Self analysis on 'Anti-vape' campaign
Duration of the Project: 3 weeks
Role in project: Lead designer, Typography
Introduction
For this case, the chosen focus point of my poster is on serving the purpose of creating awareness and societal change towards the new age nicotine addiction today’s youth have. As well as how it’s impacting our environment as well as young people’s neurological development. With the research conducted on this topic, it appears the most interesting fit for this poster is to have an air of uncanniness with the theme of the old age nicotine problem and the new issue intertwining. Since smoking cigarettes in the 1900s mainly consisted of children before the age of ten, this was to cope with the mental demands of working in a factory. It was also encouraged for juveniles to smoke, and companies would create advertisements directed towards them. Factory owners would commission this so that young workers could take quick breaks and continue to work for long and inhumane hours. The same is seen in today’s popular media, for example music videos such as Halsey’s music video ‘Alone’, where they sexualise and romanticized smoking in a club with the vape being delivered on a silver platter around models. Although in the past there have been fruit flavoured tobacco products, there hasn’t been a young audience targeted nicotine campaign since the 1900s.
A vape advertised in Halsey's music video 'Along'
The packaging
Even the UKs vape sociation, UKVIA, is trying to answer to demands to change the packaging and many feel that it is too directed towards children. The very playful and bright colours, mixed with a cartoon styled mascot or image on the front can appear very harmless too many.
Bright packing of vapes sold in the UK
Research on focused Issue
There is also a strong correlation between vaping and air pollution as well as other environmental hazards this product causes. Vapes have also managed to introduce issues for the new generation of young people, as it is now not unusual to see children as young as 11 vaping in school. It has become a global epidemic over the recent years. It is interesting as this is the reincarnation of cigarettes but on a much more significantly damaging scale. This could tie into the new age sense of losing humanity, as this is a much more intense version of getting a nicotine addiction, and much worse considering we all are more educated and aware that it is harmful. There is a massive surge of addiction abuse on young children now.
Children and mental health in relation to vapes
Material Focus has also found that 1.3 million vapes are bought every week, they could see that last year 89% of surveyed young adults and young children have purchased a disposable vape, the number of children aged 11-17 has increased greatly since 2021.
A study conducted on 846,510 young adults aged 21 and below, were enrolled into 85 primary clinical studies (Vaping and Mental Health, Khan AM, Ahmed S, Sarfraz Z, Farahmand P, 2023). These subjects were taken from all over the world. They found that children that had never vaped before are significantly more likely to experience depression, impulsive behaviour, anxiety and suicidal tendencies than those who do not.
According to VicHealth there are many harmful environmental causations as a result of disposable vapes and the liquids from e-cigarettes. The e-liquids that leaks out from vapes contaminate water and cause harm to aquatic life since the liquid is washed and littered on the side of the street that reaches ocean water, according to ‘Wildlife and countryside Link’, a climate researcher (Laura Young) found 55 vapes littered on the floor of the city just in one hour of walking (Wildlife and countryside Link research, March 2023).
The materials used in these products are difficult or almost completely unable to be recycled, they consist of lithium batteries, coils and plastics. Researchers found that 10 Tonnes of lithium is thrown away and unable to be disposed of ethically.
Current Graphic designers on this issue
Anti-vape campaign by Jack Janson, 2021
Anti-vape campaign by Jack Janson, 2021
One graphic designer found on ‘Behance’ called Jack Jackson has taken an interesting approach to their ‘’anti-vape’ campaign. He created a sarcastic, almost satire like advert and formatted it in this old-fashioned comic book style type of composition with facts and captions like ‘New flavors no Teen can resist?’’ and underneath that states a fact in a black negative box saying ‘’27.5% of highschoolers use vapes. Time you start too!’, it uses very directive language. It seems to also reference the 2001 anti- film pirating adverts that would play right before a film, with the same theme and the directive text saying ‘’You Wouldn’t Steal a Car? Why Download a movie?’. Jackson uses only purposely sarcastic language in this campaign to state the obvious and how ridiculous it sounds so that the viewer can receive the message through an emotional response with how absurd it initially sounds at first glance.
They also use satire and by relating the old and the new in their last poster. Which is an emotively strong element that I would like to incorporate into my campaign to convey the message, as it is history repeating itself, we can and have experienced the outcome of people having this habit for years. They referenced the 1960s, as the text appears in the cold tone of red used in the Roman time font and the italic version underneath it, which gives the text this alluring attitude to the viewer with ‘’The number one vape choice of teenagers’’.
