OUGD403 Studio Brief 4 - Idea Generation

OUGD403 Studio Brief 4 - Idea Generation 

My initial ideas for a social awareness poster on my topic, is to focus on three different points:

1) 'Who are you really volunteering for?' 

   

 - The idea that volunteering abroad is not all about self-fulfilment, and this belief that we westerners have that we have the right to bestow our benevolence on people, while people visit when not knowing the language, having no skills or experience and no idea what the culture is like. 

2) Orphanages 

- Orphanages are turning into a sort of business because of the high demand of volunteers wanting to volunteer in orphanages. While the number of orphans have decreased, there has been a rise in unlicensed orphanages with the rise of tourism in developing countries. This leads to danger of children being exploited and growing attached to the tourists who are soon to leave them, presenting the problem with short term presence. 

3) 'Rite of Passage for Westerners'

- Volunteering has become 'fashionable' with westerners, particularly students. We need to have the right attitude towards volunteering, going back to my first and second point, that children are not tourist attractions. We need to learn how to make a lasting impact and give transferable skills so its beneficial in the long run.

From these points I make initial drawings from my ideas. For the text only poster, I think a simple message with direct address or bold lettering will work well as I feel that it is easy to portray my message and is eye capturing for viewers. From my knowledge I know that social awareness posters use a simple but powerful tactic, particularly through the use of image. However due to the restrictions of the brief, I wanted to create a minimal, simplistic but powerful poster. In addition, I  did not want to use photographs for my posters, as I knew I did not have access to the right people or locations to take my own photographs, and I didn't want to take a photograph off the internet. Therefore I thought the use of silhouettes and diagrams might work to convey my message, but this is something I need to experiment and develop with.