Audience Strategy

                     For my visual piece, my goal is to persuade my audience, particularly black women to get rid of products such as relaxers and flat irons that are meant to destroy our mane, in order to look presentable in front of others, whites for example, and to start embracing our curls/ coils. I intend to present this message by sketching a black woman with natural hair throwing a box of relaxer into the garbage. I also plan on including a quote my character says, capturing my audience’s attention even more.

                    I hope my audience will genuinely take my art piece into consideration by following my character and return to their natural hair and keep that way for the rest of their lives, not because it is seen as a trend. A trend that will be popular in one decade and in the next decade, it won’t. For example, in the 1970s black people wore Afros because it was popular, but then in the 1980s- 90s, blacks had chemically altered their hair.  I hope my audience will feel empowered by my message, since art or visual pieces spread twice as much attention than words. By doing this, it can help boost their self- esteem and image and become comfortable with their own identity.

                    The genre I would use is an original piece instead of getting a photo off of Google images because I prefer to get creative. I believe drawing a cartoon or animation is more amusing than pulling a meme and editing it because there are numerous messages in a drawing. The effects of hand drawing reveals the artist’s passion and creativity into the art work. Memes and its photoshopping elements are taken too seriously, in contrast to hand drawing. I can imagine my audience encountering this visual piece at a bus stop or magazine.

Reflection 

When creating this unique visual piece, I felt since the topic of hair discrimination and the importance of black hair was very important, it was a necessity to draw an animation instead of finding pictures off the internet. I’m not saying that there is nothing wrong with taking an image off the internet, it is just my preference. I present my piece to be very simple and yet empowering. An everyday job of throwing out the trash, but intending to reveal what specific item was going in the trash. I had included a quote of what my character said, “These CURLS are just for me” with emphasis on the word “curls” due to the relaxer brand name being called “Just For Me.” By including this specific brand name, I wanted to connect with my audience and prove how popular that product was at some point in our lives and how we can relate to this. The goal of that product was to chemically straighten the curls and it was considered the definite solution to a lot of black women who had struggles maintaining their hair in the past. Adding that quote would prove the psychological aspect of advertisement and their tricks when it comes to manipulating their audience.

Composing a visual essay was by far, very different from writing a traditional essay. It was less time consuming, in my opinion, and very straightforward. I like how in visual essays there are a lot of hidden messages and it reminded me of the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” To add on, visual essays are more attention grabbing than writing. For example, if I’m sitting on the train and there happens to be a delay, I tend to look at the artworks. I have noticed poetry there, but I do not pay too much attention to it, in contrast to the artworks.  There is a lot of thought process and guidelines when writing an essay. It is inherent to present a clear and concise argument, worry about transitioning paragraphs, outlining your paper for organization. In contrast, a visual essay doesn’t require written text and allows the creator to have an unlimited amount of options to present.