United Nations
G
lobal Goals
– Project nameGlobal Goals
– RolePoster designer
Leaflet designer
Animator
– DateSpring – Summer 2025
– SpecsLetterpress
Abobe InDesign
The United Nations gave me the opportunity to design three deliverables (poster, leaflet and animation) in rleation to their 12 Global Goal; responsible consumption and production. My deliverables aim to disrupt the current discourse in relation to its overarching subject matter of consuming sustainably, through expressive use of typography set at a multitude of angles whilst simultaneously personifying it’s cyclical nature – conveying how climate change is caused by the constant repetition of acts such as plastic being manufactured, culminating in not being disposed of in a way that fosters the planet. I drew considerable inspiration from notable anti-establishment bands and artists that also aimed to disrupt and subvert, such as The Sex Pistols.
After I was satisfied with my research, I first brainstormed all of my ideas in relation to the topic as a whole on a macro-level, and then decided to focus on each facet of my topic and documented my initial response to each one on a micro-level. Doing so allowed me to dissect my topic more and gain a deeper understanding of it.
Once I had completed brainstorming, I then created a Venn diagram split into three categorises in correspondence to the essence of my topic; natural resources, consumption and the planet. Doing so allowed me to see overlaps between the three categories which I regarded as being most pertinent, which added more momentum to later commencing the ideation phase.
To fully embed and synthesise all of my findings from my research, I created a mood-board which compiled all key visual cues into one place. This served as a valuable point of reference whilst ideating. All images that I perceived as being aesthetically-important were transmuted into this mood-board, being split into two halves which each represent their own style and tone of voice; the top left – punk, bright, protest-centric and the bottom right – more neutral, muted, dark and brooding. Seeing both directions side-by-side in one place solidified my decision to choose the style in the top left.
At this stage, I wanted to gain insights from a classmate, as people interested in my topic were more than likely to be students than any other demographic. Receiving this result allowed me to emphasise more with the student-demographic when ideating and ultimately tailor my work more relevantly to them and their needs.
I decided to experiment with photo-montage/de-collage as it was a medium frequently used within Dadaism, a design movement which I researched and adopted in my design-work. Photo-montage is also often used by more expressive, subversive post-modern designers/artists to this day. Creating these compositions caused me to both think about, and work, with important design considerations such scale, colour and form, all of which I explored in each piece. To further this practice, I used oil pastels to explore forms of spirals, relevant to my concept of cycles, in several vibrant colours as relevant to my research.
I attended a lecture for this module on the history of the poster and encountered two inspirational designers that I had not heard of prior; Ludwig Hohlwein and Edward McKnight. I was drawn to Hohlwein’s distinctive use of colour, being something that I have rarely seen in the 21st century, which caused me to think about how unforeseen it would have been in the 20th century. You will see this inspiration reflected in some of my sketches, however I decided to not pursue this style of poster after conducting further research. Alternatively, I drew more inspiration from Edward McKnight – referencing his bold use of type at angles.
I attended a workshop whereby I was presented various posters primarily from the 20th century. My eye was drawn to the posters which featured vibrant, solid colours, particularly in combination with wood-type. I found that the solid bright background colour, often yellow, contrasted very effectively against equally, if not even more, bright colours such as red, blue and green. I took inspiration from these poster’s expressive, daring use of both colour and wood-type – particularly due to how the detail inside of the letters gets accentuated by the hue of it’s surrounding and underlying colours. The posters often feature exclamation marks too, which is another element I took inspiration from, as it adds to the poster’s immediacy and call to action.
After attending the poster workshop, I decided to further research more posters from the 20th century, further building upon my initial research of the topic. I discovered three designer’s that I had not heard of prior; Marianne Brandt, Lester Beall and Herbet Matter. I took direct inspiration from all four of these posters, – specifically Brandt’s use of type set at dramatically bending angles, Beall’s stark and exclusive use of two bright colours, Matter’s alternating use of colour and type set diagonally, and Rand’s liberal and punchy use of characters.
I attended a second workshop for this module which focused purely on more contemporary examples of posters. This was a worthwhile session as it caused me to directly reflect upon my research thus far, which had completely consisted of posters from the 20th century. It was engaging to contrast the differences in similarities in design. Specifically, I took inspiration from the displayed poster’s consistent, audacious use of typography, setting it at different orientations, flipping it, neglecting grids and distorting it. These posters were almost all comprised of striking colours too – another design decision which I took inspiration from, particularly due to how such hue of colour is synonymous with punk, protest and anti-establishment attitudes as a whole.
