Artist Statement:
For this bridge project 1, I worked with Annie as a partner and designed an advertisement for her that would be best fitting for her using the information that I gathered from her during our interview session.
We were able to conduct two sets of interviews, the first interview we conducted, we weren’t too sure how we had to go about interviewing each other, but we did a basic interview, unfortunately forgot to record our conversation. The second interview was more direct, we tried to come prepared with questions so that it would be easier to interview each other, there was more of a direction to the interview, the second interview we did, we were able to do get the most amount of information. During our interview, I found that both of us had a lot of commonalities. The three main things that I found out about Annie was that her friends ask her for a lot of advise whether its to do with relationships or just in general “am I being crazy?” kind of advice. I found that she is really into sustainable products and loves everything that i environmentally friendly. The third thing I learnt is that she is has some level of anxiety or starts getting stressed about some of the smaller things, which sometimes negatively affects her.
The advertisement I have designed for her, exploits the fact that she has some level of anxiety, however I want to help her with that. Therefore, I designed a coloring book for her, however there is a twist to this coloring book. While talking to Annie, I also learnt that due to so much work from all her classes, she does not have time to work on her own art and do the things thats the really enjoys, hence I thought it would be interesting for her to have an incomplete coloring book, where she is able to color in as well as create her own patterns and designs.
There are some pages in this book that are completely empty with a one word prompt or a sentence for a prompt, motivating her to make something and focus on her own work too. I want this coloring book to be something she reaches out to when she wants to get away and do something mindlessly while watching her favorite show or listening to music. I want it to be an activity that can help her unwind from her busy schedule, and destress. An image of the ad is attached below. Looking at the ad, one side is full of patterns, where as the other side is filled with texts. I left the other side without a pattern so that Annie is able to finish it up for herself, and create it the way she wants to create it. Which is the whole point of the ‘incomplete coloring book’. Where she does not have to stick to the ending, and is able to let her creativity out, without worrying about anything.
In the advertisement I also included hand drawn patterns that were very similar to mandala’s, which symbolize’s spirituality in Hinduism and Buddhism. I hand drew everything as I wanted it to feel personal towards her, something that she can keep with her and just pull out whenever she wants to. I also used the coloring green, by adding ombre green from dark to light to the letters in the text. In terms of color theory, green is often looked at to be a calming color and known for good health.
Process Work:
I started off with re-listening to my notes from the interview and took notes to understand some of the answers better and come up with ideas that could potentially work for her.
After taking my notes for her, I then went on to think more about the idea and realized that this could be a good way to exploit her anxiety but also in a way help her reduce it. I then wrote out everything I wanted to have in the book, and what it would offer her.
The pages below are my ideation pages, where I planned out everything that I was doing. I did an ideation page, where I tried to plan out how I could layer out the text and patterns that I was focusing on. At the end, I realized that it would be best for me to combine two different layouts. Initially I was considering to fill out the whole page with patterns and have one empty strip where it said, color your stress away. However I realized that, I wanted it to be something she pulls out when she is stressed, I did not want the pattern to overwhelm her, or her to look at something so crowded or busy, while so many things is going on in her mind, but I felt that it was too mainstream, and something that is very commonly seen and used everywhere. The font on the top right corner is the one that I decided to go with because I liked how condensed the font it, I wanted to keep it close together , and playfulness of the text, something that strong but also has its own flow. Which is exactly what I was going for with the coloring book.
Final Ad:
This is the final advertisement.
