Week 6 - Water... A scarce and diminishing resource.

            The concept behind my poster is the resource that is most important to not only humankind but also life in general; and that is water. Water is known as the “resource of the future” as it is running out because of human abuse and pollution to the environment. Clean fresh water will be a huge asset and resource in the coming decades that will be looked at in a similar light as oil today. Many experts predict wars and conflicts being fought over water as a resource in the future.

            The idea behind my poster is that water is running out. Many of us take it for granted as we are living great lives of abundance in a developed country. This is demonstrated by the water streaming out of the faucet into a pair of cupped hands. My message is that it is running out as it is running into the hands of the privileged person. My target audience is around 18-30, mainly university-aged students that are the future leaders of our planet. I demonstrated this by using a pair of young female hands cupping the water. To put emphasis on the water, I made it bright blue as it bubbles to capture the viewer’s attention, along with making everything else black and white, focusing on the hands and water, and making the background blurry.

            In Photoshop I created 3 layers, one blurry background black and white (Gaussian blur), one black and white sharp cut of the hands and the water, and one of just the water in a bright blue colour to capture attention. Along the way I had problems with the lasso tool to select the hands and water, so I used the pen tool which proved very useful. One problem I did not figure out was how to blur the edges of the bright blue water in the hands as much as I wanted. No matter how much I smoothed and feathered the edges it still didn’t work out so I did the best I could, playing with the edge refining options and feathering. After everything was complete I picked a font I liked and used the eye dropper tool to select the same colour of the water as the font.

            In the end the font made the poster look complete, simple, eye-catching, and concise. I was satisfied with it considering the fact that a few weeks ago I barely even knew what Photoshop was! I believe my poster does address my target audience based on its simple and concise message in text and the use of young female hands grasping some bright, colourful, flowing water.