I’ve created this illustration with ProCreate for a school project. I needed to design a product reflecting my identity and perspective on the theme of Connection. Within this assignment, the main focus was on researching what I, as a designer, have an affinity for and incorporating that into this task. Something I have found very interesting for years, and rediscovered during this assignment, was my interest in the police force. During my desktop research into news articles that caught my interest, I noticed that I was mainly interested in articles related to the police.

I began to think about the theme of connection in combination with the police. Around the same time, there were a lot of news articles about Rotterdam being the new murder capital of the Netherlands, and this seemed like a good subject to focus on for this assignment and theme.

As a target audience, I chose problem areas in Rotterdam where there is a lot of gun and knife violence. I wanted to raise awareness among young people and others in these neighbourhoods in a low-threshold way about the impact of weapons. Because I wanted to do this in a low-threshold way, I decided to use a medium that is often already present in these neighbourhoods: graffiti. By placing a mural in this neighbourhood that subtly draws attention to gun and knife violence, I want to create awareness among the residents and hopefully initiate a change.

Banksy has greatly inspired me because there is a deep meaning behind all of his works. His works stand out because he has a specific style, and people respect his works. For my mural, it was important that people understood that there was an important meaning behind it and that the residents respected the mural so that it would remain visible for a long time. This led me to create a new ‘Banksy’ for my assignment, blending his iconic style with my own message.

In my illustration, I chose to represent a young boy holding a balloon, symbolizing the innocence of childhood. The child looks at his own shadow and sees its future self, not as a playing child, but as a boy with a bloody knife. A contradiction that shows how it should actually be; the playing child, and how the situation actually is and will be in the future; children or young people with knives.

By keeping the illustration simple, I want people to think about the message and what lies behind it. And by placing the mural in a neighbourhood where these situations are prevalent, I hope to really create a change or awareness.