Exercise 1: 1984 Typographic Poster
OBJECTIVE :
The book 1984 by George Orwell is completing 75 years and I created 3 posters connecting the theme of tyranny with what is happening today with social media. The book's themes align with the 21st century and I chose to focus on tyranny and how we do not have the liberty of social media freedom as there are always eyes on us in form of digital footprint, leaking data and not having the sense of knowing what should be posted and what shouldn't.
Poster Dimensions - 11inches x18 inches
CMYK color
HOW I GOT INSPIRED :
A big part of 1984 was how controlling big brother was and how there was a dictatorship to the point where the main character is discovering things outside what he is heard or seen which leads to rebelling.
My idea of came from the restrictions put on us through social media especially with the government's discussion about banning tiktok as they feel China is taking over our privacy (which is not true as the owner and the company originate from Singapore). There was also a hearing held at the Capitol where Mark Zuckenberg (CEO of Meta), Shou Zi Chew (CEO of Tiktok ) and Linda Yaccarino (CEO of X) testified and were grilled while parents of minors were in the audience holding up photos of what their children have been through.
Concerns got raised when aired as these apps/softwares have an age limit and people argued that the companies shouldn't have to do the parenting but the senators argued that the software's algorithm was creating this mess and grilled the CEO's for their lack of attention and care for the children.
Furthermore, This dictatorship is also seen with the restrictions on social media especially when it comes to mentioning words like "kill" "genocide" "murder" "blood", most of the times you have to find a way around them like for "kill" you would say "ki!!" which is restrictive and depletes the purpose of what social media is.
DRAFT POSTERS/IDEAS :
TYPOGRAPHY :
Since the typeface was the main focus I wanted to explore various techniques before I finalized these three. The first poster is just BEBAS NEAU with some words only outlined and some just filled in with color. I kept the body text simple across the posters using big caslon medium and adding a few warning signs across the posters with a call of action/tagline at the bottom with bodoni capitalized.
FINAL POSTERS :
