The point of this page is to write a critique on one piece of visual work. The visual piece of work i chose to discuss is a very simple and straight forward work with a very good meaning, interesting and also very true.
The artist of this work is Federico Gastaldi. Federico Gastaldi is an Alessandria based illustrator. In 2013 he graduated from the European Design Institute of Turin with a BA in illustration. Also in 2013, he won second place in the competition 'Previsioni del Tempo' which is a contest of the Italian Illustrators Association that awards the best emerging talents. More works of Federico could be seen in this link: http://altpick.com/federicogastaldi
Here we see a simple coloured, simple designed work of a bank in the form of a piggy bank broken off at the top and a hand taking money from it. We also see people in line for the bank. This immediately strikes me with the message of 'THE RICH GET RICHER'. This image sends a very strong message to me as a person.
Before discussing the message I am going to talk about the image in art terms. The designer used a very simple but powerful colour palette. The two main colours used are between secondary and tertiary colours. Secondary colours being green, orange and purple. the designer used shades of green and shades of orange. the piggy bank is a light orange, more peach like. The coins are a gold and orange like colour. For this composition the colours go well together with the green background reminding me of money. The bank front door adds to the depth of the image with its light and dark shades of grey. The people in line and the shadow of the piggy bank and hand also add to the depth. Apart from these the image is pretty flat. Compared to the size of the hand, the people can hardly be seen which could be symbolizing their economic state compared to the owner of the bank or the government taking care of the bank.
I want to talk a bit about the message that the designer is trying to communicate to the public or viewer. There is a famous saying which is 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer'. This is a very bold statement which describes how to make money, you have to have money. This is very true, whether this is investing into businesses, into property, opening your own business and so on.
So why are the rich getting richer and richer? this is a question that a lot of people ask these days, including myself. We hear a lot that the middle class is decreasing. The poor are growing in number, while the number of the rich seems to get larger every year.
A reason is how workers get little pay, while the management takes all the money. This happens all the time, and everywhere.
So what other messages could the designer be trying to communicate in his work here?
it seems like he is trying to show us how banks in fact do take money from its customers. how would you ask? The main reasons would be from ATM's by charging every time you use an ATM not of your bank. Your bank and also the bank that you used could take interest. Overdraft and inquiries is also how banks 'take' money from their customers. Annual memberships with banks is a way how banks charge yearly to use these credit cards. Per person, this is not much at all, but doing this to all the thousands and thousands of users, that is a lot a lot of money.
In this work we see a sense of movement. The hand is seen pulling coins out of the piggy bank. The hand has a sort of grabbing and pulling motion. This gives the illustration a bit more life. It is funny how the artist gave something so simple as a piggy bank a really big impact and meaning in this work. The work seems a bit childish, which it is, but it portrays such a strong message.
When it comes to how it was created, it is a very simple design done in Adobe Illustrator. Simple shapes and lines overlap each other and joined together create objects and people. Since it was created in Adobe, the image can be resized as many times as possible while keeping its clarity since it is done mathematically.
By not just being a normal illustration but also one that has meaning and a sort of story to it makes it that much better.
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