GTFO

This is a poster I made in regards to the topic GTFO, or, Get The Filter Out. It is a campaign based on the fixing of getting the litter or garbage of leftover cigarettes off the ground. These leftover cigarettes are called “butts,” and the whole purpose is to clean them up around the world and get them either in the garbage or to stop people from smoking them. Something that caught my eye was the big GTFO letters, which have a different meaning in text messages, so I thought that was clever. There were steps to create this piece of work that are actually more in depth than I thought it was going to be honestly. Those steps included first off, finding a topic. Then I had to figure out what exactly I wanted to do as far as delivery. That took the longest. Next was actually taking the time to do some research and to find the elements that fit my picture of propaganda. And lastly was the actual presentation of the colors and alignment of the images and phrases within. This is how I assembled my take on propaganda with GTFO.

First I had to figure out who my target audience was. My target audience was directed at two different groups. The first group is the smokers, or people who smoke cigarettes. The second group was to everyone else who does not smoke. I include them in this because these people see these cigarette butts on the ground just as much as the people responsible for it, and they need to be the ones to help clean and pick them up off the ground. A lot of what I learned about propaganda involves catching and grabbing an audience. To do so, I wanted to make a type of media that everyone could see, so I chose a poster. That was the first decision to make. The next step was thinking about a concept, and I went with a simple one. The simple one was better because it was easy to follow with just two pictures, both from reputable news sites, and one phrase, which was the name of the movement. It wasn’t as easy as I thought with choosing the colors, because at first I wanted to make it bright, so everyone and anyone would notice it, but then I thought deeper. I wanted to choose the photos first, and in choosing photos, I wanted to have a graphic art picture, along with an actual photo of evidence, to show that there is reason behind it. The photo I chose was specifically the cigarette butts in the sand, because everybody loves the beach, and when seeing the butts in the sand, it brings down that happiness to a sadness and brings emotion. The graphic art picture was not a specific choice until I saw it. I was just looking for a unique, but simple piece of artwork that would catch the eye and bring the attention in. When I saw the one I chose, it was a no brainer, plus it fit the theme of the poster completely. Next is the choice of color. As I said earlier, I wanted to go bright to catch the eye of the audience, but then I had a second thought. If I went with bright colors, that would make this poster almost seem joyous in a way before the audience saw it. After brainstorming for a bit, I thought that the poster should resemble the colors of the cause. Orange, green, and white was the final decision for a couple reasons. I understand that a thought of these colors could promote cigarettes, given that they are the same color, so with a bit of darkening, I made it so those colors seemed gross in a way. The dark orange and dark green bring a glum emotion to the movement and that’s why I wanted to make people feel what the world feels. At first the text was hard to read, but then I thought as a person would get closer or take a better look at what was right in front of them, they would be able to read the letters and phrase of the movement’s message.

Overall I think that this activity was very useful. Creating propaganda is very interesting and fun in a way to be honest. It allowed me to be creative with my own mind and how I would tackle the idea of it. It was not just some quick poster and message that took a short time. It took a while to actually find the right movement that fit what I was trying to accomplish. I had fun figuring out which approach to use and to find unique ways to blend the poster together to make it fit right as well. Now the whole project was not all good. Although it was fun deciding what to do and to create what I created, it was also difficult to an extent. To figure out the blend for the message and to search for pictures that fit what I was doing took time. It took about several different sites to figure out and find the exact and right pictures and content I wanted. Propaganda is easy if you do it a lot and create those catchy messages regularly, but for someone like me who has not done it before, it was a great experience.