Project 4

Project four was to design a tri-fold brochure. Coming into this project I had a few ideas how I wanted to design the brochure. I already had a solid topic that I wanted to do which evolves around Samoan tribal tattoos. The biggest obstacle with this project was finding pictures that are big enough to fit on the brochure. Most of the pictures that I saved on my flash drive at home were no were near the correct size that I needed. So I tweaked my search and searched for images on google images for images that were 4 MP or larger. That alone narrowed down my selection and none of the pictures that I originally sought to use were not on the list that were shown. After sifting through countless pictures I was able to find four to six solid images that I could use for the project.

The next hardest thing for me was the cover page. After several designs I was not able to come up with an appealing front page that would grab peoples attention. Finally after several trial and errors and some help from Amy, I was able to settle with an image that covered the whole front page. The image is of a individual sitting on the front of a small boat with his traditional lava lava looking out into the ocean. The person has his shirt off so you are able to see his traditional tattoo. The small title in white letters saying "Traditional Samoan Tattoo" on the back ground of the blue sky and then "The Pe'a" which is on the bottom of the page with white lettering on a black background which is the shadow underneath a compartment on the boat.

The brochure gives a quick back ground of what the "Pe'a" tattoo is. The Pe'a tattoo was a way to symbolize that you were no longer a boy and that you were now a man amongst the tribe. It was a right of passage into manhood. The tattoo would cover the lower torso for the men ranging from the hip to the back to the knees. This process was done in pairs and never by its self. The tattoo traditionally takes 10 days. 5 days of tattooing and 5 days of rest. During the 5 days of tattooing women would be chanting a song in the back ground while the elder was tattooing the person the old fashion way with sharp bone on an end of a stick and repeatedly hitting the stick into the skin. On the days that the boy wasn't being tattooed he would bathe in the ocean to heal up his wounds.

Overall I am very happy how the brochure turned out. I believe the pictures are nice and sharp and should grab everyone attention with the amount of tattooing that is done on the individual.