The Design Process
Art style
Thinking the concept of such a new age problem to an old age problem would be very interesting to work on and gave me many different paths to take in the design process.Using the artist Alphonse Mucha as an example to understand how to create an Art Nouveau piece. This method was generally used during WW2 to gather more recruits for the army to join in battle.
Art Nouveau consists of a usage of thick and thin lines on the character (generally a female), so the external anatomy of the female or subject has a thick line around it, but the inner work consists of much finer lines. Alphonse Mucha used to make use of live models to create his female figures but would than accentuate certain elements of the model to give it a very fantasy like feel. He would pay much attention to the model’s hair and clothing physics, to make the composition as ‘’flowy’ as possible. The colours in the pieces used to use very flat line tones and colours, normally only two colours were used in his work.
He would use one colour, and then two other colours for shading with very little variant between them. A method used for my piece would be to choose a colour and then add amber to doll the tone to match the period. This mainly was the time period’s painting and printing style, as print was used in mass production and colour and inks were very expensive and would oxidise very quickly.
A women smoking created by Alphonse Mucha
In this next piece, taking inspiration from is the advert recruiting for WW2, it’s interesting how they use the old fashion style of art nouveau (even for that period) to create a homeliness in the portrayed image to persuade the viewer that going to war is respecting and protecting traditional values, thus why they included two women in the poster with a child hugging/grabbing their legs. This is almost to say that the young child is only a boy and is afraid to go to war, for as the men in this depiction are going away in the distance, so it’s seen as mature and brave. The use of characters in the advert to tell a story, and just from looking at it you could see a sense of longing and worry in the women’s posture. The caption above the women is creating an argument in the reader’s head about what's right for the family’s that they may have. There is a clear direction as to who this poster is aimed towards, that being men who are old enough to join the army, or young men who are being convinced that that is the most noble thing to do in accordance with this poster. This ability to story tell is something I would want to include within my own artwork.
WW2 recruitment poster
Mood board for my Design
I wanted to start with bright colours in the design and then later dullen them with a contrasting cool tone along with amber to give it more a cynical sense to the piece. This is to represent a chilling atmosphere around the topic. Wanting to materialise a euphoric feel within the style of line work, making it appear smoother and almost ‘smudged’ in appearance.
My mood board
Drafting and Sketches
For the text, including emotive and personable language like ‘It’s never enough’, to link some personal experience to any viewer who is addicted to vaping.
A concept sketch
Here are different styles of speech were added to the concept for possible texts. This is taking inspiration from the WW2 recruitment posters that were designed by a graphic's artist called Kealey, EJ in 1915. Incorporating directive language towards the viewer, using emotively daunting language to express the subject's tone within the piece.
A concept Sketch
The inspiration behind the art style in this piece is that of Alphonse Mucha, since he himself was often commissioned to create smoking advertisements, this acts as a reflection to the modern-day cigarette problem, contrasting with the classic. The female subject is sitting on the back of a skeleton (that represents death in this case), as she seems unaware and dazed looking into space. The captions are placed in a diagonal style that read ‘Get off Death’s Back’. This acts as an art piece that serves the function for being a warning to the target audience. The decorative, contemporary fashion of the composition is very detailed and bright in colours, with the contrast of a very ominous figure lurking below the girl. This acts as symbolic artwork to spend awareness through caution. This narrative created on this work is a technique used by many historical artists to stimulate a conversion around the ethos of the painting.
The Final Outcome
Inconclusion
After inserting the drawn flowers into the design and creating a colour that fit with the theme of vaping, the text was inserted using a font called 'Feodalist Demo'. To help construct balance into the piece, there are borders drawn in place, where the colours would stand out in vibrancy contrasting with the background.
The colours use of over laying with each drawing gives it more dimension and makes the poster appear as a multifunctional product, to not only act as an awareness poster but also as a piece that could be sold on the market as a piece of art or a clothing/bag design.
The use of Mucha's techniques in line work, of thickening the outside lines to highlight the subjects, give the piece a vintage character whilst appearing as a modern day art piece. The slogan chosen 'Get Off Death's Back', is referencing the literal image of the woman vaping on the skeleton representing 'death', whilst heeding a warning to the viewers in protest.
This project met the industry standards in terms of being adaptable to print, digital advertisement and becoming a product on the market.
Works Cited
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