Conceptual Development

This blog post will include sketches, mind maps and ideas that have been developed following the research phase.

First Phase of Ideation

Sketches of initial ideas for composition and straplines based on the most important issues facing the UK.

Second Phase of Ideation

Further exploration of British culture that could influence my designs and development on the strapline “Greens for…”.

Based on the research it is important for that the words included in the campaign makes use of plain language which this strapline does, it easily communicates to the audience what the messaging is.

Idea Generation

Based on the mind maps and strapline ideation I started exploring possible styles for posters. During the research phase I discovered a political artist, John Heartfield. He was a pioneer in photomontage and used his work to fight back against Nazism and fascism (Grapheine, 2022).

Figure 1 – Grapheine design for John Heartfield (Grapheine, 2022).
Figure 2 – John Heartfield’s photomontage work (Grapheine, 2022).

This collage style is inspirational and the impact that Heartfield’s style can have in communicating important messaging is something I went on to explore. I considered popular movements in the UK that have made use of collage style and started to create visuals related to these.

Figure 3 – A collage style design reflecting on the Britpop era of music (Apache Menswear, 2021).

This style represents the period of “Cool Britania” in the 90’s when people were patriotic and had pride in the fashion, art and culture that Britain produced.

Sketches of potential collage style posters.
A trial of cut out collage style for the green party.

After exploring with this style of poster digitally (which will be shown in the next post), I reconsidered. It didn’t meet the aims I had set at the beginning, and I was concerned that it wouldn’t capture the target audience for this project.

Sketch of structured, bold approach to a poster.

I went on to try a more structured approach, which would combine typography and imagery. The next post will showcase the assets created as a reflection of this ideation phase along with further experimentation of what the final outcome may look like.

References

Apache Menswear (2021) Britpop memories. https://www.apacheonline.co.uk/blog/britpop-memories/ [Accessed 23 Mar 2026].

Grapheine (2022) John Heartfield, photomontage as a political weapon. https://grapheine.com/en/magazine/john-heartfield-photomontage-as-a-political-weapon/ [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].