ILLU5050 Project 3

Project 3 - Illustration in response to an idea (protest)

Since this brief is all about creating something in response to a protest I am choosing to focus my topic around men's mental health and the lack of support & guidance there is encouraging men to speak out about it. The stigma's surrounding the subject and the social constructs & expectations of today are seriously detrimental to men's mental and also physical health with social media often creating unrealistic and double standards. It is a problem that I've struggled with myself in recent times and having had the courage to eventually speak out about my issues and get the help I need I've become very passionate about the matter and encouraging others to do the same.

STATISTICS;

According to the most recent census on men's mental health by the 'Mental Health Foundation' done in October of 2021, the data collected is as follows;

Three times as many men die by suicide than women.
Men aged between 40-49 have the highest rate of suicide (in the UK).
Men report lower levels of life satisfaction than women.
Men are less likely to access psychological therapies than women; only 36% of referrals to the NHS were men.

Men are additionally also more likely to;

Go missing
Sleep rough
Abuse alcohol & drugs
Be incarcerated
Be victims of violent crime

So Why Do men shy away from mental health?

Society's expectations are essentially the answer to this question. The traditional gender roles that men are supposed to assume plays a huge role in this issue and is subsequently the reason they are so significantly less likely to discuss or seek help for their problems.

It is common knowledge that women's gender stereotypes can be severely damaging to them; the idea that they should look or behave in a particular manner, for example. But, it is equally as important to understand that this also applies to men. Men are often expected to be strong and dominant and very much in control, which, while not necessarily being a bad thing, can deter them from reaching out.

Some research also suggests that men who feel they can't speak openly about their emotions are less likely to recognise symptoms of mental health issues in themselves and therefore less likely to seek help and support.

project ideas;

The first thing that springs to mind when bringing mental health awareness in to the real world is something like pamphlets or posters that you'd find in maybe a doctor's surgery or a hospital. The NHS has been very passionate about mental health awareness in recent years, particularly since the pandemic hit and has produced some interesting posters about it. Below are a few examples of actual leaflets and posters created by the NHS and several other charities;

Another idea that would be even more accessible and interactive to the public is that of designing a billboard. Billboards are found absolutely everywhere but usually are just for product placements and company adverts, they are rarely used for anything less than monetary gain so I thought why shouldn't they be made more relatable to the every day person. Billboards are often brushed past and overlooked but if they featured something more meaningful and relatable, maybe it'd get noticed more. Some where like the Underground is a prime example of this - a large public space with lots of advertising and plenty of passing people, particularly businessmen.

It's all about trying to hit the right audience and display the protest in such a way that those affected are also those most likely to see it. A leaflet or poster is very niche as it's only realistically going to be found in places like a doctor's surgery or hospital with very little impact outside of that, and the proportion of men visiting those places is much less than if it was more publicly accessible - like a billboard. The Tube is an ideal location for a protest placement as it's such a densely populated place in a major city with a vast population of men including businessmen on one end of the spectrum and disadvantaged men on the other end, like the homeless. Billboards being so large in such a small place like the tube only amplifies their messages and effects.

INITIAL SKETCHES

These are a few of my initial sketches that I've done for this project, in both landscape and portrait format, with the intention of creating posters or billboard designs.

Colour theory

A major component in protesting and advertising is colour. Colour can evoke certain feelings depending on what they're representing as each person has their own pre-conceived perceptions of what each colour means. As an illustrator, I'm already familiar with colour theory and what certain colours mean, however in the context of this project I thought it would be important to research a little more. I've created my own colour chart here with a brief summary of the types of feelings each one can convey;

Everybody has a similar pre-conception of which gender roles can be assigned to each colour and I think in most cases this is generalised by using the cooler tones for men and the warmer tones for women; blue and pink being arguably the most common contrast.

Since my protest is centered around men I thought it only appropriate to use male dominant colours, such as blues and greens. In terms of creating a billboard or similarly a poster, and with a sensitive subject such as mental health, you want it to seem calm and inviting, particularly when the issue is men not wanting to come forward about their issues.

