Studio Journal - PSA Poster Series

In Design III-A our latest task was to create a Public Service Announcement Series.

"A public service announcement is a non-commercial advertisement for the public interest. PSAs are intended to modify attitudes and/or raise awareness about specific issues. Design a PSA series related to your thesis focus. Create a set of three posters OR three video/motion pieces that express a point of view about an aspect of your thesis focus. What do you want to advocate? How will it provoke viewers to see the subject in a new way? You may invent an organization or choose an existing one to frame the subject. Your goal is to persuade the audience about an issue that relates to your thesis focus, and to create a series connection among the three pieces."

Tying this project into the Construction of Self came pretty easily. I went in the direction of how outsides influence contributes to the growth of Self. My PSA was a series of 3 posters with the message supporting Positive Peer Pressure. I wanted to try and tear down all the negative connotations associated with peer pressure because it can be such a positive influence in developing Self. "Friends for Positive Pressure" is to try and remind people that humanity is capable of good. Seeing peer pressure with a more optimistic outlook on life can raise confidence and hope in society, and when the whole strives for the better, so does the individual.

I chose to use full bleed images of friends and siblings: these images were tightly cropped and zoomed in on the ears, hands, and mouths of the supposed gossipers. To bring more attention to these body parts arranged in such a way as to usually suggest the exchange of negative comments I desaturated every other area except the hand, ear, and lips. For the text I had the supposed "gossip" in large, italic Rockwell, the smaller text is bold Rockwell in a colored background that signifies the positive conclusion to the large gossip-esque question. The bracketed logo shares the same weight, size and backing as the positive comment. Both logo and positive comment appear in the same place in all three posters, whereas the large text moves relatively along the right hand to where it fits best.