Audience / Purpose
The intended audience of this flyer or poster is those who are college-aged who enjoy listening to music and also wish to be sustainable. To further elaborate, the audience is those who want to be sustainable with their music technology but also have the funds to buy vintage technology or the means to upkeep the vintage technology they may already have access to. The overall purpose of the image for the intended audience is to persuade them to invest in or preserve vintage music technology. The larger purpose is to promote less electronic waste since vintage music technology is still a viable way to listen to music and it still exists extensively.
Image
With this image, I wanted to evoke the following: vintage, pop art, music, simplicity, and groovy. I wanted to aim for the look of a 70s-style poster, so I used a 70s-inspired background that was not too busy so that my illustration would still be the main focus. For the illustration itself, I wanted to show how listening to vintage technology can be stylish as well as an experience, so I picked an image of two people listening to a Walkman. The effect of the illustration is meant to show that vintage technology can be a shared experience-- exemplified by the couple-- as well as show that it can add style as shown by their outfits. Furthermore, I thought illustrating the couple in a pop-art fashion would make them stand out in a unique way that once again evoked the feeling of vintage and style. I also wanted the Walkman to stand out as central to the image, so I wanted to achieve that by drawing the Walkman in a different style and an orange-blue color palette. Lastly, I also wanted the text to be in-line with the vintage style with the yellow shadow effect from the pink outline of the letters. I also thought the words themselves, as well as the word "Pop", effectively conveyed that the image is meant to get the audience to associate sustainability with vintage technology and style.
Process
The element of this image that by far took the longest was tracing and creating the pop art of the couple; the pop art was also the most rewarding aspect as I felt I had learned how to use Illustrator effectively. The process began with tracing the original image of the couple with the Walkman with the pen tool. I then made all the pop-art swatches by drawing four equal-sized circles and then drawing a square around them. After sending the square to the back of the image, I grouped them together and then changed the colors of the circles to the colors I needed for the image and made them swatches. After making the whole outline a "live paint object" I was able to use the live paint bucket tool to fill in the parts of the outline with the corresponding pop-art swatch. When I was done with the bulk of the illustration, I imported a picture of a Walkman I liked and then used the "trace tool" to get a low-fidelity trace that I could rotate and place in the woman's hand. I also changed the colors of the walkman to orange, blue, and pink to use colors that would stick out. I then traced the headphone and the headphone cords with the pen tool, and I used orange for the headphone cords because I thought it would stand out on top of the pop-art. With all the elements of my illustration done, I exported it and then went to Canva. In Canva, after finding a retro background I liked on Google, I chose a "poster" template and imported both the background and my illustration. I moved the illustration to the far left side to give it a simplistic feeling as well as to give myself space to insert text. After finding a font and colors I liked, I landed on the phrase "music sustainability makes you POP!", and I was overall happy with the poster I had created.
Learning
Learning Illustrator definitely proved to be a challenge but I also found it very rewarding. I wanted to challenge myself by creating pop art, and even though I followed a tutorial, it took a lot of time as well as trial and error. I also felt that while Canva is rather intuitive, I learned to use it to tie my image together, as it is a good platform to insert a background and some text. As far as design, I learned that simplicity is often most effective, especially when aiming to capture a retro style. I learned my lesson from my photo project, so despite the fact that the illustration is rather busy with the pop-art, I feel that the central items are still just the couple and the Walkman. Furthermore, the background and the text are in-line with the retro theme while remaining simple as well. In terms of communication, I learned that being straightforward with the messaging often achieves the goals I want. For instance, I feel that the text I included directly implicates the message of vintage technology and sustainability in a way that isn't too "on the nose" since it includes a pun as well.
Next
For the next project, I'd probably like to go the extra mile to clean things up and take fewer shortcuts. There were a couple of instances in this project where I didn't clean up some jagged pen-lines or some messy aspects of the pop-art, so I would like to do that differently in the next project. Although I think my final product came out very well, cleaning up some lines as well as some features in the hair and face probably would have made it just a bit better and look a little cleaner.