First, The Posters...
- madelinehendricks15
- Jan 25, 2023
- 4 min read
This blog will be dedicated to writing about my process in creating the Our First People campaign for my Graphic Design senior thesis project. This project has now been at the forefront of my mind for four months now and will continue to take up space for the months to come. It will include six posters, an infographic book, merchandise, and this website. I’m dedicating this first post to introducing this Indigenous Struggles social campaign to you.
The subject of this campaign was interesting to me because, as a person of Native American descent, the topic of Indigenous People’s struggles brings great sadness to me. Knowing the history and honor that Native American people have integrated into their culture, and then seeing the unprovoked injustice that the United States of America has brought upon them as a people, is very upsetting. It should be upsetting for everyone as well. Not many people talk about these injustices nearly enough, or mostly at all, and this project is a way to honor them and speak for them when no one else will.
This idea began when I chose to make a poster campaign for an Open Projects course last semester. It eventually snowballed into this entire idea of various mediums, which I decided would make an impactful and passionate senior thesis. I’ve always been the most in touch with my Native American roots. My mother is white, and my father is Afro-Indigenous. We have blood from both the Pequot tribe and the Wampanoag tribe, but I’m most tied to my Mashpee Wampanoag upbringing. As a child, I danced in a few Pow Wows, just until I became socially aware of myself enough to become shy. I look most like my dad and those most prominent features belong to my Indigenous ancestors, which I have become proud of as I grow into myself. My last name is common amongst the whole tribe, so it’s where I felt I’ve always belonged.
When it came to picking the project for my Open Projects class, I knew I wanted it to be the starting point for my Senior Thesis. I just didn’t know what I wanted it to be. I found that spending hours on Behance really inspired me. Looking through graphic designers’ portfolios filled my head with a lot of different ideas. I stumbled upon a social campaign of posters by Paulina Krynicka and felt the first spark of inspiration. I loved the look of old images in a modern design. This was when I decided on posters, specifically ones that showed old photographs of Native Americans. I decided that contrasting Indigenous people of the past and the present could begin a conversation about how much they have lost and how underappreciated they are today.
I decided on six topics: poverty, reservation conditions, the MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women) movement, alcoholism, loss of culture, and exploitation. I would create six posters for each and it would set the tone for the rest of my Thesis project. I designed the posters in order – starting with poverty. This was the biggest challenge for me as it was going to be the first one to establish the theme of all of the designs in the campaign. I wanted it to be timeless, drawing on Native American culture while being relevant in this modern era. I thought of these posters as “what kind of poster would my brother have hung up in his room in high school?”. I grew up seeing his Homeland Security poster every day of my adolescence. What would a Native American be proud to hang up on their walls?
This poster started out rough, I won’t lie. Looking back, it was much too bright for a topic that wasn’t positive. The font wasn’t quite right, and the positioning was all wrong. The font I originally went for was a graffiti-type look, which was inspired by the graffiti often found on reservations. I wanted the poster design to be something true to Native Americans, but the font didn’t make it serious enough. I wanted people to look at the posters and take them seriously. Eventually, I changed the color overall and made it darker, but kept it natural. I also fixed the way it looked in photoshop by adjusting filters.
When it came to the final poster, I finally changed the font to something much more serious and added a texture to the poster that looks like Buffalo hide. Buffalo hide was often used in Indigenous art, so I thought it was important to include this subtle nod to their culture. This texture is used throughout my entire thesis project.
The rest of the posters had their own processes starting from extremely rough drafts to becoming complete within a few weeks. At the end of the fifteen weeks, these were the final posters I created and presented at the end of last semester. I’m still proud of them, but there’s always room for adjustments as I create the rest of my campaign. But for now, you’re caught up on the last four months of my creative process.
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