Design Development
After deciding that I will embrace the soft and delicate nature of the wildflowers, I wanted to portray them in a more natural and warm environment. I wanted to keep the focus on 'The Pollinators' and ensure that the audience can be clearly informed which flowers are the best for insect pollinators. To do this I started to play around with different ways of individually presenting each flower as unique and important, rather than putting them into one big composition as I had done during my initial ideas stage.
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| The wildflowers as stickers/individual small illustrations. This idea was to give each wildflower it's own space and it's own little world, where they would be the centre of attention. Focusing on the soft and delicate nature, I choose palates of warm and pastel colours, but also tried to keep the colours of the petals and leaves as realistic as possible. I quite liked how this looked visually, however I struggled to imagine how these stickers/illustrations would serve their purpose of communicated them as a group 'The Pollinators'. Although I wanted each wildflower to be individually presented, I still wanted them to be seen as collection of equally important plants. |
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| The wildflowers in an informative-style simple poster. The idea was to present all the wildflowers in a very minimal and clear poster, almost like a stripped back info-graphic. Still focusing on the soft and delicate nature of both the wildflowers and my drawings, I decided to keep the poster black and white. I included the title and names of each wildflower to easily and clearly communicate the information to the audience, and chose a typeface that was cursive/ in a hand-written style, so that the poster would have a more human touch./personal feel. |
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| The wildflowers as postcards. The idea was to present the wildflowers as a series of postcards, so that each wildflowers could get the individual attention, but so that they all could also work as a collection. I quite enjoyed this idea and thought that it could be effective, however, postcards are not as popular in the modern day as they used to be and are now used more so as collectables. This means that my project as a collection of postcards would not reach a large audience, and because I wanted my outcome to be informative, I also needed it to reach a large enough audience. To do this, I needed my project to work both on analogue/print formats and digital/online formats, and a series of postcards would only be able to work on analogue/print formats. |
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| I considered that the postcard idea could be informative not only in the sense that it showcased all the best wildflowers for pollinator insects, but it could also include instruction for the care of those wildflowers, so that the audience would know how to maintain them and help them thrive naturally. This would include information such as the season it blooms, bloom duration, how much water it needs, weather and environment in grows best at, which insects like it the most and etc. |
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| Going back to the informative-style poster, I decided to try and add some colour to it. Although thus far this was my favourite and most effective presentation of the information about wildflowers, when it was black and white I feared that it may be too boring and not catch the attention of my audience. Therefore, I tried exploring adding colour. I attempted to keep to the delicate/soft theme and used a watercolour vector brush to apply soft strokes of colour to the petals. This I believed worked quite well in making each wildflower stand out within the poster, and possibly make the poster stand out as a whole. However, visually I felt like this now seemed like an unfinished piece of work, and that the colour was too washed out making it seem like the wildflowers are not as important as I wanted to portray them as. |
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| Struggling with visually presenting the wildflowers as important, I went back to the stickers/small individual illustration idea. This time I stripped back all colours and again kept it black and white, but with an empathise on black in the hopes that it would make the illustrations stand out more. This was just a quick exploration which proved unsuccessful as the black colour made the flowers seem lifeless and dead, which is the opposite of what I am aiming for. |
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| I went back to the postcard idea once again to explore adding colour. I liked how adding colour brought some life and a positive atmosphere/energy to the illustrations. I like how individually these postcards would work really well, but also as a collection. However, once again the issue of postcards only working in an analogue format deterred me from pursuing this idea. |
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| I also tried some darker colours for the postcards, but they did not work as well as they did not showcase the same positive energy as the softer/more pastel colours did. |
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| Still attempting to make the informative-style poster work, I tried a different way of adding colour to the illustrations. I tried slightly bolder and brighter colours. However, I believe this took away from the delicate and soft nature of the illustrations. It seemed at this point that anyway I tried to give the illustrations more life or energy did not seem to work, bur rather took away from their original warm and soft atmosphere. |
Feedback:
- The colours aren't working in the poster, I think it looks better as black and white.
- The pastel colours in the postcards are nice, and if you wanted you could simply upload them online as an illustration so it could have the digital presence you want.
- I really like the black and white poster, but I think it is missing something, it is a little plain at the moment. Maybe the type could be bigger, or you could draw more wildflowers.
- I really like this typeface, I think it works well with the illustrations because it's gentle-looking.
- I like the sticker idea, I think people would like them to stick on their laptops and such.
- The poster I think is a good idea, but maybe it should have more information on it, like facts about wildflowers or statistics.
