Graphic Media Project - Work Discussion

 

(Sabrina Garces ‘Good Boy’, 2021)

In this work discussion on my graphic media project ‘Nature’ I will be talking about my thought process throughout it and my inspirations. I’ve divided it into two important parts. The first part being the topic I chose and where is came from, ideas that came from it, knowledge I got from my contextual studies seminars and my reading reports I have recently done. Part two will talk about where I got my inspiration from for my poster design, aesthetics and their opinion on the animal rights issues. 

Part One: The Topic 

Our graphic media project on ‘Nature’ was to create a poster highlighting the global concerns of the environment or animals. I chose animal rights, because its something close to my heart, I adore animals and I’ve had many through out my life and if I have the opportunity to fight for their rights I will. 

The topic of animal rights has many sub genres, however I wanted to focus on domestication of wild animals and how this is a form of abuse. The human want for domination. I considered other forms of animal rights like animal equality, animal abuse, factory farming, extinction and more. I was pondering on the critically endangered animals topic because of the film ‘Anthriopocene: the Human Epoch’ where they talk about the near to extinction animals in a cinematic, eye opening way. However, I preferred the topic of domesticating wild animals because its something that has been bothering me for a while, I saw a video of an organisation trying to make a domesticated hybrid cat breed to make them have a tiger print. For what reason? Because they look prettier and this takes us to how human beings are taking advantage of them because of selfish needs to want to look powerful for having their cat looking like a tiger. Perhaps its a form of identity, for example if I have a strong bear than I am also strong, because its a way to show dominance by having a wild animal tamed. Having an exotic pet is cruel and in the end they aren’t obliged to be loyal to you and will bit back because they have the right too and this is what my poster expresses. 

To begin with, I will talk about how I reached to this conclusion and it started with my contextual studies seminars. Renée Descartes (1596-1650) “I think therefore I am” he thinks the world is like a machine, everything expect for us, conscious beings are just material for machines. This relates to those who believe that domesticating wild animals is fine because animals don’t think, that they are just there, just materials with no thoughts unlike us. 

“Nature was no longer something to be feared or revered but studied, understood, tamed, shaped to human will and made to work.” (Brown, A., 2014, p.9). Nature was tuned into something robotic, fake and abused. 

On the other hand William Hogarth ‘The Four Stages of Cruelty’ (1751) says something different which is a story about how we should be treating animals. The first and second stage shows the main character growing and constantly abusing animals and the third stage shows the abuse is now levelled to humans and by stage four its his death shown “At the very middle centre, a stray dog eats Tom's heart, poetically ending the cycle that began with Tom's torturing of a dog in Plate 1. A poem in twelve lines captions the image: 'Behold the Villain's dire disgrace!’” (Sanders of Oxford. 2021). In Hogarth’s eyes the animal wins in the end by eating the abuser flesh as revenge and this is powerful and rewarding towards the animal. I felt inspired by this and I also wanted to show the animal in a powerful way. Taking back what we took away from them. 

(William Hogarth ‘The Four Stages of Cruelty’, 1751)

While researching found this article from National Geographic that rose my interests, “Over the last century, tigers have killed more people through direct attack than any other mammal. At least five people have been mauled to death by captive tigers since 2007.” (Roth, A., 2019). I found this really shocking, which raised questions in my head some being; why are people keeping tigers like they are best friends? Why do people think they have a special connection with this animal and therefore won’t kill them? I reflected this in my poster by highlighting the ‘Good boy’ to refer to domestication and a bear eating the human to remind the viewers the bear is wild and will not care if they eat you. Overall, there are more immediate and perhaps selfish reasons why people have exotic pets, despite being fluffy and adorable, they do not make good pets. Exotic or wild animals have evolved to live in their natural environments and not human habitations, striping them away from it, is abuse. 

(Photography by Steve Winter, NAT GEO Image Collection)

Part Two: The Design 

Firstly, I researched animal rights posters and saw many similar photographic posters with a similar boring pallet of red, black and white, which I found not likely that they gain attention or attraction in todays age. I believe people have become desensitised to this type of promotion since its so popular, so these kind of posters are not as strong in this generation. 

Therefore, I decided to take a different approach after reviewing animal rights movements like The Anarchist, ALF and why they were so popularised and I could use their base for inspiration, importantly it helped be have a starting point. For example, ALF (Animal Liberation Font) was punk culture so their posters had strong explicit designs such ALF had a terrorist with a dog, and many with terrorists with animals that it became iconic. To imply how animal liberation was rebellious, cool and was violent if provoked. This created a foundation for people to join together to fight (quite literally by the way they promoted it) for animal liberation. 

