Erin Brown — Uncensored
For my leap project, I chose the topic of interest of banned books through the campaign uncensored. This topic has always been interesting and equally concerning to me because of how often book banning is an early sign to larger problems and oppressive governments. I believe that banning books is a form of censorship and is often not brought a lot of attention to so it’s easier to do. But, I don’t think that a lot of people are aware that banning books is a thing and is actually quite prevalent in today’s society. I decided to do a poster because when I think of propaganda, I often think of old posters. I also wanted to do a poster because I often make flyers for the clubs that I’m in so I have some experience of creating things to catch attention.
To start with, I was immediately drawn to the headline which had said how reading banned books can expand your cultural awareness. So from there, I got a phrase in my head to start with inspiration. That phrase was banning books is banning culture because it’s true but also an equally catching phrase. Additionally, a lot of times books that are banned involve topics that include minorities such as people of color or lgbtqia+ Banning culture is a thing that people I think take more seriously than maybe the act of banning books. People are more aware of culture and avoid going against culture in today’s world. As we’ve learned in this class, words are very powerful and can be very manipulative as well. The words that I chose should be chosen carefully.
After picking my initial phrase, I wanted to think visually what else would stand out. I decided to do the colors red and black because I consider them eye catching and powerful colors. But, I also think that the colors often have negative connotations and are connected to emotions such as anger. The next visual element I decided to use was one of those big red no circles because that felt right for the image I was trying to portray. I wanted the viewer to feel extremely about this subject.
After laying out my original design, I got the idea for another phrase. This one was more extreme because I said Nazis banned books too. This is an inherently negative phrase where I’m comparing any one who bans books to a nazi. No one who is a good person wants to be considered to be a nazi and will steer clear of behaviors that are connected to that. This was inspired by what we learned about propaganda by pulling on a person’s sense of good and their morals. Everyone has a sense of right and wrong and I wanted to manipulate that in my poster. I furthermore added the phrase “don’t be on the wrong side of history” to continue with that idea. This was also a little bit of fear mongering as well because audiences don’t want to do the wrong thing. I think it’s a lot of people’s fear, especially in this generation, that they will do something that will get them canceled.
Overall when designing this poster, I was using the propaganda idea of persuasion. Through the poster, I want to persuade my audience to go against banning books. So I used the words and visuals to add to that. Another strategy I used when making my poster was the strategy to define my enemy. There is something that can be used to pull people together against the enemy, in this case the people who are banning books.
I decided to add a quote by Oscar Wilde because of the propaganda theory that information connected to credible sources can be more powerful. Oscar Wilde is a famous author so his words hold more weight because of that credibility. I was looking for quotes about censorship and wanted it to be from a name that would be recognized. A quote will have 10x more impact if people recognize the source.
The main idea of propaganda that I learned and used was the key of propaganda which is to activate strong emotions. This poster is not designed to have a neutral feeling behind it. The audience should be aroused by the poster. I want something that will catch and keep their attention.
The main reflection that I had after designing the poster was shock over how easy it was. It’s a little scary how easy and little thought it took me to make that poster. If I, a 21 year old college student who has taken a few classes on propaganda and advertising, can make a borderline effective poster, it’s so scary to imagine what people with a career in this can do. It makes me understand why propaganda was so successful in the past to manipulate people. It’s also scary because I had no thoughts about the consequences of what the poster would actually do and I just looked at it as what could be most effective. It makes me think that a lot of people probably can just make awful propaganda and not care about what will come out of it.
Using that on a positive note, I think that doing something yourself is the best way to become more critical of it. If I can look at something from a perspective that I know the intention behind the creator, it will hopefully make me realize that there is a goal behind most content that I am seeing. Especially if things I see are getting strong emotions for me, that was probably the point. So it gives me the ability to take a step back and see it through a different lens. I think that overall I liked doing this project because it helps me put into practice what I learned. It’s one thing to learn and read about something, but it gives you a new perspective if you actually do it. It also helps put together all of the pieces that I’ve learned and see it as a whole in my product.
