Illustrator Public Service Announcement

“Every year, unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation contribute to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five,” Ms. Veneman said at the Tap Project event. The Tap Project is a campaign put on by UNICEF in order to bring awareness and support to this urgent issue of unsanitary drinking water. “Increasing access to clean and safe water will not only save young lives, it will also help bre ak the vicious circle of poverty,” Ms. Veneman concluded. For this reason, I decided to create a public service announcement that would bring awareness to this cause. My plan of attack was to aim straight for the viewer’s heart strings that are so conveniently wrapped around their purse strings. When my audience goes to purchase a new water bottle from their local convenience store they will be greeted by a poster covering the water bottle section. The poster’s contents are that of the same bottled water that awaits the consumer in the cooler; however, these bottles contain dirty water. This adjustment is intended to utilize pathos to make the convenience store customer think twice before putting their money into a water bottle when these children don’t even have clean tap water. 

The poster itself is a clean design with the simple arrangement of bottles on a cooler shelf. At the bottom of the poster there is a UNICEF logo along with a fact about the effect of the water crisis. It reads “Every year, unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation contribute to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five.” This message from the Tap Project event is to the point and the image is not distracting from it. Using a poster as the medium this is particularly important so that the audience can see and interpret its meaning quickly without getting lost in visual or verbal clutter. This poster is meant to be placed on the glass door of a convenience store drink cooler. Its placement and location are key parts in its effectiveness. When properly aligned with the cooler’s shelves it should look as if the cooler contains these dirty water bottles instead of the clean ones. I was purposeful in choosing the medium of a poster and its advantage of quick communication for a convenience store campaign. These stores are built for speed and no hassle shopping. The patrons of such a store would be more receptive to a poster as an article or video.  

This was created in Illustrator with the utilization of Photoshop.