100 Things// Sierra Leone Poster

This poster started off with the basic concept that was to visualise the difference between the person who mines diamonds and the world they live in with the person who buys the final cut and polished diamond and the world they live in. I started with a 'timeline' idea; that at one end of the spectrum you have a rough diamond and at the other a cut diamond. Around this I planned to have various facts and fugues about the different worlds the same diamond will exist in throughout its life.

I developed several different versions of the poster at the same time to give a good impression to myself which was best overall. I chose to pick quite earthy colours to depart from the fairly aggressive nature of the other posters so far, and made it two tone to add a more subtle feeling to the poster which is a contrast to the decisions I have made so far.

This version was the first and acted as a mediator for any of its offspring, everything is balanced out here and equal, which is not necessary what I want the poster to say at all. I got all of the data from several different articles, but mainly from one on the CNN website. I chose to work in dollars because it is a more international standard and the Miner and Buyer are more likely to be trading in this currency. It also allows me to use a higher household income for the rich man because the average American HI is $10,000 more than the British so it adds a more dramatic difference, however the average Briton does live longer so it was a toss up between the two contrasts I thought would be more shocking.

In this version I made two major changes, in the size of the price-tag attached to the expensive diamond and to the size of the text at the bottom of the poster. I changes the price-tag size to add more emphasis on the over inflated price of diamonds sold here, but to also dwarf the $50 the miner may receive for an average sized stone for obvious representational reasons. I also increased the size of the * to make the point at the bottom more noticeable and link it to the miners price-tag.

In this version I shrunk the size of the art-board so that there wasn't such a large empty space in the bottom half of the poster. I chose to try this instead of shifting the image down because I liked the way the big price-tag hung off the page. It also allowed the time line to remain relatively central to the poster...  

... However I also experimented with shifting the central design down the page. It does knock the timeline off the centre of the poster but overall I think the poster looks more balanced this way and draws more attention to the stones as central figures to the poster again. I also added the web address here and some detailing on the big price-tag to make it look slightly nicer than the small one, to represent a continuation with the theme of luxury on the right hand side an making the left even more shabby by comparison.