For this exercise we were asked to produce three illustrations be used as part of a series of A3 posters to publicise the museum of my choice to three audiences: children aged 5 to 9, teenagers aged 13-19 and the general adult audience on the basis that the museum wants to encourage diverse sections of the populations to visit and to perceive it as a place of interest.
I chose the Natural History Museum in Geneva which I visited and took plenty of photos for inspiration. I then catalogued the exhibits according to the most appropriate for the audience groupings. The main exhibitions were: (i) regional/local fauna; (ii) wildlife photographer of the year (national geographic); (iii) bottles in the sea exhibition informing on plastic waste in our oceans; (iv) Swiss treasures: 200 years of natural history in Geneva (valuable and extraordinary pieces from the canton).
Before then sorting the photos into what could be used for each of the three target groups, I started brainstorming on ideas about why certain animals would be more interesting or not to the different age groups:
Children aged 5-9
While trying to avoid stereotypes and while I think that almost anything in a natural history museum could be portrayed as interesting for children, I had to make some kind of choice. I also took some photos of the images that were clearly for children and of the things children had made. So I went for animals that could be funny and strange: big beaked toucans, bugs, strange ducks with funky collars, baboons, porcupines, parrots, strange fish and undersea scenes and an impressive tiger- all of which colourful and attractive!
Teenagers 13-19
For teenagers I decided that more ferocious animals might be more interesting to teenagers, birds of prey, tigers etc. but what I found most interesting was the plastic exhibition and given the strong youth movements for climate change and environmental issues around the globe today, I felt that this would resonate the most with young teenagers. I did also add in some of the part related to volcanoes and chemistry which might also resonate with young students studying such things.
General adults
For general adults I decided that the most interesting things for them could be seeing the very rare local fauna of Geneva like these strange lake creatures as well as more local fauna typical of the region. They also had intricate glass made replicas of animals which were very impressive and really beautiful, especially the jellyfish. Maybe not for all adults but they have an important collection of gem stones and crystals which are beautiful, if not particularly interesting in a narrative sense (for me at least). I was basing this all on what I found most interesting as an adult of course. However, what I actually found the most stunning was the temporary National Geographic photo exhibition of all this years’ winners. It was absolutely brilliant with the most superb photos of animals in the wild you can imagine, with some ferocious images of the hunt or stunning animals in beautiful landscapes but as you can imagine, we were not allowed to take photos of these!
I then to had to choose one image from each of the categories from above to then eventually develop an illustration for each. In the guidance they explained that we could have ‘matching’ styles or very different styles and so before fully deciding which final image for each I would use, I started brainstorming and sketching combinations and ideas in small thumbnails and notes to try to develop my ideas first.
Given that two of the animals were animals that live under water, one seemingly translucent and the other de facto translucent rendered in plastic, I decided that trying to give that kind of effect on dark paper would be a nice effect, thinking that the colourful toucan would also work for that. I tried some pastel, some pens, oil pastels etc. on dark card and even painted card with acrylic to get a shiny dark surface to try out too to see what effect it gave and even some markers. The markers worked a treat and since I haven’t used this medium before, and it was really bold, I decided to got for that. So I invested in lots of normal and pastel coloured markers (posca brand, they really take on dark card) and tried out some versions of the toucan, manta ray etc. and even mixed in some pastel pencils to help give that translucent effect. I got the below effects.
I had tried some of the smaller visuals with more content but I decided to keep it really simple and elegant and accompany the image with a catchy or interesting message and made the below visuals. I like things to match so I did keep a running theme through the three but made the toucan a little more fun/characterised. These would be presented at A3 size vertical posters when developed at scale.
I then chose to fully develop the Swiss lake creature. I started to like this one more and more as I realised, or hoped, it could almost be a little joke by adding the title ‘Uniquely Swiss’ with a subtitle ‘discover creatures only found in the depths of Swiss lakes’ or similar. The creature is not particularly cute but since most people are likely to have never seen it, I thought it would evoke curiosity also since when people think ‘uniquely Swiss’, they usually think of something elegant like milk chocolate, watches or fondue. I then built in the text, trying out a few different ideas as per the below and different colours text as well as adding the musuem’s logo.
I realised I needed to play with the photo on photoshop to get better contrast and more effect, delete the logo background and try some rotating and resizing of the image and text etc. so I did that and came up with the final version below with the addition of a tiny little Swiss flag – a little cheesy!
In terms of messages for the other two, I would have gone with something like ‘Our plastic world’ for the manta ray to evoke teenage sentiment and interest about the state of our environment and something fun like ‘Meet Anne the Toucan and friends’ for the younger children as a kind of invitation.
Final reflections:
I definitely found it challenging though interesting trying to place myself in the shoes of different age groups. Thinking about modern trends e.g. youth movements around plastic pollution, was helpful to get a sense of what people are also attuned to in modern life. Also, as with the exercise when I went through the different kids illustrations for age groups, there is actually also quite a bit of overlap though in case, that’s a good thing since the point is to attract as many types of people as possible. I realised that this was also the first time I had done a poster where I really tried to think about the graphic design and layout more and bringing in little lines and overlapping the text on the antennae of the creature was something I really had to try out as it didn’t come naturally but then it really gave a better interaction with all the elements of the poster which I found more compelling.
References:
Please note that I worked directly from my own photos for this exercise.
I of course used the Museum website for inspiration and use of their logo http://institutions.ville-geneve.ch/fr/mhn/
Jo's Illustration Learning Blog 