Propaganda posters research

Research into existing posters

We have been asked to produce at least one poster promoting a social networking website which is generated in a propaganda poster style from the date of 1900 - 1950.

I have began my assignment by researching into propaganda posters by looking them up on google and collecting and analysing ones I think can give out a variety of ideas and inspiration for when Im planning my initial design for a social media propaganda poster. 

I will be analysing colours, graphics used, font style, and layout which will then generate ideas I could use for a design.

'Women of britain work recruitment"'  
This poster was part of the 'call up' effort to bring British women into war work in December 1941. The artist was called ' Philip Zec' and was published by the ministry of information. Philip Zec was a british political cartoonist and was most famous for his illustrations in the daily mirror.

 This poster of the women of britain recruitment straight away caught my eye in the design work; I like the idea of the women who is standing in power with the planes flying in a queue in the background. This gave me an initial idea of instead of the planes in the background it could be the famous twitter birds flocking in a queue, with the woman doing the pose. It gives the effect of the women symbolising the target audience promoting a march of twitter birds.

The colours used in this poster are mainly different shades of brown and black, I like this combination because its a rare combination, it gives a nice simple design by only using different shades of one primary colour. Twitter's ethos colours are turquoise and black so I could use this technique to emphasise the house style of twitter for promotion. I think this posters colours is the most important aspect for it to standing out, I extremely like how just different shades of one colour define the poster as it draws your eye immediately. 

The text used is 'women of britain, come into the factories' this gave me an idea of having something like 'People of britain, come follow me on twitter' which would go with the initial design of the women leading out a flock of twitter birds in the background because the birds are all following each other in a queue and the picture of the woman's importance is emphasised by how big it is and the pose the woman is doing.

This posters message was to encourage british women during the war to work in the factories. The poster clearly shows this by having a large graphic of a women with factories in the background which she is posed in a way what welcomes.

'World war 1 U.S army recruitment'

This poster as made in 1917 by James Montgomery. It is a poster of uncle Sam pointing his finger at the audience telling that the American army wants to recruit during world war 1.

This poster stands out straight away by the image of the guy pointing at you tells you immediately that an important message is directed at you which is enforced by big bold text in capitals underneath the image.
Uncle sam was a recognised figure in America which symbolises straight away that the poster is targeted at american citizens.

The colours used in this poster are the colours of the american national flag (blue, red and white) which makes the poster symbolic of america. I like this idea beca
use it makes the poster more recognisable for the audience, the stars on uncle Sam's hat give away the target audience clearly too. The text is in black with a red stroke which again shows american element to it but the word 'you' is in red with a black stroke to emphasise the importance of it and make it stand out more. It goes well with the guy pointing as it is pointing at the audience.

The simplicity of the poster is what makes the poster work so well, its just uncle sam and text underneath it. This makes the message more focused on therefore more important. The plain background just makes all content inside it more bold and eye catching.

This poster gave me ideas that the text could be altered so the word 'you' is changed to 'youtube'. Or I want you to subscribe to me then changing uncle sams clothes colour to youtubes red and white colours. But instead of a plain background have the webpage of youtube in the background with uncle sam on top. So straight away you can see the promotion of youtube and convey the original posters strong message of recognition.

'He's coming south'

This poster was made in 1941 by an unknown artist working for the australian government and was made to target australians warning them that japanese soldiers were coming to invade.

This posters message of telling australians that japanese were gonna invade is illustrated really well and I really like how this is portrayed. The graphic of a Japanese soldier stepping from Japan to Australia with a submachine gun tells the message there. The Japanese logo is in the background of the soldier which makes this poster look vibrant, the beam looking things coming out of the red circle representing japan symbolises warning, as if it was a siren beaming out lights which enforces the message of warning really well.

The image of the globe only shows the countries which are the path from Australia to Japan to give more focus on what the message is too which is clever.

This poster generated ideas mainly because of the globe. As social networking includes everyone in the world I would have the globe showing all the countries as they are involved in the message unlike the original which is just to do with japan and australia. In the background I would have the twitter bird with green beams coming out of it instead of the red circle with the red beams to show its twitter. I wouldnt have a soldier though because i'm not limiting a certain path.
The text of fight work or persia gives me the idea of it saying its follow, tweet and trend.

'Realize the great plan of great works!'
This poster was made in 1930 by a russian called G. G Klutis. It was made for the soviet union election and is telling everyone to vote.

I straight away saw the hand and thought this could be the famous Facebook like hand. Which is why I chose it. It is a very simple layout of having just the image of the hand raising from the bottom right hand corner across to the top left with text beside left and right.

The arm is built up of other hands in the vote position, which makes the message more clear to understand, I like how one image is built up of the same image. The effect of this targeting people to vote works really well.

My idea would be have the same blue background as facebook has with the like hand built up like hands, but not coming from the corner, instead coming from right centre as thats the position it is on Facebook. The like hand would be built up of other like hands portraying the effect used in this original propaganda poster.

'Let us go forward together'
This poster was made in 1939.
Firstly I like this design because like the women of britain poster is has a graphic of a person with activity going on in the background. I Like this style in posters because I think visually they look better, it makes it look more 3D.

I decided the social network and aspect im going to do is the following aspect of twitter, so I had to look at posters which I think can give me good ideas for it. This one gave me similar idea to the women of britain just in a different style. The planes in the background can be changed to the twitter birds.

