Busra Yildiz

This is another poster which I designed for our campaign. I stepped back from the style I’ve been doing and tried something new. I had an idea of using an ear which symbolises listening to men when they need someone to talk to. From that thought I used illustrator to create a small illustration of an ear. Then I placed it behind the texts which I tried to lower the opacity so it looks blended with the background but I didn’t like how it looked. The phrase I used in the poster was ‘Men have feelings too’  which is focused on men and the ear has the meaning of listen when they want to talk about their feelings. I used the statistics from mens mental health forum. I like this poster it does fit the purpose however, I don’t it’s the one I’d chose as a final poster for our presentation. It’s too much on the page and the design doesn’t work well together doesn’t look professional to me.

This is the last poster which my group likes the most. I think I prefer this one to all of the other designs. This is because it’s simple, communicates the message and I like blue background more than orange. I used the features but I played around with colour and layout. I think this is the one we will use for our final  presentation.

 

INSTAGRAM MOCK UP

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Once I designed the posters I then chose 2 which I like the most to create a instagram mock up. As it’s a digital project it would be really good to create mock ups to see how they would look like. As a group we all created mock ups from our best work which we will use in our presentation

The mock ups above are infographics Megan created for our campaign. Each image gives a statistic about mens mental health.

This is the other poster I designed which is very similar to the previous one. I changed the header to ‘You’re not alone’ which is more eye catchy for someone on internet. It plays with your feelings and anyone who deals with mental health issues seeing a poster ‘you’re not alone’ it could make them want to read more. The font is the same however I think it’s not bold enough as a header. I could use a different font which has more weight to it. For this, I could speak to my group whether we could change the font theme. I used the logo Holly designed on the right top corner I’m not sure whether the size of the logo is okay maybe I could make it smaller so it doesn’t stand out as much. I moved the position of the words inside the head so it blends in together better, on the first poster it was floating but didn’t blend well. I think this way it’s lot easier to read and it goes well with the design.

This is the third poster I designed which is similar to the first.  I think the main header didn’t stand out in the first poster . I wanted to emphasis the ‘It’s okay to talk about your feelings’ I added a rectangle block under the text ‘okay’ I think with this way it emphasise the slogan and stands out. I kept the weight and font the same I think it suits the design. Also, the idea of words swirling inside the vector I liked that idea I think it did work but I didn’t like how words looks together they looked like they were floating in the air. So, I tried out an other I had in my poster ideas in the beginning of the project. I filled in the vector with scribbles which symbolise  how confused mens mental health is. The scribbles symbolise confusion, anxiety and maybe anger. Rather than using words to explain how they are feeling using I used just lines. I made the scribbles white because it stands out on blue vector, they just overlap the head. I moved the paragraph far left it’s clear and just under the header which the hierarchy works.  I think this poster works better compared to first one as it as few details which completes the poster. I think the choice of fonts are suitable for the audience and purpose of our campaign. Maybe the colour scheme could be different however, it was chosen as a group.  I think the text is easy to read and the point size is ideal for a poster. I could see this poster online and it would catch my attention. As it’s a digital project the main focus is for it to stand out for readers. I think with the colour scheme it does stand out for viewers and meets the purpose.

 

I started to design the poster as the starting point I used the vector I created as the main image. Inside the head used the sayings from the research I made earlier. I used words like anxiety, depression, man up, boy’s don’t cry. The purpose of this design is to show inside a mans head who is having mental health issues or even every men is society because they are all being told these things constantly. I think this design really fits in with the purpose of our campaign to show men do suffer from mental health more than we all think and there are reasons why they don’t speak up about it. I used two fonts for the text inside the head they were Impact and DIN Condensed regular. I think they both worked well together as impact is thicker and bold which I used to emphasis some words and DIN Condensed is more softer and easy to read. The first I idea I had in my mind was to make these words in swirling. But then I changed my mind because I thought it’d be harder to read them. I made each word gently overlap each other. Also, Holly designed the campaign logo which I think it looks really good. However, she used orange as the main colour and it blends in with the background colour. I will discuss with my group whether I should change this.

