Humtank is a Swedish think-tank for education and research within the humanities.
As a project at the university we were tasked to create an infographic poster to communicate one of Humtanks five yearly reports and make the information easier to understand, since the reports are text heavy and written in an academic fashion. The report my team worked with had the theme "cooperation" and concluded the need of a more developed cooperations concept within the humanities and different sectors.
As a project at the university we were tasked to create an infographic poster to communicate one of Humtanks five yearly reports and make the information easier to understand, since the reports are text heavy and written in an academic fashion. The report my team worked with had the theme "cooperation" and concluded the need of a more developed cooperations concept within the humanities and different sectors.
Humtank themselves want the humanities to take a bigger role and take more place in society. Since a lot of people, even at universities, are not really aware of what the humanities actually are and how it can contribute to society, which is something Humtank wants to change!
We were inspired by the visual language of medical illustrations and old school-posters that illustrates the human anatomy, fauna, fishes and mammals.
I took responsibility for illustrating a head. These were my first sketches for the head illustration. The second sketch shows two shaking hands in the "brain-space" to symbolise cooperation.
Illustration is made with fineliner ink pens, liquid ink and white gel pen.
The head is a symbol for the humanities, where different words such as psychology, language and arts are written within to make it clear what the humanities actually are. The shaking hands in the head symbolises cooperation and how we should build new bridges between the humanities and society. The text is a shortened version of what can be read in the report. The speech bubble in front of the mouth is empty but with an outline that reads "The cooperation of the humanities is made invisible!!!", this because the report writes about the fact that no one really listens to them and take them seriously even though they try to make their voices heard.
We wanted the poster to "scream", be seen and also look good. So that maybe one actually wants to hang it on their wall and start a discussion, and in that way we begin to talk about the humanities and the importance of it.
The finished poster is far from what comes to mind when thinking about an infographic poster. Which is what we wanted. We developed a concept and a campaign where the poster would be given to students on their first day of their university studies within the humanities. The poster would be given together with a tote-bag with the "humanities-head" printed on it.
We wanted to focus on the young and new within the humanities since they are the future and the new cooperators and to teach them about the importance of humanities from day one.
The poster was then printed on a Risograph on a2 paper.
Mockups of totebags made with elements from the poster.
The totebags which one would get at their first day at the university with the poster in it.
The totebags which one would get at their first day at the university with the poster in it.
