The Flyer Project

What are you going to buy?


        For many people, October is the start of the great American tradition of spending as much money as we have to show the people we care about how much we love them. American companies have capitalized on theses concentrated months of holidays and have turned it into a gold mine of promoting the economy and consumerism. From Halloween candy and costumes that we wear once and buy a new one each year, to waiting outside of a store for 12 hours to be the first in line for the infamous sale in November. More and more "holidays" pop up during the season of spending, such as the "Prime Day" invented and added to all of our calendars by Amazon.

        Consumerism is a year round issue, a constant state of needing new things the minute they are added to the shelf of a store. However we tend to treat October to New Years a bit differently. Americans will buy things they live without the entire year during this season just because it gets marked down 10 dollars. We even buy things at full price that we hold off on buying just because of the holidays. Christmas especially is added to everyone's minds, what's worse is that it's on your mind even if you don't celebrate it. Companies try to cover up and just call it the Holiday season but advertise mistletoes and Christmas wreaths.

        The effects of consumerism, specifically during the holiday season, reach much further than environmental degradation. Our mental health during the holidays are drastically played with just so companies can make big money. We worry, we stress, we panic, we struggle just to decide on a present for a loved one. What are you going to buy? Are they going to like it? Will they love you less if you don't get something thoughtful enough for them? What if they get you something amazing and all you get them is socks? Our season of spending is just another problem added to our list of struggles, yet it is unbelievably easy to avoid.

        A simple advertisement, such as a pamphlet to showcase holiday joy that is disconnected to consumerism with some text saying you don't need to stress over material gifts and just spend time with those you love this holiday season would probably help out a lot of people. With the current pandemic, presidential campaign, just the state of how mangled this year is; not having to worry about what we are buying for each other could do us all some good.


Decriminalizing Marijuana


The year is 2020 and our lives have changed significantly in only a few months. However, it’s important to remember the social problems we had even before this year. The things that were in the works for change but got over shadowed by more current and topical events. Marijuana was and always has been a big topic for the past few decades, and yet just as things seemed to turn towards legalization and the recreational use and bonus tax money from legally marketing the herb, everything went mad. Lately, America has been in a flurry of movements for politics, safety, and overall change.

The conversation of decriminalizing marijuana was at the top of the list until quarantine, so why abandon it just when things began to move in congress? The idea of legalizing marijuana is bigger than it was in the past for previous generations. Stories of the 80s and the party life, the want to legalize something just because it was fun, all of that is no longer the focus of the movement. So as we move forward with the legalization of marijuana, it’s important to not forget about the past that has caused for our desire of legalization in the first place.

Decriminalizing marijuana is complex, and many politicians want to support this but still see it as something too hard to promise to the public. The people need to show that they will use their voting rights to get marijuana decriminalized. This means thousands of arrests, thousands of imprisonments, and thousands of fines all need to be revisited in our court systems across every state that legalizes marijuana. To legalize something is one thing, but to approve of it and make amends is another. Even though this fight is infinitely less important than abolishing slavery, one can only imagine how police might take matters into their own hands again. If changes are made but the police and local governments don’t follow the changes; has the fight for change actually been achieved? We may legalize marijuana, but for it to be decriminalized and have past arrests for petty amounts of weed revisited is the true battle.



Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 31, 2020 at 10:58 AM

    Your thumbnails do a good job of getting to the point. Thumbnails 1& 3 stick out the most because they have the visuals. Having the words intertwined with the bars gives a good representation of your topic. Although the title "Embrace Us or Arrest Us" may be misleading because you don't want to promote people going to jail if that's already the reason why they're going to jail.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Assata J.W.October 31, 2020 at 11:01 AM

    Your thumbnails do a good job of getting to the point. Thumbnails 1& 3 stick out the most because they have the visuals. Having the words intertwined with the bars gives a good representation of your topic. Although the title "Embrace Us or Arrest Us" may be misleading because you don't want to promote people going to jail if that's already the reason why they're going to jail.

    *This is Assata, was signed into a different account*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Space for ElijahNovember 1, 2020 at 8:54 PM

      The thumbnails execute the objectives well. They have a good style that is appealing, but does not distract from the point. Assata has a great point as far as changing the title "Embrace Us or Arrest Us", as decriminalization of something can still lead to an arrest (not completely legal), and the point seems to be gradually making marijuana accepted in the eyes of the law. Arresting people is much easier. Thumbnail 4 looks more friendly and inviting considering the flyer is about pot.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousNovember 1, 2020 at 10:21 PM

    The thumbnails over all are great. Thumbnails one and three on the top row are the strongest. Since the topic is on marijuana the viewer should be able to get that with a quick glance, that's why thumbnail one is very strong. When reading the headlines the topic of decriminalizing marijuana doesn't jump at the mind right away. The headlines seem more so fit for prison reform, which could work if the argument on the poster is to release marijuana possession prisoners.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Resume Templates

Image
  These templates are eight different ways to make a resume stick out. None of them are anything insanely creative simply because not everyone is trying to broadcast creativity in their resumes. When making a resume design you need to reflect the person, and if you make a resume that is super fancy and sparkly with creative ideas all over it than you better be ready to be that person once you get the job. When you are a professional and want to show that your are professional you can still have some stylistic design choices but anything more might be misleading the employer. For the first template it is a simple resume design, nothing too out of the ordinary, almost as if it's just a control basic idea. For the second template, it is separated in the middle to resemble a book for those who are interested more in writing. The third template is designed to resemble a movie poster. If you are a film buff and are interested in movie posters you know that the name of the movie is large ...
Read more

The Postcard Project

Image
           This project called for four thumbnails, a portrait of oneself, and a company logo.         In the first thumbnail, the plan was to have an ink splatter, almost like water color in the background to be a darker backdrop to write on with the body copy and header being in white. The graphic underneath the name but above the header was something drawn before seeing how terrible of a graphic it was, leading into multiple attempts in developing a logo instead of filling the illustrator requirement with an ugly graphic. In the second thumbnail , the idea was to have more space for the name and header in case they were turned into a logo. The drawings to the left are just some doodles to mimic things someone might doodle inside a notebook as they do creative writing or some sort of writing in general. In the third thumbnail , the concept of having correcting edits to the left of the body copy, giving little pointers to sort of ...
Read more

Com 322 Semester Portfolio

Image
           This semester went by super fast for everyone. Things started slow but very abruptly during midterms, things got fast and didn't slow down until the end of CEP week (finals week for Buffalo State). However even if things went fast, the final products of the semester were anything but slapped together quickly. Each assignment had plenty of time to do and took multiple ideas and changes along every step to refine the design and idea. Starting with a flyer, this assignment was a topic that was swapped with another student so that students were creating something they weren't passionate about to prove that they can create something passionate that they in fact don't feel passionate about. The objective was to use three pantone colors and create something on a topic that was assigned. As it shows, this flyer is about decriminalizing marijuana across the parts of America that have it legal since marijuana is still being used to discriminately arrest an...
Read more