Section 3 Part 3: Act
Activity: letter writing
Imagine you’re the Head of Oxfam Australia.
Write a letter to thank and congratulate Steph Hughes for her work on the “Six Goals to Change the World” posters.
Remember, in your letters, don’t just say that you like the posters. You should give reasons for your opinions.
Describe the posters by commenting on their visual qualities. For example, you might comment on the use of colour, pattern, line and subject matter, and then make a judgement about the overall effectiveness of the poster series.
Student Evaluation Task
Design Brief: Oxfam Australia needs one more poster, and this one specifically for children!
Your teacher will provide you with a blank template that you have gridded up. You could simply trace in black marker over one of Steph Hughes poster grids – although you might want to have larger boxes and fewer of them. Remember to leave space for the text.
This poster needs to say: “Children have the right to develop and be respected and protected.”
Handy hint: Download the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in child-friendly language. You can choose to represent and express any of these articles in your posters.
Share ideas for the kinds of imagery that this poster might need.
Handy hint: Think about being heard, speaking up, growing up, being safe, being loved and nourished, being able to play and have fun.
Use pencils and blank paper to practice some of your drawings and to outline your plans. Remember – real designers take time to plan their works. Steph Hughes draws every day and did many drafts before she started her final works for Oxfam.
Handy hint: Watch “Austin’s Butterfly”. What feedback can you give on each other’s work?
When you have planned some of the illustrations for your posters on blank paper and have shared your ideas with your teacher, you can draw your designs into grid using pencil. You can then go over these in black marker. You can add repeated patterns and shapes to give the work a similar look and feel to the six other posters by Steph Hughes.
Finally, you can select a colour scheme of four colours to add to the poster.
You can send copies of the posters to schools@oxfam.org.au and/or Tweet them to @OxfamAustralia!
