2nd Place Winner of AIGA “It’s Always Summer Poster Show”

The Always Summer Poster Show is an event put on by Jacksonville’s AIGA chapter. The idea behind the show is to select a song relevant to the summer and create a poster for it. Nothing felt more relevant in the summer of 2013 than the events and protests happening across America over black men and boys being killed by white police officers.  Systematic racism and oppression could no longer hide. People took to the streets and demanded to be heard with the statement “Black Lives Matter.”

In a time when a civilized dialogue on race needs to happen, there is no room for the frivolous talk of sugar loaded soft drinks. Gil-Scott Heron proclaimed “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in his poem and song from the 1971 album “Pieces of a Man”.  He later goes on to say the revolution will not go better with Coke in his song, and to me, this effectively points out that you can live in your ideal world painted by marketeers, or you can wake up and see the revolution around you.

Visual Linguistics

I used the image of a boy laughing as he rides his tricycle to represent the joyful ignorance that a frivolous life with simple thoughts has. As a visual transgression onto the venerated brand standards of Coke, I put the logo upside down layered on top of the image of the boy. The sharp terminals of the Coke logo creates a sinister tone when layered on top of the boy’s neck.