, these posters are 24"x 36" when printed out. We also had to write a short paper on our concepts so here is my explanation of the poster concepts:
The concept for poster one is that Jiffy Pop was invented in the 1950’s which is when television had become popular and most everyone had one in their home. Televisions were also popular with children and there were many shows, many in the form of cartoons, created just for children. Because of this new audience advertisers quickly jumped up to the occasion and started creating TV commercials with cartoon characters and jingles geared directly towards children. One such product was Jiffy Pop. The commercials for Jiffy Pop often featured cartoon popcorn characters as well as cartoon children. I also found a quote by Erma Bombeck that was very relevant to my concept: “In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television”. These new television ads with products such as Jiffy Pop changed the way advertising companies marketed their products—not just to the parents who buy the products, but to the child to empower them with the demand for the product. Today, most commercials I see on television seem to be geared towards children. I think Jiffy Pop and other products like it were key players in making the marketing world what it is today. This poster communicates this idea by a cartoon drawing of jiffy pop characters jumping out of a jiffy pop bag from children. There is no television or real children, so the idea is a bit abstract, but I think this works for the audience because the person will see the poster and soak it up quickly since the poster itself is simple, and then as the person is sitting there they will wonder what the meaning of it is and quickly work it out in their head, becoming involved and interested and then going to see the exhibit to cure their curiosity.
side note: I created this in indesign and hand drew all the characters in photoshop with my pen tablet.
The concept for poster two is to clear the air about High Fructose Corn Syrup and present the facts to the reader. The poster explains how HFCS is not any worse nutritionally than table sugar, how HFCS came to get its “bad rap” and why it is false, why manufacturers like to use HFCS and how it is therefore used in a large amount of products, and how HFCS is not the direct cause of obesity. The main message of this poster is that HFCS is not as awful as the rumors make it out to be, but that any sugar in high amounts is bad for your health, and in order to eat less HFCS you must eat less processed foods. Poster two demands the reader to read the information on the poster by starting at the top (the biggest type) and working your way down with the flow of the syrup image. This is much different from poster one because you must study the poster in order to get the full effect, instead of just grasping the idea and thinking about it later. This poster would work best in a nutrition, health class, or even a cafeteria, because it covers the nutritional values and misconceptions of HFCS. I feel this poster would be interesting to high school students because they grew up with their mothers always telling them HFCS is bad for them, but now there are these new commercials from the Corn Refiners Association saying HFCS isn’t bad for you, leading the students to be very confused.
side note: I created this in indesign and created the soda can vector drawing in illustrator.
ps. this will probably be my last post until the end of november/early december because my current projects in type, imaging, and studio arent due until then. Im currently making a collage in imaging, a book in type, and an experience book in studio. Im really excited about all three, and specifically the experience book.