The colour scheme is really plain, there are mainly whites and greys with a bit of blue in it. I like how winston churchill is in black and white and the background is in blue and white. It makes churchill stand out more, making it the focal point in the poster. The backgrounds colour of a blue and white presents great britons blue colour.

The layout of the poster is like divided into 3 layers. First layer the background of the planes and tanks, then winston churchill and then the text on top of churchill, all coming from the bottom of the poster. Its a effective way of telling the message of the poster because you can clearly see what its intending by the use of these layers. Saying 'Let us go forward together' meaning everyone in great britain work together and the war will go forward. The icon of churchill inspires the text, with the background showing teamwork as the planes are in a formation and tanks in a single file queue.

This inspires my idea to maybe have layers. Maybe have a background of the twitter birds flying in the sky, then have an iconic figure then have the text. Keeping it simple but yet effective.

This poster is an example of promoting a modern day entity  (m and m's) inspired from propaganda style.

I really like this poster and think it works brilliant. The font face you can see is in propaganda style and the colour scheme too. The colours are a sort of darkish red contrasted with bright white almost making a yellow colour which was used in propaganda posters. I think the red and white striped background gives it away the most its propaganda style, as there were a few artists that used this is style between 1900 and 1950 in their propaganda posters. It symbolises rising sun and the artist who done this poster which I couldn't find who did it done a really effective technique of using the rising sun with the red m and m figure as the centre red sun.
Red and white also are iconic colours of a candy shop which is reflected in this poster as it is promoting a chocolate company.
The design work is really nice a the bottom too with the farmers looking like they are protesting holding red flags and dressed like they are from the 1950's. It is really nice artwork. The m and m guy is also dressed as a solider and conveys the original artwork too as the original was a vote for the soviet union in russia which is symbolise by the red star. The star is at the top and bottom of the poster too.



I searched up posters from 1900-1950 which used the rising sun graphic and found these:

This original artwork of rising sun was also an inspiration to a modern artists artwork who I really admire. His name is Shepard fairy and is the artist for the company 'Obey' which is a popular skating brand. His artwork is urban styled and propaganda style too. These are some of my favourite artwork he has done.

 

The rose girl in the first image has the rising sun in the back ground, it gives a simple symmetrical effect emphasising the focal point. Shepard uses thick strokes in his artwork to make the image more bold and create a strong atmosphere in the image. He also likes to use a variety of different patterns which is distributed into random aspects on the imagery in the girl the roses create a sort of pattern and the iconic obey star has a symmetrical pattern around it.

The Obey eye has a pattern inside it too with symmetrical line patterns around and the red and white strikes coming from the eye like the rising sum technique which doesn't go all the way round. The typeface for the obey eye graphic looks like old propaganda type face too which shows inspiration again from old artwork.

The famous andre the giant icon is so simple and I really like it. Its really bold and again symmetrical, andre the giant was famous for being legend in wrestling so it goes well with the name of the company Obey because Andre's status in power was very high. Shepard Fairey first became known for this artwork initially.

Sheppard fairey was born in 1970 in america and became involved in art at 14 years old, he used to place drawings on t-shirts and skateboards which inspired him to create real designs for t-shirts and skateboards. He graduated from art and joined a small printing company where he continued to pursue his artwork. In 2003 him and his wife founded a designing company and created album artwork for the black eyed peas and other music albums. In 2008 he started artwork for Obey and even got arrested for creating artwork of barack obama with the tagline hope underneath it.

I want to use Shepard as in inspiration to my work, how he is inspired by old artwork to create unique designs.
The shining sun design is something I want to use in my design, so I will sketch up designs using it with the women of britain poster to create a unique poster using Shepards technique. I will experiment with his bold and simple technique too because i think it looks really good and makes the poster more strong in visually telling the message.

Continuing my research I came across russian propaganda posers and they were the original source Shepard Fairey was inspired from, the soviet union star looks like the Obey star Shepard created. The powerful imagery in the soviet posters are used in his artwork too. The bright red soviet uses is the same red Obey uses.

Im going to analyse some original propaganda posters from the soviet union.

This poster straight away is visually strong. I like the layout of it, with the soldier at the front then two resource workers behind him. The way the workers are holding their tools up criss-crossing each other is powerful, it symbolises unity; which again is emphasised by the soviet star around it with the shining sun pattern in it, the artwork creates a nice effect for the tools; it enforces their power. The soviet union were a very powerful party in russia. In world war 2 they were one of the 2 superpowers after the war.  So they like to boast about their power and conveying it by using bold, strong designs in the poster portrays this.

I also think a strong visual looking poster catches the eye more which is another factor in my choice of using this soviet style to my design, I think applying a different style from another theme of propaganda to an original poster (women of britain) will make my design unique and different, which I like to be in designing. I want to be as unique as possible and create something different.

Here are some other soviet styled posters I found,  again both expressing power in the design. The star has a shooting effect which also shoots other graphics of the silhouette soldiers to emphasise power. All the artwork is bold and strong. The second poster is just a symbol, no text which emphasises how much power and focal the fist is. The shining sun pattern is used again centred from the fist to create a more strong and important atmosphere to the fist. I like these colours of cream and red together, I think they contrast and look well together and I will definitely be using it in my design.