I wanted to carry this history in my poster as well in a modern view. The ALF had a powerful poster raising animals and not degrading them. I did the same by making the bear the centre and eating a human alive in front of our eyes, this was to shock and mock the viewer to make them remember my message. In addition, the bold red words ‘Good Boy’ to carry the heroic history. 

(17 March 1990 – ALF liberates more than 100 animals from 

laboratory animal breeder Interfauna)

What also helped to shock and make my poster more eye catching was the influence of popular Russian graphic design posters, I looked at some work in the book‘Soviet Posters’ (Lafont, M., 2007) which gave me plenty of examples of ageless designs to look at and get inspiration. I did some more researching and also found some online as well. 

(From left to right: Tours to the USSR, 1932. Alexander Rodchenko, 1924. Soviet soldier, O. Savostiuk and V. Uspensky, 1986. Film poster for “One Flew Over ther Cuckoo’s Nest”, I. Maystrovsky, 1988.)

Something most of them have in common is the bold colours, bold typography and how simplicity goes a long way. The simplicity leaves the viewer wondering and the strong colours keeps them looking. 

After this I began to design my poster, I firstly did thumbnails of different approaches and I was going to go with Tigers as the main animal and tigers would make a good graphic design base with their striking iconic black and orange strips. However, I thought what was the most strongest animal out there? The brown bear. Then I proceeded to make a man trying to domesticate a brown bear and the bear looking at it as a food source to represent his natural wild tendencies. Subsequently, I chose the design with the bear eating the human instead to show its natural power we’re trying to take away from them. Furthermore, reflecting how some people believe they can domesticate even one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. I also started to experiment using oil pastels seeing that they have a unique smooth and rough texture, to symbol the rawness of nature. 

Then the ‘Good Boy’ slogan came along, I came to this by thinking about what short phrase summarised domestication and I looked at my own pet cat and said “good boy” That’s when I thought this would be a catchy, simple yet strong two words along side my illustration to reflect my topic. I expanded on this and made the words ‘Good Boy’ repeat going down about five times to fill the page, to present how we are constantly being reminded that having exotic pets is abuse. The words then turn slowly into bones, this is a darker remark of the ALF about shocking people into the truth. That no matter how friendly they are with them, it will always end in blood because its their nature, instinct and evolution. 

Red bold words and slightly green shadows was also inspired by the ‘Soviet Posters’ I looked at and the green is to remind us of nature’s own aesthetic. To continue, human structures such as buildings, skyscrapers aren’t considered beautiful unlike the unevenness beauty of nature. To present this I made the bones and blood irregular to show nature’s beauty is not supposed to have order because, perfect order gives us the sense of machines. The first two ‘Good Boy’ is perfectly aligned to reflect humanity, then the words transform into raw nature (bones and blood) showing how we too are like the animal, seeing that we are animals as well. Highlighting how the bear doesn’t see us as any different from its regular meal, yet there are those who think they are greater then it or want to be greater.

Finally, from my reading reports I learned that the key to using art as a form of raising awareness is emotion, because it’s the direction for change. Emotion invokes a stronger deep reaction, which is something we can’t get from just politicians and scientists. Angelia Singer also takes this approach with her strong controversial sculptures on animal rights, just like she says “it should be done strongly” (Baker, S., 2013, p.177) for such a powerful issue, it shouldn’t be done simply either. The blood, bones and brown bear is there to represent that. Nature shouldn’t be abused. 

(Sabrina Garces ‘Good Boy’, 2021)

References;

Baker, S., 2013. Artist/Animal. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp.144–179.

Brown, A., 2014. Art Ecology Now. London: Thames Hudson, pp.6–15.

Lafont, M., 2007. Soviet Posters. Munich: Prestel Verlag.

Merritt, S., 2016. What These Historic Design Posters Reveal About A Secretive Soviet Society. [online] Eye on Design. Available at: <https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-historic-graphic-design-posters-shed-light-on-a-secret-soviet-society/> [Accessed 13 January 2021]. 

Roth, A., 2019. Don’T Be Fooled By Social Media—Wild Animals Make Terrible Pets. [online] National Geographic. Available at: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/cute-wild-animals-make-terrible-pets/> [Accessed 13 January 2021].

Sanders of Oxford. 2021. William Hogarth | The Four Stages Of Cruelty. [online] Available at: <https://www.sandersofoxford.com/shop/product/the-four-stages-of-cruelty/> [Accessed 13 January 2021].