Category: STEP-UP 2017

STEP-UP Week 8 Day 1

Theme: Substance Abuse Prevention

While researching this weeks theme, I came across a bunch of rhyming anti-drug slogans and this one (shoot for the stars not your arms) immediately put an idea in my head about what I would design. The original image of the arm reaching out was showing some bruises on it, and I thought it would be a good fit for the slogan I found, so I cut it out and found the other imagery for the slogan (starry background, hypodermic needle, blood spatter, American flag, etc…). Most of the research I did was mentioning that abstaining from drug use is the most effective way to prevent addiction or abuse, so I included the hashtag ‘#abstinenceIsTheOnlyWay’ which could be used in a social media campaign (maybe it already has been?) to prevent substance abuse. When I finished composing my image, I exported a JPG which I pulled back into Photoshop, made it black and white, then applied a filter to “pixellate” it, and finally revealed portions of the original design to create the effect which I think suggests how out of focus life can get when people are using drugs. The hand is becoming more naturally colored and clearer as it gets closer to the stars and further away from the needle.

Office Internet has been restricted… Quite a few of our interns have trouble focusing while at work, so I have now restricted access to the internet during main work hours. 9 – 10AM & 2 – 3PM are times when the internet is available. Sorry everyone, but I saw too little work being done so you’ve lost some freedom, welcome to work!