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1/4/25

Final Explanation

My concept for my poster for the Anthropocene project was to bring awareness to the effects mirco-plastics that are invading our oceans from bottles, bags etc and entering the marine wildlife especially fish that we then buy and consume, just one of the reasons to our contributions to Anthropocene.

My poster portrays a fish that is ironically plastic, that is also covered and packaged in plastic. All different elements I photographed and combined together in photoshop. To incorporate the word Anthropocene I created a label in Illustrator, referencing various packaging of fish I could find to give a more realistic effect. Adding elements such as stickers, barcode, etc helped with this. For the barcode I researched the amount of micro plastics that have been found in various parts of the human body so far, including the heart, kidneys and even the brain leaving with that staggering number.

To bring an interactive element to my works I created a QR that will lead you to an article about the effects of micro plastics in Ireland, hopefully it will bring awareness those who view my work.

For the background I photographed ice from a fish mongers making it as though this fish is sat laying in a supermarket waiting to be bought, starting the cycle all over again.

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30/4/25

Final Poster

Here is my final poster for the Anthropocene project, this was printed Munken 170gsm paper on A3 and A2 size.

A3 will be added into my portfolio that will be presented on the day with all of my work leading up this point and the A2 will be hung up for the assessors to view in detail.

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29/4/25

Here are my final three posters that I will go on to print, for the third image I tried to make it more brighter and less dull by editing the fish and ice background, I was also able to create more even wavy lines for the background of the labels. Between the second and third I felt this pulled it together creating more of a realistic effect.

The third was voted my besting final piece, to be printed and hung up for my assessment.

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28/4/25

Combining elements

Taking the suggestions giving to me these were two variations I created. The first one ended up being the strongest and conveyed the message I wanted of anthropocene more than the second.

I then got more feedback from students and my tutors Maeve and Sharon for the first poster to move elements and experiment with the stickers I placed to see what the outcome looks like to create a more harmonious poster.

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10/4/25

Packaging Research

I began research online for references to fish packaging that I could find. I wanted something minimalistic in style but also realistic looking. Here are a few I took inspiration from.

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10/4/25 - 11/4/25

Poster variations

Taking my finished fish piece I created in Photoshop I moved over to Illustrator to begin creating my poster. We were to create four variations of our poster, here are my final four I came up with. Talking with my classmates and getting feedback number one and three were strong posters.

My tutor Meave had the suggestion of combining the two elements of the stickers and label style to see what the outcome would look like.

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8/4/25

Using Photoshop I combined majority of my elements such as the tray, fish and overlayed the plastic layer all the items I collected and photographed over the last few days making sure to add drop shadows and layer styles to create a realistic .

The biggest decision I could probably make for the future of my poster would be the deciding fish I would use.

Both were ideal for my concept, but the left fish just seemed to convey the message that bit more as it had a lot more detail to it that would be recognised instantly as a fish, while the right would be a bit longer to understand in my opinion.

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7/4/25

Edward Fella

Typographic legend Ed Fella’s exhibition in Portland merges art and graphic design

Edward creates these radical off the wall typographical words. Combining various styles to create an interesting layout that brings your eye around the page.

This came up as a suggestion when I was researching typographers. I find this work a bit too chaotic and overwhelming to look at. It definitely is very artistic approach and a great ability to portray a word and shows the importance of how typography really has influence on the persons mood who is viewing it.

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7/4/25

Coming closer to digitising our posters, I needed a few more elements before I could start, such as ice, plastic, and plastic containers.

With these collected, I will be able to begin placing these elements together with my plastics fish too create my poster on illustrator.

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7/4/25

Experimental elements

I was suggested during my feedback while discussing my last concept it would be interesting to incorporate a plastic fish of some sort to make my message stronger.

I experimented with small iron beads that I got in a children's toy store, I created a fish shape with them, trying to add a bit of definition with a variety of different shades.

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4/4/25

Layout / Typography Concept

I experimented with various layouts of what my final poster could look like along with a bit of typography.

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4/4/25

Digitising Style scapes /Experimental Design

Working in photoshop we bought our style scapes into photoshop, its that I began taking various elements of my styles cape and began experimenting with layers, colours and effects to create visually appealing works.

Once finished we brought these works into Illustrator where we used the eye dropper tool to create a colour palette, and added the word Anthropocene to them.

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4/4/25

Developing Concept

I had the opportunity to photograph these fish that my tutor Sharon brought in me, I could try to incorporate these into my poster later on by experimenting to see which one suits my concept best.

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3/4/25

Stylescape Collage

Today, we created an analogue stylescape board that will hopefully give us a vision into what our poster will look, colour palette, and the overall vibe of it. Using various cutouts, colour papers and plastic to create this piece.

I found it somewhat difficult to find the exact images in the magazines provided, but I will explore this collage more when we bring it into photoshop and Illustrator.

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3/4/25

After Effects Experiment 2

Today we worked on creating a small animation of our names in After effects. Working with the type effects in the app posed an a bit of a challenge for me, these were slightly more complex than the simple animations setting for the shapes I created last week. With help from Lydia I got confident enough to add various effects towards the end of class and this was the end results. Adding a background to animations pulled it together.

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2/4/25

Artist Research

Shepard Fairey, Graphic Designer

https://www.artshelp.com/the-powerful-social-and-environmental-messages-of-shepard-faireys-art/

Shepard is an American activist and artist who uses his platform to spread awareness to topic such as the fast rising issue of climate change, anthropocene along with political and racial awareness.

These posters really caught my eyes with how bright and vibrant thery are. His work is very illustrative and this will be interesting if that is the root I go down for my poster it is nice to see various way I could capture my view on Anthropocene.

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1/4/25

Concept thumbnails

After discussing my past concept with the class, I decided to develop my ideas to something else to keep with the shopping theme.

I've decided to create a shopping scene with a fake fish in a plastic container covered in plastic. Creating a scene as though it was in a shop, where you could purchase it off the shelf.

I created various layouts that I could potentially create, two were just the fish in the container as the main focus or I had the idea by creating a more detailed piece by photographing a shopping basket with the fishing various fruits and veg surrounding it.

I got great feed back with this concept and feel this is the direction I will be taking for my final poster.