Amnesty Evaluation.

Considering, that before I started this unit I had not heard of Amnesty International, gaining the knowledge of what this charity does and who they help was the first thing I learned. After finding out what they did, the second item on my agenda was to work out which issue raised, I felt strongest about and what I wanted my campaign to say.

The part of this project I had the most trouble with, was working out what to base it around and the fact that we had to avoid all political views made everything a lot more complicated.

I decided to tackle this problem by using a process of idea generation where I wrote down a list of words with which I associate Amnesty International; with a list of subsequent words I associate with them.

We had a talk with an Amnesty International representative, Barry Tempest, which in my opinion only proved to complicate matters further. Although he obviously had the best of intentions, I found it difficult to be convinced by what he was telling us. I don’t know whether it was just a bad presentation, but I found it hard to see the change happening and felt the money the charity was given could be used to make a bigger different if it was other wise utilised.

The most important thing I had to remember about this project was to take a professional view and to forget any personal opinions I may have towards the cause. I am working as a designer, and it is not my job to show my opinion, but the opinion of those I am representing. Of course, in the real world, I would not have the opportunity to choose the subject matter with which I am working; therefore, the problem of choosing what I believe in would be removed completely.

I chose to base my project around children’s rights, knowing that subjects referring to children are emotive by default. I conducted some research into children’s rights issues raised and was shocked by the statistic, “26 children have been executed in Iran since 2005.” Of course, most of the so called children were 16 and 17 and most of the male law breakers were rapists and murderers, but what shocked me the most was the crimes the females were meant to have committed.

Dina Parnabi was executed at the age of 16 for smuggling illegal literature into her school, Atefeh Rajabi Salaaleh was sentenced to death after allegedly having sex with an older man and Mona Mahmudnizhad was hung for teaching Bahá’í children classes. These incidents in Iran have caught the attention of the media, as documentaries have been made recently concerning these women. I was also very disturbed about the method of execution used in Iran, a slow and painful hanging, death by asphyxiation where as most countries now favour the method where the victim is dropped and their neck is snapped by the rope, resulting in almost instant loss of consciousness. In public executions in Iran, a crane is used to raise the victim above the crowd by the noose around their neck. Most countries use cranes to build homes, Iran use them to carry out unfair, savage capital punishments.

After reading about these inhumane and brutal killings in Iran, I began to doubt my previous convictions that capital punishments can be used as a swift form of justice. If nothing else, this revelation has been an important insight and I feel that I have broadened my sights and acknowledge the evil that can be committed lawfully.

Generally, this project was far more challenging than the text and image unit, this was due not only to the thought provoking subject matter, but also to the freedom given to us in the course structure to direct our own work. In the last project we had much more strict guidelines as to what was expected of us, we had numerous workshops, and the work was directed to include many experiments with techniques, where as in this topic we have a chance to push our work towards a final outcome however we felt appropriate. I enjoyed the freedom this method gave to me to explore my ideas, but this route also gave me chance to flounder unproductively.

I went through a desperate stage at the beginning of this unit when I had no idea how to carry it forward. Those around me seemed set in what they were basing their project around, feeling strongly and safe in knowledge of what Amnesty did, as I crawled closer to a state of desperation.

Then, suddenly one night, with no warning whatsoever, I was struck by a kind of divine inspiration, and after hours and days of searching around for an idea, any idea, I was able to carry my work forward, progressing and developing it into, what I hope was a coherent format.

What I found most successful in this project was my idea development. I started with a very vague idea and was then able to push it forward and expand it until I was left with what I felt was the best design I could produce. A lot of my ideas came with images that weren’t appropriate to the Amnesty International brand, pictures of hangman’s nooses and children’s feet dangling above the gallows, vulgar shock tactics that hindered the message I was trying to get across instead of supporting it.

For this project, we were encouraged to do little research as to create out own individual, original idea and not to be tainted by the adverts that have already exist. If I did this project again, I would probably dismiss the advice to minimise research, and go ahead with it anyway. I feel that I only produced my idea when I grained an in depth knowledge of the workings of Amnesty, and if I knew about this sooner, I feel I could have had my idea sooner, with more time to work on it.

In conclusion, despite the initial teething problems, and the issues I had with the charity, I feel I have overcome my personal views and designed a convincing poster, and am happy that I didn’t have to resort to any obvious images to do so, instead relying on symbolism and a more subtle approach.