New Designers 2020: Pentagram Young Designers Award
Every year, the New Designers exhibition features many of the UK's HE design courses and the work of their newly graduated classes. In 2020, I was one of a select number of students from my university to be entered to the exhibition, display my projects and enter into any awards that interested me.
The Pentagram Young Designers Award asks entrants to make a stand related to an issue that is important to them and visually communicate it in a way that is powerful and asks people to change their views and behaviours. A lot of people, I believed, would take a stand on issues such as sustainability, climate change, veganism and so many more worthwhile topics. For me, one important issue existed and that was the way nurses in the UK are treated and have their worth downgraded to not being as important as that of a doctor. Personally, without nurses, doctors have nothing and can do very little.
My aim was to create a concept recruitment poster campaign that not only shows the attraction of the nursing profession but also tweaks the public opinion to think of nurses as incredibly valuable and the ones that actually keep the NHS running. I intended to let the imagery speak for itself and put as little text into each poster. All that was written was information showing that nurses are normal people but genuine heroes at the same time, and also a tagline to add emphasis to the visuals.
The inspiration for the design and look came from my knowledge of the 1940s propaganda posters and comic book art. Below are the stages of development for each poster. I taught myself a new skill in digital portraiture which I had only just discovered to do during my final year university project. It is definitely something I will a lot more of in the future.
