Work
Work, work, work. I’m inching closer to having these two triptychs finished up now. The direction has changed a little for one of the series, but I think definitely for the better.
The first series, based on the National Security Hotline campaign has taken shape as a questioning look at the Australian media. My first instinct was to point the finger at the politicians that created this policy, but I then realised that this policy is in fact based on a great deal of public opinion. And these opinions are often shaped by ugly, headline hungry, tabloid ‘journalism’.
I’ve had a growing attitude that we should be holding journalists more accountable for the stories they run. Quite often, writers like Andrew Bolt and talkback hosts like Alan Jones (I’ve deliberately avoided the term ‘journalist’ here) seem to really escape any reprimand over what could often be termed sensationalist pieces at best; poorly researched, bigoted and deliberately inciting public outrage at worst.
So, instead of the easy target of the politician, it’s time to go after these guys…
…these are almost finished now, and I’m really looking forward to putting them in some strategic places once they’ve been printed up. I’d love to see a double-take as someone realises that they’re not one of the original campaign.
The second triptych is all but ready for printing too. These are now much more graphic than they were previously, and have given me a chance to spend some quality time in Illustrator…
…I tried to keep these fairly clear and direct. Each poster represents a different point surrounding the ‘boat people’ issue, with a graphic to hit the point home. The title, and barbed wire element was carried through each and the red, white (black) and blue are a final reference to the Australian flag.
I’m going to try and get these to the printers as soon as possible, so I can allow myself enough time to do a test print of each. After the poor printing results of the last project, I’m keen to avoid a repeat of a sub-standard print.