For my EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) project I explored how the stigmas regarding anxiety can be reduced through creating a graphic design poster, featuring celebrities who have spoken out about their personal experiences of anxiety.
I chose to pursue this project because anxiety is frequently misunderstood and not taken seriously enough because of surrounding stigmas, leading to 9 per cent of adults agreeing that ‘one of the main causes of mental health is a lack of self-discipline and willpower’
Research
For this project, I carried out both primary and secondary research, in order to further my understanding of anxiety and how it affects people.
As part of my primary research, I carried out a survey on Google forms which I asked people from the age 16–17 to fill out. The survey asked questions about their experiences of anxiety as well as how they feel as though it is viewed in society. I found the responses from this survey very insightful as they helped me to realise how people my age are affected by anxiety.
For my secondary research, I investigated who anxiety affects through reading case studies, watching TED talks, and looking at statistics. The research that I carried out helped broaden my understanding and further influenced my design choices for my poster.
Inspo
Whilst carrying out the research I was inspired by various anxiety campaigns and how they approached raising awareness for anxiety.
I was also inspired by events that I went to and art galleries that I visited including the ‘Dork Bot’ event in London and the Josef Albers exhibition in the ‘Tate Modern’
Poster Development
This research led to me communicating the idea of anxiety graphically within a poster, the main message I wanted to portray in my poster was that anxiety can affect anyone.
I feel that I portrayed this through my use of colour, I decided to use a wide range of colours including pinks, oranges, blues and greens in order to engage the viewer and create depth within the squares. I feel as though the use of colours are not only in contrast with the black background but also portrays the idea of individual experiences of anxiety since every celebrity has a different combination of coloured squares. The colours I used are very friendly, playful and fun which further makes my poster approachable and friendly.
I also decided to use a computer style font which is constructed from squares, because I felt as though it fitted in well with my use of squares in the poster. The gaps within the letters create a sense of fragmentation and imperfection, which mirrors the way I am deconstructing perceptions of celebrities and showing how they suffer from anxiety.
I used concentric squares inspired by Josef Albers ‘Homage of the square’ work. I was interested in exploring the idea of using layers within a square in order to show the image of the celebrity in a new perspective. I feel as though the concentric layers within the square engage the viewer as well as presenting the idea of layers mirroring how celebrities have various layers and also suffer from anxiety behind the scenes. I decided to use celebrities who were easily recognised and are often presented in the media. I feel as though the celebrities who I chose have an appeal to teenagers as they are often looked up to as role models.
The direction and ideas behind my project continuously changed before I reached my final outcome. I initially intended to produce an infographic about anxiety however after looking at examples I decided otherwise because they felt negative and portrayed mental health as clinical which doesn’t help with the existing stigmas.
I decided to use quotes instead because they are more personal and have a stronger emotional impact than a statistic would. Infographics did not express the fact that anxiety is an individual experience that can affect people in numerous ways, by using quotes on the poster I was able to show a more personalised experience.
Experiments
I experimented with producing portraits using glitch art, however after experimenting with this idea I felt as though it was too jarring for the viewer and created the impression of being unsafe and was unfriendly which furthermore presented anxiety in a negative way and did not help in going against the stigmas in the way that I envisioned.
Through my research, I discovered that there was an overwhelming amount of celebrities who have spoken out about their experiences which made it difficult to narrow them down to nine for my poster. I went about this through focusing on celebrities who are currently in the media in order to make my poster more relevant. I also found that it was difficult to create diversity in my poster as less male celebrities had spoken out about their experiences.
Overall I have really enjoyed the process of this project and am pleased with my final outcome, which is currently being displayed around my school to further raise awareness of anxiety.