Further development

Having drawn some basic designs, I then took them in to further development in Photoshop, adding more colour and imagery and exploring that colour theory I was looking at before. These are what I came up with;

This first set of designs is based off my initial idea which I sketched out that I've seen done multiple times before in the real world but never fails to capture my attention. I think the hand-written and sketchy aspect of the text is what's appealing. It's essentially designed vandalism. It feels much more personal like this and has a direct address. I also can't decide whether the imagery works or not. The western left-to-right, corner-to-corner reading style leads well from the text in to the imagery and sub-text. The graphic style and simplicity is what I like most I think, how it singles out men from the overall equation with a brief statistic; it just has that bit more impact. For me, the cool, muted blue tone of the first one is what works most efficiently, however I've included my other colour experiments too.

This was originally in portrait format in my initial sketches however for this I went for a landscape orientation with the text arranged to the left-hand side while an Graphic image of a water-bottle sits on the right. Although the imagery doesn't directly relate to the subject of mental health, I thought the fact that it accompanies the statement was quite creative. It's not a direct message and does not immediately address mental health which is what I think works about it. Men might not want to be singled out as the out-liers and may feel more comfortable if the message was more subtly interpreted.

The criticism I have for this design/layout is the fact that it feels more like a product advertisement than a protest for mental health. Maybe it's the imagery or bold, corporate text that does it but it doesn't quite sit right in the sense of this project.

For this one, I was inspired by something I'd seen elsewhere unrelated to the topic and thought it to be an interesting concept. I took a photo of my clenched fist from a side view and then layered it up with different tones in Photoshop using the threshold adjustment, before mirroring the image and putting the two together to form a fist bump. Much like the first design I came up with, I decided to incorporate a little statistic in there too, just to make it feel more real and direct. The tagline I chose was to work in conjunction with the imagery.

This design is done utilising the traditional speaker phone icon that you see on most devices. The layout of this is what's most notable I feel; the fact that the image is positioned to the left and is almost projecting the words on the right. The design is very simple though and although it does get the message across it feels like it lacks some depth and context to it. It's rather plain with no real design elements in terms of how things are positioned; it's all centralised and of the same scale.

I experimented with a few colour schemes here going for slightly warmer tones than in the previous few designs and varying the text to see what kind of contrast works best. I found that the yellow, with the black overlay is actually more striking than the others in this case. I don't know why that is or if it's just because yellow and black are commonly associated colours that contrast so well, but the mustard/muted tone of it might be something I have to try in several of my other designs too.

This design is compiled using a photo of myself which has been run through several layers of Photoshop's threshold adjustment feature and using the various blending modes available, these are the results I've come up with. Again, much like the others, I like the left-to-right, image-to-text format although this time I've constrained the margin of the text to the far left. I've stuck with white text throughout most of these designs as it contrasts nicely with the striking dark tones of the portrait on the left however, in the last orange design I've gone for black text as it seems to fit better for some reason. The warm, vibrant tone of the orange also makes the design that bit more eye-catching, if not a little distracting at the same time.

An interesting thing that happened when saving some of the files is that they would corrupt and create some abstract shapes and random colours in the process, so I've included those among the others as I actually rather like the abstractness of them. The randomness and spontaneous splash of vibrant colour somehow makes it all the more interesting and artistic rather than just an infomercial. Towards the end as I just kept editing more and more, the more corrupt some of the files became and so the last few designs are as a result of that.

Real world mock ups

Having created a decent body of work for poster and billboard designs, I've created some mock ups here of what those might look like in the real world;

Badge design

Having done plenty of designs for billboards and posters etc, I then decided to come up with a badge design too. It would be nice to have something wearable in every day life to show your support for the cause. Knowing that a green ribbon is the universal symbol for mental health, I decided to use that as the basis of my design, but incorporating a slogan into it as well. I designed not only the front but the back as well, thinking about what clip would be best suited etc. I did consider doing a male symbol similar to what I sketched out on the left, however I realised that it could get confused with the symbol for prostate cancer awareness which is very similar.

Project 3 - Illustration in response to an idea (protest)​​