Critical Daily    Critical practice in graphic design

This project is a reaction on the project of Linda Vlachová. She reflected the problem that creative people (also artists and designers) have. The work on the computer causes pain in the neck and spine. In addition, it makes the work performance less effective. Linda tried to solve this problem through movement games. She designed a poster with long instructions how to exercise. She sent this poster via e-mail to some designees and artists and the result was a group exercise of 6 people at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Her project was successful due to the fact that Linda took part in the exercises and the participants were their colleagues and classmates.

I wanted to solve the same problem but I wanted to use different media. People are often ashamed to exercise in public. Therefore I proposed a series of exercises that one can perform by himself. I used some stretching exercises to relieve neck, back and legs. Pain reduction is the fundamental motivation to perform
movements. But to make it more funny and creative I've decided to give as a bonus opportunity in each exercise to make a shelfie an unconventional position. I expected that such absurd and ridiculous situation will lead to a higher participation.

I created a poster and exposed and distributed them at my Academy. Poster contained a simple visualization of exercises and a short description. To increase the success rate have added info about the competition with a self rod for a winner. They should share these selfies with hashtag # ZdravéSelfie on Facebook because I wanted to test the success of the project. Unfortunately, this kind of motivation was not suficient enough to make them move and share it on FB.
The project showed me how it is extremely important to choose the right medium for the target group. I decided to use only a poster as a communication medium and underestimated the designers and artists because I thought they would like to take selfies.

This poster was created during the course Critic – Critical practice in Graphic Design at Department of Visual Communication at Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Tutored by Katarna Balážiková. The course foucuses on practicing and developing individual or collaborative critical projects.