This set of three posters at left plays upon the idea once you strip away race, religion, nationality and other external things that are the root of a lot of the world’s problems, all human beings essentially the same. Using vintage medical illustrations and the tag line “we’re all made up of the same stuff”, I attempted to inject a bit of colorful optimism when we were so overwhelmed with cases of human rights abuses throughout the world.
At Right, I wanted to use the voice of a child pleading for the opportunity to have an education. I asked my teacher to get her 6 year old daughter to write out my copy so I could see how a child would misspell words and draw letterforms. I duplicated her handwriting it on a chalkboard and photographed it.
Drawing with crayons on paper I interpreted what a conscripted child in a war torn country would depict after his first day “at work” There are thousands of children forced into fighting wars throughout the world and I wanted to address this with a thought provoking visual.
The lingering relics of war’s past are landmines which kill decades after the war is over. Often being hidden by brush they are still deadly surprises that are a real danger in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.
I was able to participate in a sponsored tr ansdisciplinary class through Art Center's Designmatters program. We created posters celebrating the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 25 posters from our class would travel to the 61st DPI/ NGO conference in Paris, France to be exhibited. There will be a follow up show with our local sponsors in Pasadena, CA. I was fortunate enough to have 6 designs chosen by the jury to be included in the exhibitions.
It was an amazing experience learning how to design posters for a global audience that are specific enough to criticize human rights abuses without finger pointing, and making imagery and designs that would be mindful of not offending people across different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
This project was written about in the Feb 2009 issue of PRINT Magazine where my work is featured as well as commented on in an article called : Images for Human Rights by Paul Morris.