The two main ideas that anchor and unify our posters are: the periodic table and the incorporation of chemical compounds in the images. The periodic table idea came from Yasemin who was brainstorming in preparation for the assignment and came across the idea of using the periodic table as a template. She had us all look at the periodic table so we could have an idea of what the layout of the poster could look like.
After having a template for the posters and picking a compound to represent each character, Fatima then came up with the idea of having black borders around each poster to make it appear more like the layout in the periodic table, which everyone agreed looked clean and would be easy for everyone in the group to reproduce. At first, we did not know how we can fit the quotes into the posters, but then Chad came up with the idea to have the quote citations on the top right corner of the posters. This was a great idea instead of putting in the whole quote, which allowed the posters to appear less messy and crowded. Throughout the creation of the posters, we also stumbled upon a difficulty on choosing which font we should use. After remembering the video we watched in class, Saeed came up with the idea to use the font Helvetica, which made the posters appear more nicely and cleanly. When picking out the images for each character, we came up with the idea to have images that represented each characters’ characteristics. We broke off and we each researched pictures that will represent our characters.
At first, I was thinking about using an image of a snake to represent Claudius, because of his two faced characteristics of how he appears nice and innocent in front of Hamlet and other people, but in reality, he is vicious in which he killed old King Hamlet in order to take the crowd. However, Yasemin and I discovered that it would be better to use an image of an angel and devil fighting each other to represent Claudius’ conflicted character and how his id overrides his superego where he chose to kill his brother for the sake of being King. I then decided to use an image of a devil on the poster since having to put both the angel and the devil on the page seems to appear messy and crowded. After picking out the images, I came up with the idea to incorporate chemical compounds into the images to fit our theme of chemistry further and better.
For Claudius, I decided to place two francium structures inside the horns of the devil, (which is quite hard to see because the structures turned out really small), because francium is a strong metal and it has a large atomic radius, which represents how Claudius, as a king, has a large authority over people. Choice of QuotationOriginally, I wanted to use “‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father/but to persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness. ‘Tis unmanly grief.” (1.2.87-94) but it is obvious that it proved too wordy. This caused me to search the other scenes for a better quote, where i came across and discovered that “my offence is rank” (3.3.
38) from Claudius’ soliloquy is filled with references to hands which also ties to Macbeth. Claudius, who is full of guilt, mourning that he cannot wash the blood off of his hands, “What if this cursed hand/were thicker than itself with brother’s blood.is there not rain enough…to wash it white as snow?” (3.
3.44-47) is similar to Macbeth where he is also grieving about his blood stained hands. However, I decided to use the quote “May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?” (3.
3.57), which not only ties into the devil image that represents Claudius’s evil character, but also ties to his guilty feeling of having murdered his brother.
