Sustainable Shopping
The United Nations Sustainability Goals were very important to this project as well as the second; “Honey and Beeyond.” We were asked to pick a goal and make a 24 x 36-inch poster for our campus library. The poster had to be type-based and apply to a demographic that we did site studies about, freshman year.
I chose to target fast fashion. This project did not require us to utilize unconventional materials, it was suggested that we do vectorized lettering. However, I knew that the extra mile would also push this poster to its best.
I decided to make my poster out of thrifted t-shirts, with a catchy phrase that called out fast fashion “Stop fast fashion. Stop wearing clothes that don’t fit right and just fall apart.” However, this project did not have an easy start. During my brainstorming project, I was at a roadblock. My bee magazine was due at the same time the ideation phase for this project was occurring. The only thing on my mind was trying not to burn my fingertips off with hot glue while making the hive packaging. I had no new thoughts or concepts, so I settled for the first idea that came to my head. I was going to photograph balloons floating in the water to show pollution. They were going to read Happy Birthday to play into a satirical Earth Day joke, as Earth Day was coming up.
Thankfully I did not give up here.
I realized that this was too cheesy and frankly confusing, so I looked at the other goals. As someone who enjoys thrifting, the idea felt applicable and personal, and I felt I could put my heart into it.
So, I developed a messy vectorized typeface, cut out my letters on quilt squares in a red color scheme, sewed them to a blue background, and took my piece to critique. What I did not know at the time was that my glasses had a blue light filter on them and the poster I brought to critique was bright red fabric on a purple background. This was only the first issue.
The second issue was that I made a poster with fabric letters that I bought from Amazon to call out fast fashion companies like Amazon. This was when I came up with the idea to thrift the clothing and switch up the pallet. This made the project immensely more successful and sincere. The key takeaway from this project is to always try to find an angle of a design solution that allows you to put your heart into it, and choose authentic methods because it will mean more to the audience. When I switched the fabric to thrifted shirts, the message was more accurately received.
Project Requirements: Create a 24 x 36-inch poster that utilizes handmade text. and promotes advocacy for a UN SDG.
My Process
The first step was ideation. This was the initial concept sketch, a lot was going on (and not in a good way) and the concept was off.
2. Then I decided that concept was not working at all and began to ideate more. I decided to go a different route and came up with this sketch.
3. Next, I had to digitize all of the letters to figure out sizing and layout, this was how I incorporated learning more about vectorization.
4. I then created a more finalized layout, that I would next layout and replicate in InDesign, with vector drawings.
5. This was the digital rendering with my handmade type. It was hard to trust the process because there would later be a mound of scraps in the middle, but I could not include that in the digitization (since it was physical scraps).
6. I did not want my classmates to have to trust the process, so I physically made the first draft, even thought it would likely get scrapped. This was the first draft that I brought to critique, this utilized the Amazon cotton squares and did not have thrifted materials.
7. I then presented my work to my classmates. This design was generally received well by the group, especially by our famous guest; Bryony Gomez-Palacio. Her feedback was immensely valuable and turned my project into something so much greater. She suggested a different color scheme, and she suggested that I make the letters a little less perfect. This is where I decided to implement different-sized letters to make it look messy and imperfect, like a fast fashion shirt.
8. Finally I crafted the finished product and then faced the dilemma that the library only wanted to have 2D posters. So I had to photograph it at incredibly high resolution and then print it on a large scale.
