Promotional Poster
Statement of Intent
For this poster I wanted to create a promotional poster that would encourage parents to buy this toy for their kids. It was to display the toy, its name, and have some information about the toy as well as encourage parents to buy this product.
The Toy
This project was centred around a toy. We where to pick our favourite toy from when we where six. As I was six years old thirteen years ago, and I don’t have a particularly good memory anyway, I remember very little from that age. So I picked a toy that I did remember, the Water Pump Water Gun. It’s made by a million different brands, but they all pretty much do the same thing, look the same, and are made of the same stuff.
That stuff is, cheap plastic and foam. These toys are not made to be especially durable, they are made cheaply, and made in large quantities. Their materials are chosen to be inexpensive and waterproof. The main core is (from what I could find) ABS or PP plastic, so that it can effectively hold and shoot water, while the outside is a plastic foam so that it is waterproof and soft enough to not cause damage if you hit someone or something with it.
The product itself, and the production of it, isn’t sustainable. Due to the low durability of the foam and plastic, it can easily break or get pulled apart. This means that quite a few are tossed out after relatively little use. Both are Thermoplastics, so could possibly be recycled, although would likely take effort as you would need to remove the foam (and people would need to know that they could be recycled).
Their cultural resonance places them behind normal water guns.
In 2021 they are likely irrelevant, at least as long as COVID-19 continues to hang around. It’s most often used in outdoor activities that involve a lot of close contact (Less than 2m), so are unlikely to be used anywhere in large numbers until COVID-19 is dealt with. Once it is it will likely come back into relevance, as its cheap construction makes it competitive with other water-guns for parents who don’t want to spend a lot on something that will only be used in the hottest of summer months.
The Project
The first thing I noticed is that promotional posters for toys are hard to find. I instead looked at boxes and adverts for the toys. A lot of these focus on kids as the targets of their advertisements, although I realised that I don’t have access to kids in order to test this poster on and elicit feedback from. So I decided to target adults.
After that I worked on some iterations of the poster design, and chose the best one.
The next step was the 3d model. As part of the intent of this project was to learn to do something, and something I had always wanted to try out where depth maps, I wanted to try those. We where using Rhino, which was a tool that I had not used before. I have, however, used other 3d modelling software, and am pretty good at picking up how to use interfaces. So I sat down and started experimenting, asking peers and google when I got stuck, till I had a model that I was reasonably happy with.
From there it was a job of creating the poster and placing a render of the model into the poster. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to get proper feedback on my promotional poster.
The Final Prototype
Splash vector created by milano83 - www.freepik.com
Background Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash
References
- Foam Water Gun Cannon Water Pump Summer Beach Outdoor Shooting Pool Water Toy Playing Water Toys For Kids Children Toy Gift Water Guns, Blasters & Soakers —AliExpress. (n.d.). Retrieved 26 March 2021, from https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33004376433.html
- Hefei Miya Home Furnishings Co., Ltd. (n.d.). High Selling Foam Water Pump / Kids Water Gun Toy / Toy Hand Water Pump—Buy High Selling Foam Water Pump,Kids Water Gun Toy, Toy Hand Water Pump Product on Alibaba.com. Retrieved 26 March 2021, from https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-selling-foam-water-pump-kids_60371082416.html
- Plastic Collectors. (2020, April 23). What Is ABS Plastic And Is It Recyclable? Plastic Collectors. https://www.plasticcollectors.com/blog/what-is-abs-plastic/
- Understanding Recycling Symbols. (n.d.). Retrieved 26 March 2021, from https://www.recycle.co.nz/symbols.php