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| After feedback I decided to stick to the original black and white illustrations of my wildflowers, however, from the suggestions in my feedback, I wanted to add some other elements that could make the poster more visually exciting and enticing for the audience. For this reason I decided to draw a boarder made up of plants/leaves. I thought a boarder would add a decorative and visually pleasing element to the poster, and by using only simple plant and leaf shapes, I will not distract from the shapes within the wildflowers. |
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| I scanned in and turned my boarder drawings into vectors using 'Image Trace' I started to play around with how the boarder could surround my pollinator wildflower illustrations. In this composition the boarder seemed to dominate the poster and made the illustrations seem secondary, as well as forcing them to sit awkwardly on the page. |
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| In this composition I tried to create a 'curtain' for the wildflower illustrations, however this made the balance of the whole poster feel weird and top-heavy. The boarder illustrations were also still too big and drew attention away from the wildflower illustrations which should be the focus of the poster. |
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| In this composition I tried to bring the focus back onto the wildflower illustrations by making the boarder illustrations a light grey/opaque compared to the rest of the poster. To create some cohesiveness and a connection between the wildflower illustrations and the boarder, I also added grey coloured elements into the wildflowers. This however made the whole poster seem a little sad and damning, which is not what my intentions for this brief were. |
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| In this composition the poster had started to come together. I decreased the size of the boarder illustrations, which brought the focus of the poster back to the wildflower illustrations. The boarder and the main illustrations now had a cohesiveness to them, and seemed to compliment each other. I had only drawn two corners of a boarder, so I mirrored them diagonally to fill all four corners. This brought a nice balance to the poster and created a more positive atmosphere as it gave the poster a sense of flourishing and blooming life. |
Final Outcome
The final outcome for this brief is an informative poster that showcases 'The Pollinators', wildflowers which are the best food source for insect pollinators such as bees, butterflies, beetles and moths. The wildflower illustrations and decorative boarder is hand-drawn, which gives the poster a more personal and natural feel. The detailed and thin-stroke illustration styles represents the soft and delicate nature of the wildflowers, and highlights their fragility within the British natural habitat. The use of a minimal black and white colour scheme draws focus onto the content of the poster by avoiding the stereotypical colour scheme that is associated with nature and graphics surrounding it. The black and white colour scheme also creates a slightly damning atmosphere, which highlights for the audience the importance of these wildflowers and their role within the ecosystem. The illustrations include parts that are completely filling in black, this not only makes the poster bolder and stand out more, but also adds to the atmosphere that it is creating. The typeface used is 'Run Wild', this typeface was chosen because of it's delicate and hand-written style, which compliments the illustrations and also adds to the personal and natural feel of the poster. The title 'The Pollinators' clearly communicates the collection of wildflowers that are being presented, and the names of each wildflower underneath educate the audience on which wildflowers exactly fall into this collection of being the best food source for pollinator insects. The illustrative boarder not only acts as a decorative element, but also juxtaposes the black and white colour scheme by adding a sense of flourishing and blooming wildlife. The juxtaposition between these elements represents to the audience that it is not too late to start implementing wildflowers into their gardens, and aiding insect pollinators in their role for crop pollination.
Evaluation
The brief asked for creative work that celebrated wildflowers or fungi, and had a focus on sustainability. The final outcome for this brief was an informative poster that showcases which wildflowers are the best food source for pollinator insects such as bees, butterflies, moths and beetles. I believe this outcome has been a success, because the content of the poster both showcases and celebrates wildflowers, as well as brings to attention a collection of wildflowers that are sustainable to the environment. They are sustainable in the sense that they support the life of insect pollinators, which are a vital part in crop growth, as they provide pollination and fight against crop pests. I believe the serious tone of the poster created by the atypical black and white colour scheme brings attention to the content of the poster, and would stand out amongst other graphics surrounding the same topic. The use of hand-drawn illustration represents the fragility of the wildflowers, which I believe creates a juxtaposing warm and welcoming atmosphere for the audience, making them more likely to interact with the information provided within the poster. The juxtaposition between the illustrations and the black and white colour scheme gives the poster a more complex and therefore unique meaning, potentially making the poster more intriguing and memorable. What could have been done to improve this poster and make it more effective was to include some facts or statistics about the connection between wildflowers and pollinator insects. This may have made the poster more adaptable to other formats than just the exhibition space, within which it's message was clear due to the focus of the exhibition being sustainability. Considering the design of the poster, although the use of black and white was effective, colour could have been explored further which would have allowed the audience range for the poster to be widened. If colour was implemented, younger audiences would find the poster more appealing and could be educated by it as well. Overall, I believe this outcome has been a success because I was able to communicate information and share a connection between wildflowers and sustainability that not everyone may have known about, as well as do so in a visually engaging and meaningful way.
The Exhibition
My Exhibition Statement:
The poster showcases and celebrates 'The Pollinators', wildflowers which provide the best local food source for bees, butterflies, moths and beetles. Many of our fruits, vegetables and nuts rely on insect pollination to produce a good crop, as well as fight against crop pests. By bringing to attention these wildflowers, we are encouraging sustainable crop growth by decreasing the need for artificial pollination methods and the use of pesticides.
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