Further development of London postcard
Continuing from the previous week I went back to revisit the London based postcard. I wasn't happy with the way the colours worked together. I tried brightening them and altering the hues slightly; this higher contrast in colours did work a lot better than the previous attempt, however the postcard still lacked the same bold impact my NYC one had.
Rather than having a complementary palette through the image, I tried having one strong accent colour instead. The image immediately seemed to have more impact.
I would have liked to play around even further with colour but didn't want to get too caught up in constantly changing things. Adobe makes it very easy to change colours and compositions ect but given how fast paced this brief was I didn't want to get sucked into trying every shade of grey or orange, switching backwards and forwards, as sometimes the choice in illustrator and photoshop can be a little overwhelming.
Scamps of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke//layout
With both of my final two postcards I found, through research, I was focusing in on one individual that was particularly well known within the gang; almost a celebrity face.
Whilst with my previous two postcards I had wanted them to convey a particular 'thuggish' attitude, I felt that Coke's story (Kingston, Jamaica) called for a different way of developing my final image; I wanted it to convey something different.
Despite Coke being head of a very criminally active gang, what touched me about his story was that he tried doing what was best for his community and the people around him. Kingston is somewhere rife with not only crime but police brutality and an overall lacking of true justice and safety. While the activities of Coke's gang were far from lawful, he did try and maintain a safe environment for the people of Kingston; no one was to be attacked, robbed or raped, and though his punishments were often violent, for a town that had previously had no real law enforcement it was a step up from what they had. He also provided funding to children so they could go to school and better themselves. His story seemed different to the previous gangs I had researched and I wanted to convey that within my image making
Development of postcard (Kingston; Jamaica)
Reference photos of Kingstown Jamaica compared with popular touristy Jamaica
Despite the gang being based in Kingston I also chose to incorporate some imagery from other parts of Jamaica. I wanted to show the contrast in where Coke had been brought up and was trying to better compared with the parts of the country that had money pumped into them for the tourist trade.
I wanted to show this difference between those who had and those who hadn't. Those with and those without. The tall barbed wire gates of Kingston also worked as a duel signifier for the prison Coke is currently being kept in to serve his sentence for his crimes.
Development
I didn't want Coke's expression to be one of anger or hate. I wanted him to appear a little defeated and sad. Kingston was his home and he tried to better it for his people, but the only income came in the form of drug trafficking and illegal activities; he was fighting a war he could never win
Scamps for Mexico postcard
My final postcard featured a woman very different to Coke. Felix who is now thought to be running the Los Antrax gang (Mexico) is known as the 'Kim Kardashian' of organised crime. Before her supposed 'rise to the top' she was a social media fanatic, who would often post photographs of herself and her family with lavish items. Owner of a personalised pink AK-47, her social media outlet all but disappeared once her spouse (the then leader of Los Antrax) was imprisoned, and rumours of her running the gang came to light.
I wanted to play on this 'sexy celebrity' status Felix had acquired, and throw it together with her now 'ganglord' status. Whereas for my first two postcards I'd used high end fashion as a reference point, for this postcard I looked at glamour models. Their often more revealing and commercial poses worked hand in glove with the kind of persona Felix often liked to portray.
As I developed this postcard I also found that I really liked the simplicity of just using the block shapes, I didn't want to overcomplicate this image so kept the details fairly minimal. My concern however is that it will be difficult for viewers to work out which city (or even country) this is meant to represent.
Process of final postcard (Mexico)
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