I'm unsure whether to go with the simplest possible symbol, or develop something more sophisticated and meaningful, or whether to create something serious or something light hearted.
I've been working on illustrator to develop some of the ideas I had in the workshop yesterday.
After researching into the symbols and signs that represent silence, I found that the mute symbol and the rose were the most interesting visually. The mute symbol is a more obvious image, because it is universally associated with silence, whereas the rose was more subtle, and the association with silence is a more historical one, that perhaps wouldn't represent this to the viewer immediately if they saw it on a poster.
I then started to look at ways I could use these symbols within the posters.
With the mute symbol, the work was simpler and bolder.
The effect is bold and visually arresting, and the symbol is clear and concise. The use of the more yellowy gold colour alludes to proverb silence is golden, without having to use words to communicate it. I do like this poster, but at the same time I worry if it's too simple and too obvious.
This is a design I created to see how I could incorporate the image with the text. I feel like it's not completely there in terms of what I imagined, but it doesn't look completely awful, so I'll just keep trying to work with it until it looks decent.
Using the rose, I took a different approach to the silence is golden proverb, instead using something with a more sinister tone, and I took the idea that silence isn't actually golden, and related it to when would be a bad time to keep quiet, such as when it comes to domestic abuse.
I read somewhere that the rose over the mouth symbolised silence, and using the woman's face, but placing x's over the eyes, signifies death and has a very sinister message, that is eye catching but instead of being obvious, and a person ignoring it because of this, it intrigues the viewer into finding out more information. The idea I was going to develop also related to the idea that every rose has it's thorns, which is another unwise saying, because it justifies the behaviour of an abusive partner. If I was to develop this poster further, I was going to play with a style of text that incorporated thorns, then some text at the bottom of the poster would give information on the statistics of domestic abuse.
I then began to think about how complex that idea could get, and considering I only have one week, maybe I should stick with the simpler idea.
I began to develop the text only poster after this.
I've used the word shhhh, because this relates back to childhood when Teachers would use this to signify to children to be quiet. This time, the poster would be placed in the context of a library, where silence is required. I wanted to make these designs more light hearted, as often in a library, the atmosphere can feel quite frumpy and oppressive, and I often worry that the librarians hate me, so I tried to design these posters to look more modern and fun, to create a different atmosphere. It also commands the viewer in a way that a member of staff can't because it would seem rude.
I used a gothic font in keeping with the modernised idea, and kept the layout very clean and simple, so that it gets the message across. I felt the red colour worked best because it's similar to signs that order you to do something, so people will recognise quickly that this poster is commanding the viewer, not simply asking.
Hopefully I'll have made my mind up by tomorrow as to which design I'm going to follow up!
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