Brief
Make 5 posters that instigate a series of actions around the theme of “housing crisis.” Design specification for all posters:
- A3 landscape
- Print black text on red paper (paper provided in-studio session)
- Text only
- At least 1-2 should be hand-rendered
Process
My overall feeling about listening to the Novara media podcast was just how bleak and hopeless the whole housing situation feels. One glaring example of this is the fact a single woman on an average wage cannot afford a mortgage on a house. I also found it appalling just how many renters are living in poverty, under what are effectively slumlords, who fail to ever fix issues.
A recurring theme and issue mentioned was the number of properties and tenants living with mould, so I wanted to incorporate that into at least one poster.
I also felt it would be important to mention the “cycle” of selling social housing but then not reinvesting into new social housing. Where is that money going instead of into social housing? Is any more support being given to those more reliant on social housing as a concept? It didn’t seem like it judging by the podcast episode we listened to.
I had brought a stamp set with me for the day’s task which I thought could work well for the hand-rendered poster. I taped the word “SCAM” together and then printed it underneath “Tenancy Agreement” around 60 or 70 times. I had to reproduce this poster once because I had made it portrait as opposed to landscape.
One of the stories mentioned in the podcast talked about was of a tenant who had sewage leaking down her walls which prompted my next poster. This was a mixed media poster as I had printed off the text and checkboxes from Indesign, then used a Sharpie to draw the large tick mark.
Another video we were shown was of a landlord flaunting a new Ferrari after buying a property to immediately renovate so she could double the rent. The effect of this is of course gentrification and pricing those less well-off out of their area and community.