Donate Life Poster

The subject of my project is the Donate Life Maine Poster Contest. To enter this contest, we had to create a poster that influenced people to want to add "organ donor" to their licenses or identifications in Maine. For my design, I decided to keep the focus on making my poster more personal and local, using Maine as the main subject. Since the poster obviously had to have something to do with organ and tissue donation, I also added some words and pictures that reflect that. To make this poster, I just used some Tombow brush pens that I have for the basic colors, and red watercolor paint for the heart to make it look not as solid as the rest. I also used a stencil of the state of Maine to help me get the proportion right, but wrote all of the lettering in my own handwriting to make it look more unique, like having the heart not perfectly drawn and colored. Part of my difficulty with this project was finding out a way to include all of the things I wanted to—my slogan, organs, words, and Maine silhouette—without using up too much space, because I did have a limit to how much space I could use. So I decided to combine some things, and make the design more interesting by putting the bubble letters into the main silhouette, creating a weird-looking design until you get up close and see what it really is.

The rules and techniques displayed in my project are color, line, shape, form, space, contrast, and attempted balance. This mostly comes from the words and lines in the main silhouette and the bubble letters. The attempted balance comes from the placement of words and live lines from outside the Maine silhouette. I, at first, only had the words spelling out the slogan, but then Mrs. Medsker mentioned that I could do more with my background, including maybe adding some life lines to balance out the white space. So, I added some green (to go with the red) life lines to add to the abundance of white space in my project.

The meaning behind my project is trying to get people to add "organ donor" to their identifications so that if anything were to happen to them, their functioning organs and tissues would be donated to someone who is in need of those specific organs and/or tissues. Organ donors can save lives, and help people live even if they aren't able to. I also wanted to add all of the possibilities of organs and tissues that can save people's lives and by becoming an organ donor, you are really helping people and creating more lives. My project relates to me because I am an organ donor, I have it on my ID and will have it on my license, and I think it's really important to recognize how many people you can help, and how many people don't actually realized can help people by doing this. The life lines connect to how lives can keep going with organ and tissue donations.