Leandrie de Vos
Encouraging change through the creative medium of Typography and Illustration.
Let’s Clear the Air - by Leandrie de Vos
Howzit! I am Leandrie de Vos and I am an illustrator from Benoni. I am currently a Visual Communication honours student at The Open Window Institute. I am inspired by creating colourful art that as one would say has some underlying “deeper” meanings. I am really interested in typography and the visual meaning it can portray, as well as I am inspired by the people I meet and the places I visit.
Let me teach you a word I use in my everyday life so you can experience my art through my eyes. Yita-Ayra- first meaning, “Oh my gosh”- it can be used to express shock/excitement. How to use it in a sentence: “Yita-Ayra, this art is cool”.
“I began this project by asking myself ‘How can I encourage change?’, the solution I came up with was to start with a conversation in a space where there is usually silence.”
I began this project by asking myself ‘How can I encourage change?’, the solution I came up with was to start with a conversation in a space where there is usually silence. ‘Let's Clear The Air’ is based on a survivor's story. It uses bright colours to draw the viewer's attention. When looking closer, I wanted the viewer to be shocked as to how straightforward the messaging of the lettering is. I purposefully created a sense of chaos with a visual break in the center with the lettering ‘Let’s clear the air’ in the shape of a speech bubble. The overall concept besides being frank was to encourage conversation and showcase that gender based violence is a problem we as a country need to address.
‘Pause For Thought’ is a solution to the problem addressed in ‘Let’s Clear The Air’. I came up with phrasing ‘ Unite Vocally, Think Globally and Act Locally’ to showcase to the viewer a few steps to stop gender based violence. It is meant to encourage the viewer to face the problem and spark conversation. The two posters work together to start a conversation. There's a lot of important things that the media doesn't cover that people around need to know about. The Embrace Project inspired me to take a typographical approach as in my opinion words can inspire a change in people's views.