After becoming more inspired by my research, I decided to specifically build upon the rebellious, anti-establishment attitudes inherently attached to the philosophies belonging to designers such as Paul Rand, being a proponent of movements such as Dadaism. After combining this with more of my research on 20th century posters, specifically my findings of contrasting use of vibrant colours, I decided that I too wanted to disrupt with my deliverables. Consequently, I decided to refresh my knowledge of famous punk colour pallets, looking at work by renowned-punk-band-designers such as Jamie Reid and Malcom Garret. I reinforced my knowledge of punk bands utilising almost-grotesquely-sharp colours, and took inspiration from this – specifically the neon yellow and pink colour scheme seen on The Sex Pistol’s album cover ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ and more work Jamie Reid which critiqued consumerism within the fast-food industry.
To build on my exposure to more contemporary posters to balance out with my research of posters from the prior century, I decided to look at artwork and pieces of design belonging to highly-regarded critiques of the status-quo and consumerism as a whole, as relevant to my topic of responsible consumption. I took inspiration from Warhol’s famous use of electrically bright colours, Kruger’s blunt calls to actions and bold typeface choices and Carson’s commanding, disruptive use of type.
Before printing, I wanted to ensure that I could create the best lock-up possible. I achieved this by first choosing the face that I wanted. To correspond with my research of 20th century and contemporary posters along with punk, I wanted to pick a blocky, bold sans-serif. I locked-up each character in virtually every arrangement possible until I was satisfied. Doing this was very productive as it limited the chance of me avoid making errors and ultimately tested the limits of my concept.
As I had never used a letterpress machine before, I had to undergo the process of learning how to use it. This resulted in me producing over 50 prints of each lock-up, adjusting small variables every single time such as spacing between characters, the amount of ink, the level of pressure of rolling, the direction of rolling and more. This has taught me the key attributes to look out for when using the letter press machine in the future such as sharp edges, consistently inked characters and adequate spacing. I am glad I chose to dedicate the time to learning how to properly use the medium of letter press, as it has highlighted the importance of ‘emotional labour’ in my work, a concept which I have not consciously explored frequently in the past.
I ensured that I sketched out ideas for each deliverable prior to designing – this allowed me to quickly articulate my ideas onto the page prior to touching my Mac. I presented these sketches to my tutor prior to moving further down the design process.
This was the process that I underwent to create the type for my first concept. Initially, I was satisfied with the result, however I decided that I wanted to non-digitally change the colour of the red and purple type as red has connotations of negativity – and the poster is supposed to connote the contrary. Furthermore, after receiving feedback from my tutor and peers, I realised that some of the letters, specifically in the central word ‘you’ were illegible and needed to be re-inked. This decision then caused me to redesign the entire lock-up into four lines – one word per sentence – primarily for ease and continuity when editing in Photoshop.
These were the steps that I took to create the refined version of my aforementioned concept. I learnt from all of the mistakes that I made in my last, and first, print; applying make-ready – card – to the bottom of each character that was printing poorly, adding appropriate space between characters if distortion occurs, tightening the keys evenly and more. Going through this process a second time was valuable, despite being a very hands-on and demanding process from start to finish.
Here is the third and final process that I undertook when creating the rest of the type present within the concept. The experience of locking the type up was significantly more straightforward due to being within the bounds of an A4 frame and consisting of less type – however the process of printing from it was equally as challenging as the prior two prints – causing me to still print at least 50 minimum times to get the result I wanted. Once I made the decision to change the colour scheme of my poster, I used blending modes and the clipping mask function within Photoshop to make the type pink, specifically the same shade as seen on my researched album ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’. I think I have achieved this, and overall, I and feel relatively accomplished with being proficient in the medium of letter-press, so therefore I’m glad I used this project as an outlet to explore the medium in the most thorough way possible.
Here are all key the stages I undertook to design my poster. From the very beginning, I ensured that I was working with wood type and more specifically, the same face. This paid off as, although the structure of the spiral alternates slightly between versions, it’s skeleton never had to be changed. My research of 20th century posters directly influenced me to take the risk of setting type at angles; something very frequently frowned upon within circles of typographic purists.
When designing the leaflet, I wanted to ensure that I was not simply just duplicating the design of my poster onto it. I achieved this by experimenting with the positioning of blocks of type until I reached a result that made the leaflet feel like it’s own, designated entity, whilst also still feeling like it’s part of the set. The transparent semi-circles on either side represent where I cut using a scalpel to create a ‘revealing’ effect upon the viewer interacting with the leaflet, exposing the central word ‘you’, grabbing their attention immediately in combination with the hot pink contrasted against the bright yellow.
To ensure that the cyclical effect of the spiral didn’t get lost within the animation, I kept it’s integrity by animating each word to appear shortly after one another to replicate the effect. I added sound effects to compliment it’s snappy nature – each time a word is stamped onto the page and when an end-screen appears in frame, sound and pitch varying between the two, inspired by art-house cinema credit screens. Ultimately, this animation is very likely to catch the attention of my predominately young, student-age audience through the colour scheme and quick key-frames.