Project 2
At the end of our third week session, Paul gave us our second project titled “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and this project is mainly focused on typography and how to use it in a suitable manner. For this project we needed to take one article from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and create a poster showcasing the chosen article through typography, point, line and plane which are all basic fundamentals of any design. My next step was to research what the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is and to summarise it, it is an extremely important pice of documentation which outlines the freedoms and rights every human is deserving off. This document applies to everyone no matter their sex, race, colour, religion or nationality as everyone deserves basic human rights to protect themselves and their family. The UDHR was adopted on the 10th December 1948 and signed by all 193 members of the United Nation General Assembly which was them agreeing that the UDHR would be applied to every single human within the country they are standing for. Due to the importance that the UDGR serves it has been translated into over 500 languages. Researching further into the UDHR I wanted to understand the importance of the document and the effect it has had on our society and I was shocked at some of my findings, the first being that the UDHR was mainly created due to the horrors that took place in the Holocaust as well as WWII, as many of us are aware, not only were the Jewish population targeted but those vulnerable and demeaned as outcasts such as people who were apart of the LGBT community and those who were disabled. The UDHR forced the world to recognise how people human rights had been stripped from these people on such a massive scale and wanted to show that even governments can be held accountable for what they done and to teach people of their rights so that in hopes nothing like that would ever happen again. Another reason why the UDHR is so important is because it allows for people to practice their Religion or if they wish not practice any. Religious oppression and violence has occurred throughout history from the Crusades to the Holocaust and even terrorism nowadays in the name of Religion and the UDHR respects peoples beliefs and Religion and encourages them to practice peacefully.
Researching Different Human Rights:
After my extensive research into the UDHR I decided to look into each article and pick out ones that stood out to me and ones I would like to do a poster on. The first article I picked out was article number 5 and it states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” This is a basic human right that everyone knows yet inhuman violence and torture has been preformed to thousands throughout the Holocaust, modern day terrorism and much more. To me this would be one of the most basic human rights to have as without it you would be fearful of what anyone could do to you and it would make you so scared you wouldn’t want to leave the safety of your home. It was shocking to find out that a lot of cruel punishments are inflicted on men, women and even children in countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and sadly, many more. I found that Turkey was often popping up during my research of countries that use extensive amount’s of torture and it was documented that there was 37 torture techniques such as electric shock, hanging by limbs and far worse. I was completely horrified to find out that many of these techniques were even used on children and it was sickening to learn the violation of Turkish people’s human rights, happen daily. I wanted to place this article within a poster to stress the importance of this basic human right that everyone, no matter their age, gender, nationality or Religion, should be entitled too.
The next article that caught my interest was article number 11 which states “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.” I had always heard of the statement, “innocent until proved guilty” however, I wasn’t aware that this came from the UDHR and it made me think about how this right is often ignored especially by the media. The media is known for falsely depicting people as evil and horrible and when this happens to those who are on trail for murder there is no exceptions and this can often persuade people thoughts and opinions on said person. The perfect example of this would be Sam Sheppard who was on trial for the murder of his wife in 1954. The media closely followed this trial and showed Sheppard, who was a loved community member and well-known physician, as a monstrous offender who was to blame for the murder of his wife. This media coverage even reached members of the jury for Sheppards case which contaminated the case and when they told the court this, it was overlooked. While the trail was preceding the media continued to create false claims about Sheppard to further push the theory that he was pure evil and this of course influenced the trial and it lead to him being charged for the murder. After thirty years it was found that Sheppard was wrongly convicted and this was most likely to do with the wicked light placed over him due to the media and it was commented that “the Cleveland Press who took upon itself the role of accuser, judge, and jury” (Policinski, 2014, pg 1010) This case shows how important this right is, it prevents those who are truly innocent being sent away to prison however, even nowadays the media can have such an influence over people’s lives.
Researching Different Styles of Typography:
My next step for this project was to research the variety of styles that are available in typography and after research a few designers and styles I settled with one of each that I was like to base my project off. In terms of style I have chosen concrete poetry to use as my inspiration as I found it to be very eye-catching and found it easy to become immersed within the work. Concrete poetry is objects that are made up of typefaces, words, letters and more, in a way that has significant importance in the design and meaning it is portraying. Concrete poetry was created in the 1950s and was used as a spirt of optimism, communication between many cultural and internationalism, post World War II. It was a creative movement in light of the global conflict that had just occurred and its popularity rose through the use of publication in journals and magazines. Through my research I found an example of concrete poetry and I loved it due to it’s simplicity with the image of the moon being created with words of poem that discusses the moon and even though there is no colour or eye-catching feature to it, I still found inspiration in it simplicity.
Moving on, I next looked at different typographic work which I could base my ideas off or to inspire me in terms of colour, typefaces, designs and much more. I often found that there was many pieces of work that I really liked from a a wide variety of movements however, I didn’t love certain aspects of their designs, for example the use of asymmetry throughout their designs. I researched movements such as the Dadist, Futurists and post modernism however, most of their work didn’t inspire me until, I looked into Swiss Design and I fell in love with the designs and structure of the Swiss Design. I love the use of the mathematical grid to create a symmetrical layout as well as help decide the placements of certain elements (this method, is still used by designers today to create beautifully balanced pieces of work). Josef Müller-Brockmann created this design as I have previously spkoen about his work and the use of simple design elements and mathematical placement to create eye-catching and immersive pieces of work and it is Brockmann’s work who I will be mainly using as inspiration for this project. The principles of Swiss Design are “Cleanliness, Readability and Objectivity” and those are what I would like my project’s core principles be too so it can convey the important message behind each Human Right.
Sketches:
I was pleased at how my sketches turned out and I was able to get my ideas down on paper and it allowed me to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I really like the first sketch with the use of the voodoo doll which is known for inflicting pain upon and I believe this is a great link to use which symbolises the pain that is inflicted on those in countries such as Turkey where this human right is not upheld. For the second sketch I liked the idea of concrete poetry and I wanted to incorporate it in one of my designs and with the important symbolism of the gavel and scale of justice I thought that it would work well together. I really liked the idea of having the words “Guilty” and “Innocent” on the scale as it emphasises the importance these words have on people lives. For my final sketch I found having a simplistic design would be the best and I had this idea of having the words of the Human Right’s article which talks about both spouses having full and free consent to a marriage being ironically chaining them together. I also want to emphasise the words “free and full consent” so I opted to make them the rings which again is ironic to the situation that is taking place.
Final Designs:
Overall, I’m happy with my final designs as I feel the issues that each of the chosen rights are clearly portrayed in my work. When I was working on my sketches I thought that my first design would be my favourite however, after looking at all three I actually prefer the third drawing as it is simplistic yet it speaks volume of the issue about forced marriage. However, I do like the use of typography as bruises and cuts in my first design as I personally feel it makes the design more interesting. In the second design I like the use of concrete poetry and I think the shapes that I was trying to create can be seen clearly however, I’m unsure if it is actually easy to read with all the writing going on it.
Reference:
Policinski, G. (2014). Setting the Docket: News Media Coverage of Our Courts – Past, Present and an Uncertain Future. Missouri Law Review, 79(4), 1007-1019.