Donate Life Poster

This is a poster design I created for the Donate Life Maine Poster Contest, raising awareness about organ and tissue donation. The subject of my piece is a human torso with different tissue structures shown. My media was ink pen on paper.

To create this piece I first used a variety of different online sources to sketch my different organs and tissues in pencil so that they would be anatomically correct. I then went over all my outlines in pen and added hatch marks and stippling to show depth and texture, and to create value. Lastly I added the text in pen. Color is probably the most important element of design incorporated in this piece—I used red pen for the heart and for the word "Lives" to put emphasis on the heart which is a common symbol of life and to connect the graphic to the text by emphasizing the literal word. A major principle of design incorporated is contrast. I chose to leave my background white to not only contrast the black pen used for the body in color but to contrast the complexity of the body with the simplicity of a white background. For composition rules and techniques I used the rule of thirds (the body, which is the focal point is offset) and sharp focus—shown by the detail of the tissues. This project evolved in that I didn't initially know where I was going to put the text but then realized that if I drew the hand opened it would appear that the hand was showing or revealing the message.

The purpose of this piece was to support and encourage organ and tissue donation for the Donate Life program. This piece relates to my life in that I believe organ and tissue donation is a good way to help people and make use of the working parts of one's body after they've died. I think this piece would be stronger and more visually appealing if the border was the same white color as the background. I initially forgot to compensate for a border and had to add one that was a slightly different color. Although I would prefer that they were the same color, I think the contrast helps the picture stand out on its own. The most challenging part of this project was finding and using the different reference images I needed to do a correct representation of the human body. I am most proud of the way my stippling looks on the large intestine and of the color variation in the heart and text. This work shows my strength as an artist in effective use of limited color and attention to detail. It shows weakness in that the idea itself doesn't allow for a background.