This piece, titled, Wash. Sanitize. Rinse. Repeat., was created by me, Becky Holloman. It was created using photography, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator over January 2012. This piece was created for the “Worst Job” project in Graphic Design II.
This work is a digital projection and print that is 8 inches high by 16 inches wide. The subject of this piece is the repetitive process of washing dishes. The multiple lines of text in different typefaces and styles are compositional elements that make this piece deconstructive. Also, the break down of the process of washing dishes which is feature as the background text is literally deconstructing an activity into each step.
This work connects with me personally because during the winter of 2010 I worked at a catering company in Kaneville, Illinois. While working there, my job was to do anything the owner did not want to do. Many times while working there, I would arrive around 8:30 in the morning and wash dishes nearly nonstop until I left around 3 in the afternoon. Although I enjoyed the job and the experience I gained along with the money I earned, I absolutely despised standing over the sink, repeating the same process again and again. I believe this work compares to a few other works we’ve seen during class for this project. A few students also had jobs where dishwashing was a large portion of what they had to do or what made it the worst job for them so they are similar subject matters. The ideas that have shaped my approach came from my original thoughts about the project, but specific details were put together based on some of the comments I received during class. Some students mentioned my choice in typefaces during my first critique, specifically my use of a stencil font in my first draft, so my final draft features a more thought out approach to which typefaces I chose to use and the reasons behind them.
My purpose with this project was to describe and show my worst job ever to our class. I wanted to use a deconstructive layout and theme because I found it to be the most interesting paradigm and thought it would work well with the repetitive process that was involved at my job. I want this piece to give an insight into what it is like working at a catering company when you are merely an assistant who is given trivial tasks that the other employees do not want to do. I would hope that this piece is successful in describing my worst job ever. I hoped to deconstruct the job and pick it apart into small pieces in order to explain why it was my worst job. Personally I think the overall design is strong and well put together. I would not say the subject matter is a weakness, per say, however, I do think that if I had had more jobs to choose subject matter from that the overall project could have been a little bit more successful.