My PSA shows a man hanging on the edge of a cliff. The man depicted in my illustration is loosely modeled after myself, but I may have given him slightly bigger muscles. He is hanging off the side of the mountain to show how he is struggling to reach the top, and at the top of the hill is Harvard. This is meant to represent how high school students work and persevere through challenges in order to get into a good college. My target audience for this PSA is junior high, and younger high school students because I am hoping to influence them to work hard and persevere. I was taught that hard work is the only way to be successful in life, and I believe that is a message we should be passing on to everyone to create a more productive society. I chose Orange to be the main color of my color scheme because orange represents enthusiasm, creativity, success, and determination. That is why these are the colors you see in the largest part of the illustration, the mountain.
I made this project with almost entirely one tool in Illustrator, the pen tool. I used the pen tool for everything on this project from the mountain's shape and detailing, to the Harvard building, and to the shape of the person. I have been using the pen tool for a long time, and I had no trouble making most of the design. However, I had some trouble with the perspective of the mountain. The top was too small for the building I wanted to put on top. I didn't know how to extend it without making the mountain look like it was stretching farther up. I looked at many pictures of mountains before I was able to extend it in a way that didn't make it look awkward.
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