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Hands Pattern

humanities 12

Justice Project

PROJECT DEFENSE

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What did you end up doing for your project?

My final project was 2.5x2.5 stickers that rep an original slogan, “The War on Drugs is War on People of Color”. This is meant to symbolize the racist motivations behind the War on Drugs. To start this project, I began by developing 5 guiding questions that I felt like I needed to answer in order to understand my topic. I used the guiding questions to shape my research around. I ultimately read and took notes on five different sources. 

 

 Questions:

  1. What are some statistics on incarceration of POC for drug-related offenses?

  2. What are laws and policies that promote drug decriminalization?

  3. How dangerous are these drugs?

  4. What are the successes of countries/states that have decriminalized drugs?

  5. What does decriminalization mean?

 

Once I completed my preliminary research, it came time to decide what would go on my stickers. I initially thought I wanted to draw something by hand and digitize it, but I ended up solely using Adobe Photoshop to create it. I started the design process by doing thumbnail sketches of different ideas I had. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I wanted it to have a slogan rather than an image so I began to develop drafts of it. Once I created a final draft that I was happy with, I moved onto Photoshop to begin crafting it. Similar to my preliminary sketches, I went through multiple drafts to get to my final. After last-minute revisions, I came up with my final sticker and placed an order for 250 of them. I will be selling these at Roxy’s digital art exhibition and 25% of the proceeds will go to Drug Policy Alliance which is an organization that advocates and informs about drug decriminalization. 


 

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FIRST DRAFT

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FINAL DRAFT

RESEARCH NOTES

THUMBNAIL SKETCHES

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FINAL SKETCH

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How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?

When we started our initial research for this project, one of the sources that resonated with me the most was Howard Zinn's philosophy of Law as Justice. In this paper, he asserts that more often than not, laws do not reflect justice and it is up to the people to change them. Throughout history, laws have displayed a lot of injustices and I believe that the harsh drug policies in the US mirror this. As with many US laws, the War on Drugs has an underlying racial bias. The racial injustice can be seen within our prison systems and the high ratio of people of color incarcerated for minor drug offenses. People of color, specifically black and latinx people are more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, or victims of police violence because of strict drug laws. This blatantly paints a picture of injustice and it is up to the people of the US to fight for these laws to change. Howard Zinn advocates for this change through acts of civil disobedience.
 

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Did you do sufficient background research to pull off your project, take an informed stance, or succeed in your endeavours?

I believe that I did more than enough research to thoroughly understand my issue of injustice as well as did the necessary work to create a beautiful project. My background work started with my preliminary research where I learned about how the War on Drugs has disproportionately affected people of color in low income communities and the effects that have come from it. I then looked into some statistics around drug incarcerations for people of color which proved what I already suspected: black and latinx men are much more likely to be incarcerated for a drug related offence than white men. Because of the negative effect the drug war has had, I looked into the benefits of drug decriminalization and how it happens. 

 

In addition to the research I did on my topic, I had to re-learn how to use Adobe Photoshop to design my stickers. I had a base amount of intuition because of past experiences, but it had been a few years since I had used it and had to become re-acclimated with it. On the more logistical side of my project, I had to research companies that printed stickers and I was able to find one that was fairly inexpensive and had fast production times. I used Sticker Giant which is a company based in Denver so I liked that I was supporting a somewhat local business. 


 

PROJECT REFLECTION:

 

In what ways were you successful in meeting the goals you set in your project proposal? What contributed to your success?

I accomplished pretty much all of the goals I set for myself in my initial project proposal. Looking back to when I was writing my proposal, I think my final project reflected my original goals for it. My success was based on my interest in the topic. I chose something that I feel really strongly about so my passion drove my motivation. I used my time really wisely in class and used my strategies to keep myself focused on project work time. I think that starting with a lot of preliminary research instead of diving right into my sticker design helped me to create an eye catching and well informed project. I initially wanted to dive right into the design process, but I don’t think my sticker would have come out as well if I did. 

 

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In what ways were you unsuccessful in meeting the goals you set in your project proposal? What contributed to your failure?

The only goal that I did not meet was fundraising to pay for my sticker order. Instead of using my own money to buy the stickers, I originally wanted to create a pitch that I would present to potential ‘investors’. I wanted to do this because I am a bit short on cash right now and I had to dip into my savings account to pay for the order. Ultimately, I don't think this is that big of a deal because I’ll be making a profit from my sales. The constraining factor in my proposal idea really just came down to time, or rather lack of it. All of my in class time was used working on my research and my sticker design and I didn’t feel like I could commit my time outside of school to writing it. 

 

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To what extent did you show up for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work you were doing? Did you stove to create beautiful work? How accountable were you?

I think that I showed up with my all for this project. Like I stated above, I chose a topic that I felt strongly about and was very curious to learn more about, so it was not hard for me to engage with my learning. As with most of my school work, I set myself to really high standards and push myself to create a product that I’m proud of. I felt especially pushed to create a beautiful product because my audience extends past the AHS community. I want to show people that Animas students create really impressive projects and positively represent myself and the school. 


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What are two key lessons that you learned from this project that you can apply to your senior project?

  1. Time Management - In the past, I have struggled with a lot of procrastination that ultimately made my final project lesser quality than it could have been if I had used my time responsibly. With this project, I immediately got started on it and did not procrastinate. I also really tried to use my class time efficiently so I didn’t have to complete work outside of school. I understand that senior project has a lot of individual project work time so I’m glad that I learned how to use this time and self-motivation in this project. A tool that I learned that I will utilize during my senior project is goal setting. It was really useful for me to set daily and weekly goals for myself so I knew exactly what I needed to accomplish. This helped me stay on top of things and not get overwhelmed. 

  2. Planning - I spent a lot of time planning and fleshing out the details for this project which ultimately made me have a final project I’m proud of. With a lot of my past projects, particularly art pieces which is what I want to do for my senior project, I would just dive into creating the art and didn't go through a sufficient design process. This would lead to me trying to change it a lot after it had been started and I didnt have a super clear vision of the final piece. Using strategies like drawing thumbnail sketches and going through a lot of ‘sh*tty rough drafts’  has helped me to have a well thought out and refined product. 

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