This week we were tasked with choosing a topic we were passionate about, and creating a poster to persuade people about it. My topic was about gender, and our perception of it.

I really liked the idea of using the traditional male/female symbol to communicate my argument. I produced many sketches exploring this.

This first idea talks about the way we force people to fit in - literally, in this poster - to society a particular way based on their gender. This poster could be interpreted in two ways:

1. The "female" character trying to fit in to a stereotypical "male" role, or;

2. The character portraying themself as "female" is being forced to appear as "male" to fit in.

Overall, I thought the meaning in this one was not quite clear, and could be explained in a simpler manner (as the final poster shows)

A more positive take on the topic. This idea uses stiff "male" and "female" icons at the extremes, with more of them dancing between them. This is to show that the "male" and "female" icons are just the ends of a spectrum, and that there is more in between them that should be celebrated, hence the dancing motions. If this were to be colourized, each icon would be a colour of the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple in order - to make the point more clear. Overall, I thought this message was a bit too confusing to continue.

This third idea that I settled on communicates that you are allowed to portray yourself as you wish (the "female" icon) but your identity can differ from that representation (blue as the colour indicating "male"). The text reinforces that how they choose to dress or appear doesn't have to affect their gender.

However, upon reflection, I realized that this text could be problematic and taken in a different and unwanted manner: that while this icon/character is trying to present as "female" they are still being called "man". While this could be an alternate meaning to make people think deeper, it's not the intended one.

In this final version, the text is removed, to show only the "female" icon coloured in blue. Without the text, the viewer is not told how to perceive this icon, and the contradicting symbols cause an interesting conflict in the viewer's mind. This creates a thought experiment with the viewer, and make them reflect on it's meaning. They could think:

- is the icon male or female?

- should they be judging this icon's gender?

- why are they questioning this icon's gender?

- does the colour blue or the "female" symbol represent gender to them?

- should the colour blue or the "female" symbol represent gender?

- does it make them feel emotionally charged?

- why is this symbol emotionally charged?

- does gender really matter?

All of these questions are valid, and I believe having a self reflection on your thoughts in this manner is very powerful and can change a character more effectively than telling them what to think directly. Perhaps they will leave with anger and bitterness, or, perhaps they will leave with a greater understanding of their perception of gender. In both cases they had to think about the topic at hand and their stance on it, so a conversation can arise.

Tools used: pen, paper, Copic markers, Adobe Illustrator

I believe that good design is performs a function in it's simplest form. So, overall, I am very happy with the final outcome.