Farmer Power

Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:

My idea was formed as soon as I read the brief, after watching a Landline episode in January where they reported how dairy farmers are being ripped off by the big supermarkets because of their $1 milk and importing. This outraged me at the time, and being from a farming family, it stayed with me until this brief came up. So I started thinking about successful protests, but after discussion, I decided that people would not connect with a protest, so I wanted to create something that drew people in. Then, I discovered Gemma O’Brien’s work with handwritten typography (fortheloveoftype.blogspot.com), this was perfect for drawing people in and through use of puns, I thought people would really connect with the designs.

What kind of communication approach do you use?

I went really handcrafted, to show a metaphor for how much back breaking work that the farmers put into their produce every single day of the year. With my father being a farmer, I see first hand how much work he puts in, having maybe 1 or 2 days off a year. So this is something that I wanted to echo in my design with the handmade typography, however I needed to put it on to the computer to scale it, so I ended up vectorising the type and fixing little bits up.

What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?

The farmers will benefit from my communications, hopefully people will get the message that I have got when researching this project and never buy $1 milk again, to support our dairy farmers. I also hope they research their supermarkets as well and see how badly they are hurting our farmers, and change their behaviour in accordance with this. These changes in behaviour will benefit society because we will then generate more jobs with the farmers again and keep our money here with less imports.

What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?

I learnt to really consider shopping outside of just Safeway, Woolworths and Coles, they really do seem to be evil when you scratch the surface of what they are doing to our economy. With not paying our farmers enough, to importing the cheapest produce they can, I have started to shop just at local produce stores, and plan to build up a proper produce garden. I will never buy $1 milk, and never let anyone I know buy it either.

Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?

My work is excellent communication, because of the way you have to read the works, first drawing people in with the appearance with a slight hint vintage and handmade, then allowing them to read the lettering and connect with the typography, and also possibly having a giggle at the puns.

Where and how do you intent do implement your work?

The work will be printed as large-scale posters, and pasted up around the community, locations such as outside and inside supermarkets, on street and laneway walls, and other public places. The typography could also be implemented in a whole campaign with stickers, t-shirts, bags, badges, etc. however this would need careful consideration.

Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)

No, since it has not been implemented yet, the communication has not had a chance to draw that attention.