So firstly, thank you for all replies (except the obvious one) - there's a wealth of good advice in there and it's much appreciated. Like I say, I know that it's crap but I am not quite able to verbalise a lot of why. So big help.
I am not very good at graphic design either however i can atleast point out some issues that i see to maybe help you figure out why it looks so shit
the white lines at bottom and top not meeting the actual top and bottom of the page makes this feel disjointed, the camera clipart colliding with the white lines makes it appear lazily slapped on without thought, the vertical white lines at each end of the image could be slightly thicker, the rounded edges on the images make this look like some globohomo corporate flier, the two photos are not equally aligned to the center between the white lines as can be seen with the first picture touching the bottom of the white line while the latter does not, and the "digital ID say no" bit of text could be slightly larger to match the first two pieces of text better.
Following other responses I think it's more deeply flawed than at the mere detail layer. Though I have now done a version incorporating a lot of your feedback. I couldn't really figure out how to get some blue into it. And when I moved the white bar at the top to the top what I found was that it now made the two white bands in the middle look odd because they're now the only bands whereas the strip of red at the top makes the upper text also a barrier. So I deliberately kept that one.
I think it's better and your advice is useful feedback. But I'm going to post this one but then go back to the drawing board and try to address the deeper questions with something different.
(Original/Revised).
from a more general critique i think this doesnt exactly point out the relation between digital id and illegal immigration tho this may be because im not british. however it still could help if you can find a way to point out why digital id is a calculated response to immigration so that someone who reads into this a little more can understand what your trying to get across.
This is true - I don't get into justifying the statement. There's an element of preaching to the choir in this in that I think a LOT of people are already at this point and the goal is to make something eye-catching that provides a focus of action for them. And to also do that final connecting of the dots between the migration policies and that the same government responsible for those is now using its own failures to justify a dubious solution to them. The goal wasn't to inform people of these problems or convince that digital ID is bad as I think there's general awareness. It's to get them to express this.
That said, on reflection you're right that this is too sparse and more information would actually complement these goals. Bit more on this in reply to others later.
I'm warning you now, your citizens are not going to be able to fix/stop this with posters or petitions. Look around you, all of Europe is trying to enact these draconian laws, mostly likely because war is on the horizon. This is a mandate being handed to Britain from above, and I'm not sure even your politicians can do much about it. This is THE definition of tyrannical, and if you the citizens cannot meet it and destroy it through any means necessary , then I fear what little liberties you have are going to be sacrificed and slaughtered on the parliamentary floor while foreign nations and people cheer. This is so beyond the pale that I fear the only option your countrymen have is violence, and I don't say that lightly.
Noted. But posters and petitions are ways to prepare the ground for further opposition if necessary. And to demonstrate support for opposition. A lot of tactics to undermine the opposition are about making people feel isolated and a minority. Collective expressions of opposition are important. Almost every major political sea-change begins with some small group of people ignoring the fact that their situation is hopeless and trying anyway.
At any rate, I hear you and agree that it always feels better to do something than to roll over, but either way the political background in this case is mainly a backdrop provided just so that graphic design goals are set out on what to achieve. To which, thank you for the following comments:
I don't have much design experience to help with the poster, but I would say it looks busy, doesn't look very patriotic, and looks like it would be really hard to parse from a distance. I would at least get rid of, or make the surveillance cameras more readable, as right now they really break the flow of the poster and are hard to see.
It's funny - it does look busy, and yet at the same time felt very sparse and basic to me which is why I added the surveillance cameras in the first place - so it didn't just look like a blank red rectangle. But I'm not happy with them.
To answer the question of what distance - that's a very good question and one I somewhat dodged because I didn't have a good answer to that. It's not really meant to be a large poster on the wall viewed from 5m away. I don't expect it to be printed out and if it were, it would be hitting a small sliver of people who would see it if shared online (unless nationally plastered everywhere).
What this tells me is that the concept is flawed. It's trying to be two things at once. What I need to do is step back from this approach and either make something a little more infographic style and interesting (and less busy) or do that
and a separate more distance-orientated poster.
