When I received the call for entry email, my thoughts were as follows: “I’m already really busy”, “I can’t say no to Jen McKnight”, and “Well, at least I can choose whatever subject I want — that shouldn’t be too hard”. That last thought came from the theme of exhibition statement: “You may choose the subject, which you want to give a message to any individual, family, community, society, or/and the world.”

My initial idea, making fun of Reagan’s trickle down economics, in my head was destined straight for the halls of the Graphic Imperative Show. Flash forward three weeks, and I’ve left myself days to finish the poster. It’s getting down to the buzzer, and I search deep for some true expression, a message that means enough to me to slave all night making a poster about. The resulting message ended up being stamped straight for the pages of Post Secret (except it’s not very secret when I go blogging about it). Below the poster you’ll find the title and artist statement.

Click image to view larger.

Fooled Again

With such great American independence often comes a bit of isolation. I’ve chosen to illustrate a personal and nearly daily experience of mine. My cell-phone rings, and for a split second I’m excited and imagining who could be calling me! When I open my phone — I find that it’s merely my bed-time alarm.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to explore working with very geometric shapes. The first thing I did was to download a free copy of Google Sketchup. Working in a 3D program allowed me to quickly generate simplified shapes (which was crucial, because I did this in 24 hours). In sketchup, I rotated the 3D shapes as desired and saved them as Hi-Rez Jpegs. The next step was to hand cut, fold all the letters, and scan them. This allowed me to have some, but not as much as desired, natural 3D form. Finally, all the letters and 3D shapes were then arranged and shaded in Photoshop.

Thanks for reading!

design and copy: stephen jackson

Exhibit PR Release

**Also check out this awesome submission from Dan Zettwoch.**