Degree Project

Plan B article

From the weekend I got my two books in the mail and was able to read them. I found that these two books had a lot of great statistics and information on overpopulation but lacked the angle that I would like to aim at. That angle is to investigate how women are raising children when they themselves are not ready. These children that are born into parents who might not be together, and also are not financially stable are more likely to have teen pregnancies, get in trouble with the law, and act out in school. For many people this is a touchy subject but it is a important one to talk about because we are populating more children from the younger generation of unfit parents than the ones who are educated and can afford to have children. Now some might think that this is straining from the topic "overpopulation" but it really isn't. If these are the types of families the child is being born into it will effect the way their family dynamic is, bouncing from grandparents mom, and dads house. Prone to get into more trouble as an adult.

A personal story of mine was that for 17 years of my childhood my mother did home take care. As much fun as it was to have kids to come home and play with, I got to see being a parent was not a baby commercial and as children become older the more expensive they are.

What will be my visual answer?

Before break I thought about doing an interactive piece based with info graphics. Visually this is the answer to my degree project but I would like to also persuade some act of a campaign to promote either adoption, (letting the adoption process become easier for people and less stressful) and also to ask young girls if they are fully prepared to have children. There could be facts that indicate how many children are in the media, and how the media promotes building a family knowing the parents will probably not be ready to have children.

For actual visual references I have been looking at good mag. They have very interesting info graphs that are closed and reveal type. I am also leaning more towards illustrations for visuals with playful typography to have more a feminine twist as well as speaks to the tone of the information.

In my mind right now I can picture a campaign that could read something like"why not you" having girls question themselves why they don't go for the achievements they want to, instead of trying to catch attention through a child. They say that 92% of children under the age of 2 are on the internet. Some of these kids are a way for the parent to gain attention. (Not to sound mean or judgmental, my nephews are also on Facebook)

What is the audience?

Obviously teenage girls will be my targeted audience. I thought about inner city kids as well but young pregnancy happens everywhere. I would really like to gain an emotional response to question why they don't peruse education or their "dreams" further before having children. Adding to my audience would be women who are having troubles with getting pregnant that are secure in their life. I'm still unsure on how exactly they will be tied in together because these are two very different audience but I believe that with the info graphs I will be able to reach out to both parties.