I will focus on the former for now as that was my original intended media.
For the surveillance cameras - yes, I will either ditch of maybe make the actual backdrop to this.
I would maybe pick a more clear picture of a migrant boat as the one you have there muddies up the whole poster and is also hard to parse at a distance. A good rule of thumb to follow for stuff like this is to print your design out (or put it full size on your monitor) and step about 5 meters away and see if you can see that its visually interesting, or can tell at least what one of the pictures is from that far away.
That's fair. A bit tricky. The essence of what you want to convey with the illegal migrant boat actually is the crowded and chaotic nature of it. But for the poster you want something visually clean and easily parsed. I recall the classic image used of the endless line of migrants which was very successful. But I want to avoid that because it's been used and because it doesn't really highlight the illegal nature of the problem plus the boats are very much in the public mind. One thing I liked about this image was the BBC News logo at the bottom. Someone else picked on that as a negative but I think it highlights the topical nature of this and also critics of it will be confronted with the fact this is the BBC's own imagery.
Perhaps something like this:
It's much cleaner, still striking, (gets in some of that blue that
@peachlover669 wanted!) and now that I'm considering making the image a little bit more of an infographic, it's a good image to accompany a fact I would like to include which is that the majority of the illegal migrants are fighting age men. This is something that makes a lot of people question why. (Clearly, they are fleeing the pro-women privilege that African countries are known for).
When I do this all I can see is the QR code, and that makes me feel like something is being sold or advertised. I would definitely keep the color scheme though, they remind me of St. George's Cross and I think the association is fair for this matter. Also definitely keep the step 1 step 2 premise, it's nice and clear messaging.
I'm going to have to keep the QR code regardless of any associations it brings as it's by far the easier way to link to the petition. I'm glad you like the colour scheme though I'm considering ditching it in favour of a blank background. If this is online distribution it doesn't necessarily benefit from a bold block separating it from the background. I had considered using the St. George cross as a background previously - it would work well visually but I feel politically it needs to be the Union Jack. That said, maybe it doesn't. Could use the St. George and have each quadrant of it have some of the information in it. But that feels a bit contrived.
I'm glad you said that about the Step 1/Step 2 because I was considering pulling back from that. And yet it was the original core idea I wanted to convey. I feel that "Create the Problem, then Sell the Solution" is known enough by now I can somewhat rely on popular awareness of it.
Talent isnt real. It's all just just practice.
So if you keep at it and have self awarness to undertand of what you did looks like shit you will eventually become good at any art of your choosing.
Thanks. I definitely have awareness that it's crap. Now I just need to better understand how it is crap so I can do something different.
I suggest just looking at works that look good to you and really think what makes them good.
Graphic design isnt my thing entirely, i did some of it but it was mostly based on already existing templates so i didn't had to come up with color combinations, but i can suggest a couple of things with youe existing design.
1st security camera graphic is a bit lost on red background so o suggest adding a white highlight around it.
2nd i don't think doing a screenshot view of the second image works too well, so suggest maybe doing a regular screenshot or cleaning up the existing one from phone outline.
3rd is the font choice looks too default and it looks a bit lazy.
Thanks on all three points. I will either ditch the security cameras (probably) or do something very different with them such as full background. The second image isn't a screenshot I actually took - it's a government released mock-up. The rounded edges are a little bit of a problem - they're part of the image showing it's a phone app. I'll look around for a better source image.
Font choice was just Calibri as I thought Ariel looked a bit bog-standard. Maybe Small Caps style would also help... I'll add font-choice to the list of things to review, thanks.
I think it'd look better if it were a lighter or more faded red and those security camera pics at the bottom were moved so they're entirely in the red. Or maybe swap the red and white so it's red bars (with maybe white text) and white for the rest of the background (like where those security camera pics are)? Other than that, pic looks OK to me.
I played around with a more faded red. I felt after trying it didn't look so good. I'm likely to ditch the solid colour background entirely now I've realised it should be more designed around the idea of online distribution.
