Pen Restraint Experiment - Suffragette Design - Research-led Experiment

I then did some experiments involving a hand holding a pen, with straps holding it back. This would be developed further and refined if I chose to take it forward. At the moment it shows the general arrangement of image and type. I did some research about the kind of pens which would have been used to write by upper class women in the 1910s, and these fountain pens came up as a result. I then used an image of my own hand to create the illustration.

I wanted to experiment with using the purple, green and white tones which symbolise the suffragette movement - yet I had some problems with this. I used them for the straps around the hands but this meant it looked as if it was the movement holding them back and not the government. When I then changed the design so they were used as the background colours, it seemed, quite forced and the design didn't seem to have much impact - the colours were perhaps too muted. It looked a little better when trialed with the primary colours, and I tried adding a drop shadow to make them stand out better against the white - but this looked very rudimentary and lost the traditional yet contemporary style I have had in previous experiments.

I won't be taking this design forward as I don't think it has a strong style or force behind it. The concept is there but the design itself does not hold much impact and seems quite complicated - in many ways in order to have consistent impact, the design needs to be refined to simpler, more considered elements.