Declare a National Holiday

Stamps and Leaflet Design - Vis. Com.

In this project our task was to create a set of postage stamps and a leaflet to promote a National Holiday of our choice. I chose the theme of herbivore day after reading an eye opening article in the Guardian about how by 2050 everyone will have to have a mainly vegetarian diet. On this day everyone would be encouraged to go meat free for the day, raising awareness of the benefits a vegetarian diet can have on your body, health and also the environment. 
First I started off by brainstorming some ideas for my stamps and then went around the markets in Chesterfield and to Pets at Home to do observational drawings. 
I decided to focus on the idea of using 4 popular pets as characters on my stamps to make the campaign more relatable. However in a bid to try something different and more experimental I turned my observational drawing more 2 dimensional and angular using more geometirc lines and shapes, a risk that I believed paid off because it gave a potentially kitsch subject area a bit of edge and originality. 
As well as experimenting with character design I also explored hand rendered type using ink and developed a range of different catch phrases for the characters to say. 
I chose an orange and green colour palette because it was vibrant and eyecatching yet drew parallels with the fruit and vegetables theme, giving the campaign a more organic appearance. 
I also explored a range of media including making my own rubber stamps to create the pattern in the speech bubble and the bunting behind the animal's heads. I really enjoyed this activity because it was a quick, cheap and effective technique which added a more homemade feel and the stamps could be kept and used again for future projects or for my own personal use. 
Another craft I explored was origami which arose from the idea of the geometic animals. 
I decided to incorporate it into the project by using it as a feature of my leaflet, which could be folded to make a guineapig (one of the animals on the stamps). This I beleive made the campaign more exciting and interesting to children encouraging them to get involved and read the information inside. 
Overall I think the project outcomes were succesful and looked effective at a stamp sized scale. However I couldn't quite figure out how to succesfully incorporate the queen's head onto the stamp which is something I would need to work on and explore in more depth if I was to return to the project. I really enjoyed the processes involved in this project and it taught me to trust my gut insticnt and just run with any ideas I think have the potential to be good. 

Stamps for the 'National Holiday' project. Collge paper, Rubber Stamps, Pen and Ink.