Amnesty International Poster Series

Carnegie Mellon MA in Design | September-October 2024
Graphic Design
Communication Design
Print
Three posters titled, "Economic, Cultural & Social Rights," "Arms Control," and "Refugees, Migrants & Asylum Seekers."
OVERVIEW
As part of a graduate-level studio course on visual communications design, I created a set of three posters based on Amnesty International’s focus areas.

Through this project, I rapidly learned and applied new design methods through several rounds of iteration, bridging the gap between physical painting, digital illustration, typography, content hierarchy, and print.
WHAT MAKES AN EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY POSTER?
RESEARCH & COMPOSITION
01

Formative Research
I started by researching posters with different compositions and seeing which caught my eye. This is arguably the most important function of a poster: to capture the attention of someone walking by. Without attention, information cannot be communicated.

A collection of photos of posters with various compositions
Sketching and Ideation
I then sketched out 10 sets of 3 poster concepts, featuring a few statistics related to my chosen Amnesty International advocacy areas: Arms Control, Corporate Accountability, and Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants.

I chose these because they felt actionable and directly relevant to people’s lives. Arms need controlling, corporations need accountability, and refugees need support and asylum.
Some early poster sketches
I narrowed my concepts down to a combination of multiple sketches, making use of both a strong diagonal and bold colors with black and white illustrated elements overlaid. I felt that a consistent angle to elements within the poster series would create a sense of unity and action.
Refining Design for a Unified Poster Series
ITERATION & Feedback
02
Poster iterations in order, from sketch to final
Major iteration changes
I refined the visual design of the posters through several rounds of iteration and critique.

I also added texture to the backgrounds. With a more “grunge” stylistic direction, I felt that a solid color was too artificial; real stencil art is usually sprayed on a rough surface.

At one point, refining visual cohesion across all three artworks became difficult. To circumvent this, I changed the “Corporate Accountability” poster topic to “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” I paired this topic with an illustration of bread; the most archetypal economic right is freedom from hunger, and the most recognizable symbol for food (in the West) is bread.

As I made the final content and kerning adjustments, I made one last change to the typography: adding a black block shadow to the white display text. I came up with this by doodling on my poster as I let my mind wander.
A screenshot from Adobe Illustrator
A screenshot from Adobe Illustrator
Bridging the Gap Betwen Digital & Physical
VISUAL STYLE
03
Using Style to Communicate
My approach began mimicking stencil protest art, which helped to communicate quickly that this poster was about political advocacy. However, I had no first-hand experience with graffiti.
‍
To mimic spray paint more convincingly, I needed to understand how spray paint behaved. Fortunately, my position as a design lab assistant allowed me to use a spray booth to test it
for myself.

An expert at the lab told me political stencil art is often done hastily — someone slashes a piece of used cardboard with whatever knife they have, throws it up on a wall, and sprays over it. We had all the tools, so that’s what I did.
A photo of some cut cardboard
I learned that cardboard stencils often create a soft edge, and that spray paint can be dry and faded or dense and drippy, depending on paint quality, distance to the wall, and time spent focusing on one spot.

There’s an emotion to it as well; a sort of hasty anger hidden beneath a rushed creativity. The way you wave the paint, the force of it coming out, and the randomness of the splatter all lend to a sense of both fun and desperation. The possibility of paint dripping adds a potential for surprise.
A photo of paper with spray painted hands on it
REFLECTIONS
04
Three finished posters
Accepting unexpected inspiration and committing to a design direction
At the end of the project, I presented my work to my class. The posters were received positively, and I felt I had done the best I could do in the time I had.

I had done posters before, but I enjoyed learning about grids, kerning, and other fine-tuning design methods. It was great to tackle a project by shifting between Adobe softwares and balancing their differences.

I also gained an appreciation for iteration and synergy; my final poster concept came from combining two sketched ideas outside of the main iteration assignments.

It was also fascinating to see how my mind drew inspiration from things without me realizing it. It makes me wonder how much “original” creativity is simply unintentional emulation. If creativity in advanced societies is unavoidably collaborative, it may be fundamentally out of step with the intellectual property laws underpinning the modern creative industry.
LET'S GET IN TOUCH!
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