DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: This project is a provocative reflection on Rodins’ “The Thinker”, challenging the white supreme masculine vision of artistic perfection and intellectual grandiosity. It shows the face of a woman of colour with a double chin and an unconventional nose. Her head is held by the hand of a white man and used as a flowerpot. It is a still life in which her existence seems to be arranged and rearranged by other people’s ideas. At first sight the image appears to be very pleasant and beautiful but once one understands the context it becomes irritating and disturbing.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
: To me it was important to challenge the viewer in the traditional perception of The Thinker.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
: I would love to see the illustration being published in different media outlets and through this start a conversation about gender in art.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
: The poster was created in Summer 2018.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
: I decided to pursuit an inspiration that evolved from arthouse film and the realization that women of color are hardly represented in the fielt of visual arts.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
: I do not have any plans yet to sell or lease the production rights. As of right now I intend to produce the work by myself.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: The project is supposed to make people think at a second glance as it represents societal discrimination based on race, sex, gender, disabilities. This was most important to me.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
: Well, if you count Rodin as a designer then, yes!
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: The Poster may be used as an art work in a private surrounding as well as poster for events that target a critical perception of sociopolitical circumstances. This project was developed for print products. The advantage of the digital production is the versatile applicability in different print areas. As the selection of mockups shows, the project is suitable for outdoor use, as an indoor poster, but also for publication in magazines, or as a book cover. Therein I see the goal of my work, the far-reaching visibility of the illustration in different media spaces.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: The Thinker is a very critical and political work. It deals with history and present at the same time.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: The Thinker refers to Rodins famous bronze sculptures The Thinker. The sculpture is often used as an image to represent philosophy. However this mainly targets a masculine philosophy from a male perspective.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
: This Poster was entirely created digitally with Procreate on iPad Pro.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: The most unique aspect of my design is that it is a very political work. At first sight the image appears to be very pleasant and beautiful but once one understands the context it becomes irritating and disturbing.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
: The research in this particular case has begun with a cinematic exploration of racism in film. My great interest in arthouse film productions often becomes an important inspiration. I realized that black women are hardly represented in the visual arts. The allusion to the thinker of Rodin in connection with the motive of a severed head in the hand of a white man, is to show the brutality and self-evidentness of the male-cantered thinking in science and art.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: It was a challenge to put the playfulness of the motive in context with the theme of racism. As a privileged white woman it is difficult to address the issue of racism without being maternalistic or even tasteless.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
: I wanted to submit a work, that challenges the viewer and contains social criticism. The project is supposed to make people think at a second glance as it represents societal discrimination based on race, sex, gender, disabilities.