For this project, I chose to do a poster about the environmental issue of deforestation. More specifically, I chose to focus on deforestation as a product of wasting paper. I also wanted to show the dichotomy of technology’s place in the issue, and I wanted to do it all very simply. A lot of paper is wasted by printing emails needlessly. At the same time, a lot of trees are saved by pragmatic individuals who do more of their paperwork digitally, without printing anything at all. Even in this day and age of burgeoning environmental consciousness, there are still places, like my husband’s old office for example, where one can find more than one or two people who print literally everything, needlessly in almost every case. I would envision the poster I have designed being displayed around any business office or building.
I started with a bright green color on an 8.5 x 11 inch canvas. Green inherently instills a sense of nature. I used ‘select all’ then I modified my selection à border, and made a border of 40 pixels, which I then filled with a darker green.
I used Google Images again to find appropriate subject matter. Here are source-links for the pictures used:
I placed all of these on the green background using separate layers. In fact, I just dragged and dropped them from Internet Explorer into the open document in Photoshop. I used rotate and scale on some of them to get the layout of the pictures the way I liked them; not static. I set up a layer fx style, applied to all of them, of a 10pt white stroke and a drop shadow of 145 degrees.
Next, I found some clipart of a tree, specifically just a tree outline (http://tinyurl.com/6f9rvlf). I opened a second file, and dragged in the clipart-tree. Then I scaled it large, then I found a generic memo that looked like it was printed out here: http://abovethelaw.com/2007/06/nationwide-pay-raise-watch-a-few-more-memos/; I placed it in a layer under the tree outline. With the magic wand, I selected around the tree, then dropped down to the memo layer and hit delete. Now I had a ‘tree’ of a memo. I then I found some crinkled paper in Google Images: http://www.deviantart.com/download/79779014/Crinkled_Paper_by_whippys.jpg; I put this on a layer above the memo, did the same thing to it to make a ‘tree’ of wrinkled paper, but used blending options to lower the opacity and make the memo-tree look like it’s made of wrinkled paper. I then flattened the image, and brought the tree over to the main poster. I used an fx of a 10 pt black stroke, and again the same angled drop shadow.
For the text, I used a font called “system”. I wanted it to stand out against the green and invoke that sense of technology. I opted for yellow, and since System doesn’t have a natural italic, I used ‘skew’ to italicize it. Then I used a slightly bigger stroke- 13 pt black- and again the drop shadow, and was quite pleased with the outcome.
I think the message is simple, yet poignant.
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