I developed the poster by adding the slogan and a small paragraph which talks about the campaign. The slogan I used is ‘It’s okay to talk about your feelings’ I think this slogan is very good it fits in with the campaign purpose and it’s a very gentle slogan which will make people feel something. The hashtag for our campaign is #tootoughfortears. I used it in the bottom corner with a bold font as I wanted it to stand out so I placed it on top of the head layer. The logo is placed on the left of the hashtag, the size of the logo is ideal because it can be clearly seen and completes the bottom half of the page. This is the first poster for the project. I can see that theres a lot missing.

 

 

 

My first initial idea was to have a head vector of a man in the middle of the page and have thoughts which are sayings used in the society inside the head. I think this suits the project as I think it shows the society very well with all of the sayings used against men. With that idea it also shows men are bottling their feelings inside their head. To start of the design process I made a head vector.

Created this illustration on Illustrator which I think it looks clean and simple. I used one of the colours we chose as a group but I’ll be playing with other colours.

RESEARCHING ABOUT POSTERS

Once I’ve done the illustration I’ve had a look at other posters that was created by other campaigns to gain some influence. The posters I had a look at were very simple yet bold with the message they want to give to viewers.  I had a look at Mental health Foundation which is the main website I gained most of my knowledge. They have lots of posters and infographic materials full of information. The posters below are from Mental Health Foundation.

The two posters above are created by Mental Health Foundation which gives information about mental health. The design is very simplistic and does communicate the message. Their choice of colour is dark green on grey background. I don’t particularly like the colour scheme. This is because it makes the poster very dull which could result in not catching peoples attention when its in social media or other places they want to display. The chose of font I think is good it’s easy to read and simple. The 2 illustrations used do add a detail especially them holding the percentages.

Reference:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/men-and-mental-health

I did some research on mens mental health read some articles over the past week to build my knowledge on this matter. Articles were focused on mens role in society, why are men suffer depression in silence etc. I’ve studied sociology for 4 years so I’m quite familiar with this issue. I wanted to do this because for my poster I want to include stereotypical sayings in society which make men feel like they need to be masculine and avoid their feelings. Those readings enabled me to understand how hard it is for men to speak out as since childhood they’re being taught to act in a certain way to fit in with the society. The society doesn’t allow men to speak about their feelings and their mental health because it’s not considered as ‘manly’.

Some of the sayings in society which pressure men to not openly speak about their mental health:

1. Boys don’t cry
2. Man up
3. Be a man
4. Stop acting like a girl
5. Be tough

There are so many sayings which are used regularly by people in society which effects men. Also, with this project we aim to change mens perspective on mental health and raise awareness y need to understand its okay to feel sad and talk to someone. The target audience is for men and women as I think these campaigns help people understand how serious mental health is.

Here are some articles which I read over the past week. I think this was very useful for me to broaden out the research and not just focus on the design part of the project.

After this research I wanted to some statistics which would be very helpful and useful to me when I’m creating the poster as I could use some. I used mens mental forum website which has detailed explanation about mens mental health issue statistics, the causes and solutions/advice. It’s a very useful website.

These are some of the statistics in the website. I will use some of them as I think it will be a way to attract peoples attention and make them want to find out more. Statistical facts I think it plays a big part in campaigns like this as it plays with peoples feelings. However, one of our group member will design an infographic anyway so I don’t want our work to be very similar.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/13/why-do-men-suffer-depression-in-silence

https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/what-means-to-be-a-man/958158

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07448480109596315?journalCode=vach20

https://www.menshealthforum.org.uk/key-data-mental-health

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/men-and-mental-health

After the mood board we allocated roles for everyone and I was told to do posters which promote men’s mental health matters and how they should be able to speak to someone if they feel like they need help. Also, focusing all of the sayings in society which pressure men to act ‘tough’ and pressure on men in todays society. I’m really excited for this project because our campaign is very relevant and should be spoken a lot in the society. For this project I want to do some readings about mens role in society and how it’s hard for men to open up about there feelings. This would be really helpful to me to develop my knowledge on this matter. Creating a poster for a mental health project is very challenging as I think the poster should be simple but should also attract peoples attention especially men who are scared or afraid to speak to someone. In addition, I think the target audience for this project is the public as women who see these posters should also think I should ask my partner or any men around them are they okay as sometimes men don’t get enough attention in media about there mental health and it’s usually overlooked. Most people think women are more likely to go through a mental health issue however I don’t think that is the case. My next step in this project is to be to research about statistics and develop my knowledge on this matter.

