My Conceptual Design class instructor, professor Steven Brower, had assigned the class a really fun mini assignment to start the semester that had required us to create a handout that Manhattan locals would be enticed and intrigued enough to grab.

I spent a while trying to put myself in the shoes of a true New Yorker, and decided that nothing was more authentically New York than a silly scandalous little rat.

The story behind this rat is, she has crafted a very convincing human disguise, that of a beautiful woman, which she then uses to lure unsuspecting victims in and swindle them for their money. I am not entirely sure what made me think of this, but I actually really liked how it came out and was reminiscent of an old-timey “wanted poster” with the bounty listed and bold typography.

After I finished this little poster I had began to wonder where wanted posters actually had come from, as it is easy to forget that they had actually served a real-life purpose and do not just exist in the realm of pop culture and pirate movies. A trip to Google and a few minutes of reading had led me to find that wanted posters had been around for a really really long time, however, the first known wanted poster had featured John Wilks Booth, the guy who murdered Abraham Lincoln. These posters would always consist of a photo of the offender, a brief description of their crime, a bounty reward, and that iconic slab serif font that grabbed the public’s attention. I also found it pretty interesting that those on wanted posters were deemed as “outlaws” or in other words outside of the law and unprotected from it. That means that officials would create these wanted posters imploring citizens to seek out the offender and kill them in exchange for bounty money. However this rat is not going to be killed, rather exiled down under to the sewers of New York which could arguably be a much worse punishment.