Indecision is defined as the ability to make a decision quickly. I’ve found that it’s really easy for me to get caught up in trying to make the “perfect” choices or find the “perfect” idea for my projects. This poster that I’m about to walk through was one of those instances. There are pros and cons to taking the time to really think through a decision and I’m still trying to find the balance between everything. But it’s a lesson that takes part in pretty much all aspects of life, so I just gotta keep practicing. 🙂

For my climate change class during spring 2025, for our final project we were given the opportunity to use our creativity to create a PSA for a climate change related topic in the form of a short script, video, or poster. I opted for a poster, and was excited to start. But I surprisingly had a bit of a difficult time coming up with ideas. During my brainstorming process I typically like to begin a project by blurting down as many ideas onto a page as possible. But in this instance I ran dry pretty quickly. My first two ideas felt the strongest and I couldn’t think of much else after that. So instead of dwelling on the quantity of ideas I focused a bit more on refining and fleshing out the ones that I had.

Both posters were addressing the impact of pollution in our oceans, but had different approaches to them. The first one I made was meant to reference a school of fish. Naturally some types of fish swim in tight formations or packs in order to protect themselves from predators. So with that in thought I planned to draw a bunch of water bottles floating uniformly in the ocean along side a singular fish who’s looking a bit confused. I was aiming for a more darkly comedic tone and really liked the concept of this one when it was in the thumbnail stage.

The second one centered around a large whale breaching out of the water which is dark and polluted with bits of trash floating around. The half of the whale that’s still in the water would be see through and its skeleton showing through meant to reference death and sickness. I liked the idea of capturing the moment of the whale jumping out of the water as if it was fighting for a clean breath of fresh air. And I wanted to further support the difference between the two areas by making the area above the water brighter in contrast to the darker murky water.

I was conflicted between both of these ideas, and couldn’t decide so I continued working through both. I designed and created each one up until the point in which I needed to include text. This way I could better envision what each of the final products would look like and make a decision I was more sure of from there. In the end I ended up deciding on the whale poster to be my final because of how dynamic it was. I felt that the moment and drama of the image fit the tone of the messaging that I wanted to convey better.

In the end this was a really valuable experience for me because I was able to work though my indecision. But there aren’t many cases where I can devote the time and resources into making several versions of a final product. And while I definitely think that for this case it was really beneficial for me to see both ideas in more polished versions of themselves. I can definitely see that this isn’t something I could do very often. Making two versions divided my attention and time which in reflection could have been used to better refine a singular piece. Because I spent so much time trying to decide between two different ideas I had less time to really flesh out my final piece. If I were to go back on it I think I would push the contrast of the two different sides a bit more to give more impact to the transition on the whale. Additionally I would have taken more time to flesh out the way I oriented and incorporated the text on the poster. Maybe finding a way to include it within the illustration instead of just simply hovering around it. In the end this project ended up being a kind of reminder that sometimes it’s ok to just fall into a decision and stick with it. So in the future if I ever come across a predicament like this again I’ll first evaluate my timeline before making a decision on how to progress. Sometimes I may have the time and resources to fully flesh out my ideas to find the ones that fit and express what I want them too the best. But other times it may be better to just commit and focus on one piece so that I can concentrate my full effort into it.

Thanks for reading!
-Emma <3