Image as commentary 

For Week 5, the activity provided was to create a relief print of another environmental cause of our choice. This time I chose coral bleaching as it is something I have grown up hearing about. 

We began by sketching out thumbnails of poster ideas, I also did a mind map to try and help me think of things outside of the box. After receiving feedback, I chose to pursue the coral shaping out the word "HELP". 

The final sketch of the image I traced onto the Lino block. 

The relief print of the design. I originally wanted to make the background cut out but realised I wanted to make the coral white/transparent as it is about coral bleaching and disappearance. 

Digital explorations of the design. I played around with transparency but due to the details, it made it ineligible unless it was on a flat colour background. I toned the colour in Photoshop to blue, and put images behind the design. I was happy with the water, but the coral was too busy and made the design hard to distinguish even when the colour was put back to black. 

I also quickly put the design on a tote bag to see how it would translate. 

Final poster. I struggled with how I could put my design onto a poster, I think this was the cause of the background of the design being inked. However, after looking at other environmental posters, I landed on this design. 

Instead of a plain background, I found this image from Unsplash by Silas Baisch, an ocean filled with nothing. I liked the gradient it gave to the negative space of my design. To match the bold, square, stamp of my design I used the font Impact and let the text bleed to the edges. The colour of the font was colour-picked from the Lino design so it is not a perfect black. 

Overall I am happy with my design, I am proud of myself for finishing the Lino cut and shocked my vision came true. I learned more about relief printing and got better at visualising how a design may look in this form while drawing it. I felt like I had improved from my week one exercise in negative space and look forward to learning more skills that may help me in the future.