Propoganda Poster // Self Portrait

        The project was a "Propaganda Poster" using our "Self Portrait." The objective was to pick a topic, examples include anything political, humanitarian, etc., that would be the basis of the poster's meaning. I choose to make a politically based poster. It was mainly inspired by the Obama campaign posters. I choose to not make the poster support a single political party, but I wanted it to be more of a reminder to have young people like ourselves just go vote. I thought this message made sense to have more self portrait included in the poster, separately from the guidelines of the project.
        The first task was to create a a self portrait on Adobe Illustrator. I choose to make mine by using highlight/color changes to create shapes that would come together to make my photo come to life. We used a selfie to be our base of the self portrait. The tools mainly used was the pen tool and the paint brush tool. I did use other tools like pathfinder or the eraser, but you can visibly see the other tools at work more. I chose to pick colors that would like realistic to the shade range found within my original selfie. Black was the darkest color used; white was the lightest highlight color. The picture came together to make a more realistic replication of the selfie. From there, I choose to make the background a light green shade. The reasoning for making the background green was due to my eye color. Any shades of green typically on my body makes my eyes pop out. I choose to use this idea to create the background. I added blocks of colors ranging in greens to connect the style of the selfie to the background. All together, I found the selfie to be a strong representation of the selfie/myself and the colors made the perspective more realistic. 
        From the self portrait, we used our original work an converted them into propaganda posters. I choose to only use shades of red and blue to focus on the political meaning of my poster. I choose to use blue to focus on the darker parts of my selfie like my shirt and face. The hair converted into shades of red, due to the colors being lighter. I choose to make any of the darker spots in the blue section to be the darkest shade of blue; the highlights of the area are either the lightest shade of blue or white. I used the same idea to create the hair. I found it important to properly choose the color changes to make sure the self portrait stayed realistic, even though the colors are not. 
        As for the background, I choose to keep message simple. The word "VOTE" has a commonly understood message. Especially after the most recent election, I found that the topic was strategic and important to today's society. To keep the poster neutral, not affiliated to a political party, I choose the background colors to be the brightest red used and the darkest blue used. The word "VOTE" needed to stand out in the back; I choose to put it on-top of a color that would make the word pop. The font chose to use "Impact" was strategic to make the word really stand out. I did not want the message to get lost in the background. 
        All together, I was extremely proud of how the poster turned out. It conveyed the message while still clearly representing my self portrait in a realistic manner. The convincing message to go out and vote became clear in the color and font choice. It represent my own views that people showed be pushed to vote not bullied into voting for any specific party. I thought the use of myself as a young voter used my message even further. The inspiration for the poster from the selfie to the Obama champaign posters carried through. It was a successful use of the portrait and theme to relay my message to go vote. 

The Self Portrait