While wondering what to base my work on I kept being drawn to ocean pollution. I thought putting unlikely things together would give most impact. One of the ideas I looked at was putting someone that was used to boating somewhere like Oxford, into one of the boats in an area affected hugely by pollution.

In the end I decided to relate my header graphics to the problem of oil pollution in our oceans. The terrible effects on marine life, us and the rest of the planet, are huge.

Would more be done if we were affected more directly, like the millions of animals rescued from the beaches coated in thick layers of oil?

While searching for images I came across a sculptor, George Segal, whose piece of work ‘Rush Hour’ inspired me to make my first header. It looked to me as a group of people walking out of an oil slick would look.

In this image I selected a path around the figures using the pen tool and put it into the layer above a picture of an oil slick. I adjusted the levels to make the figures look darker and adjusted the saturation. I used the blur tool to take some of the highlights off the figures.

To make them look as if they are walking out of the slick I used the blur tool to darken the area around their feet to look like shadow.

I downloaded a type face called ‘Travel typewriter’ as it tied in with the idea that these were ordinary city workers directly affected by the oil.

For the second two headers I downloaded a face called ’28 days later’. This has an eroded grungy look to fit in with the dirty feel of the oil covered workers.

George Segal also did a piece called ‘Holocaust’ which I used in another two graphics. I downloaded a type face call ‘Abite’ that looked like splattering oil.

I used the quick mask to darken the figures to look as if they had oil on them, using colours from the oil with the dropper tool and then the paintbrush.

I also decided to base my three smaller banners on pollution. I used pictures of oil and polluted water contrasted with a bright child orientated image cut out and overlayed. I wanted the images to be bold and stand out  linking the childlike activities with the dirty water, something most of us would be very uncomfortable with. I cut out the picture of a shell and put a slight drop shadow under it, reducing the distance and making it light so as not to be too dominant.

I used a pool of polluted water for this banner with a child’s beach ball cut out and overlayed in the same way.