As a group once we did the mood board and allocated roles we then chose 2 colors and 2 fonts for our project. I think the colors shouldn’t be too dark because I think the purpose of this campaign is to show positivity and make men feel it’s okay to feel bad. If the posters and other elements are very dark then I think it creates a negative feeling which will not go well with the purpose. For this cause we chose 2 colours which suits our project. In addition, we chose colours which aren’t so typical and I think it goes well together. The colour scheme will be the through out all of the elements.

The orange and the dark blue really goes well together especially when the blue is the background colour and orange is used in the images it makes it stand out a lot. This is really good in a poster as the information will stand out which catch peoples attention on social media. Also,  for the font we decided on DIN condensed regular and Impact. I chose those fonts because I think Impact stands out its thicker and would be more suitable for a poster. DIN condensed is geometric sans serif which will be good for text paragraphs. Once the colour theme and the fonts were chosen we started developing our own work.

 

Creating a Moodboard

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Once we decided on the topic of our campaign we allocated roles in the group. I chose to do a poster which focuses on mens thoughts and feels. A poster which is meaningful and visually interesting.  To start of the project, I created a mood board of posters that already exists in other campaigns. This is very useful  because it allows me to develop my ideas and develop my knowledge on how other people created their poster and what kinds of things they focus on.

This mood board is full of posters which are more graphic. This is because as a group we decided on doing more graphic posters which are visually more appealing and as everyone will have a different outcome but they all need to link graphic posters would be lot more suited for this project. Most of these posters have used bold colors and large text to emphasis.  The one I like the most is the orange and white background poster which says ‘are you anxiety aware’. The poster doesn’t focus on directly on men however, I really liked the design and orange and white really made the poster stand out. The random white shapes I think added the effect of like broken glasses to me this was really interesting.

 

SOME SKETCHES

 

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I made some sketches on poster ideas. They’re not so detailed but I think sketching out ideas really do help me start off the designing process. I’ve thought about some slogans I could use and visual images which suit with the campaign. I initially made 3 sketches but I have more ideas that I think would work well.

As a group we need to decide the colour theme and the font so I can start designing the posters. I have few suggestions on what the font should be as posters need to be eye catchy and needs to suit the target audience.  I like the poster 1 and 3 the most. I think they would work well in the digital as they could stand out the most. I need to research on layouts and could use indesign to design them but I’m not confident with it as I am with Photoshop.

Our next project is field focusing on social media campaigns are a group project. ‘Bringing social isssues to light’ is the purpose of this project. After the launch as a group we were thinking about which social topic to focus on. We started to make a mind map on social issues. There were some of the ideas we came up with. Homelessness was mentioned as we thought there isn’t enough attention from media. Also, bullying and abortion was mentioned which are very important social topics that should be drawn attention in society. Also, mental health focusing on men. This topic was the one which everyone liked and thought we could have really good outcomes.

The mind map above is our thinking process and draw Thinking about what area can we focus on. Why are we doing our campaign about this trying to figure it out. Having our group talk I think it would be really good to focus on the stigma in society about men shouldn’t be emotional or men should not cry. In society there are strong pressure on men which they shouldn’t be ‘feminine’ they shouldn’t cry or feel depressed. Men don’t speak about there mental health and no one really speaks about this problem. Creating a mind map as a group really helped us because everyone could participate and say there own ideas.

We started to focus on one topic which everyone felt confident the most was mental health issues focusing on men. We started to gather some ideas on how the branding and visuals should be like. The colour and font is very important aas we’re doing visual posters and they need to attract peoples attention and make them take it seriously.