the topic of my final design is bullying, focusing specifically on gender discrimination. it is meant to focus not solely on gender identity among LBGT teens, but also on eradicating gender stereotypes and misogynistic behavior. I'm hoping that these posters are able to emphasize that gender roles are not an important or necessary part of life; people are allowed to act however they want and be whoever they want to be.
to make this message clear, I added the "end gender discrimination" caption at the bottom, but the phrase at the top, "we can be everything all at once," is in reference to the fact that as men and women, we do not need to live in separate ways. if a man or woman wants to do something considered feminine or masculine, they should be able to do it without being discriminated against; we can all exist in any role we like.
the idea behind the pictures is the overlapping of gender lines. the blue (male) and red (female) overlap to create purple, which signifies the joining together of genders. specifically, the two circles in place of each person's head are in reference to the idea of a venn-diagram: there are some things that are strictly male and some strictly female, but the two worlds do converge, and that is something that needs to be accepted and embraced. in addition, the removal of each of their heads is meant to signify the blurred gender lines. even if a person's body is genetically male or female, how they choose to identify their gender is entirely up to them.
to create the posters, I first imported the images into Photoshop and used clone stamping to remove their heads and to clean up the lines left over to fill in where their heads were. following this, I selected a certain aspect of their clothing (the flowers on the woman's dress and the vest and bow tie on the man) and duplicated them, before making those duplicates overlap in red and blue, to mimic the venn diagram shapes that were in place of their heads. the font used is Century Schoolbook, and the caption at the bottom was created in a way that mimics the theme of red and blue overlapping, but in a simple way that emphasizes its place as a sort of caption rather than as playing into the artwork itself.
the focal point of each poster is the text in the circles at the top; from there, the eye travels down and catches the color separation on each person, allowing them to note the natural flaws in the old photographs, before ending at the caption, which fills in the holes of the meaning of the pictures. the simple three-color palette on the black and white images allows the designs to stand out over the old images.
overall I am very happy with my final design, and I think it is a great representation of the work I've done throughout the semester.
-mike
