My main concept for this poster was the idea of the opposition immigrants receive, being told to “go back to their own country” or being threatened to be deported. However, they plant roots in the communities they immigrate to, starting to grow a new life for themselves and their families. I wanted to showcase the how immigrants’ roots, shaped by their cultures, lead to beautiful growth that shouldn’t be disrupted. I researched the top ten countries immigrants in America originate from, and also looked into their national flowers.I picked South Korea, China, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico as my countries for this poster as they were within the top seven. I was unable to use Vietnam or India, as their national flower is the lotus, which would not work for my vision for the poster.
I originally played with making each country’s national flower the color of their flags, as well as using an outlined style for the flowers. However, this style did not match the rest of the poster, and the colors became too busy due to similarity. Because of this, I redrew the flowers to match the flat vector style and also recolored them to be more realistic. I initially thought of having the flowers in America’s “melting pot”, and making the pot transparent so you could still see the roots overlapping. As pots are inherently able to be moved easily, this did not match my message.
I included subtle details such as the flowers' roots being in the shape of their countries, or the fertilizer in the soil creating the American flag.
Programs: Adobe Illustrator, Procreate
Initial Iterations
