The Understanding

This illustration was inspired by Ayodeji Awosika's Medium post "I Changed My Mindset and Increased My Productivity by Brainwashing Myself". From his post I decided to play on his use of The Matrix in describing his view of the world. Originally I considered illustrating a hand that offered the red pill to the reader, but I figured that the idea was over-played. Instead, I wanted to try turning it on its head a bit.

Since the blue pill represents the desire to continue living life as usual and the red pill represents the desire to break free of the common narrative, I figured that I would use the pills to represent the people themselves. This idea of breaking free can be seen in the red pills in the illustration as they are breaking out of the black and white infinity symbol, which acts as a container for the blue pills.

The infinity symbol in this illustration is meant to represent the matrix itself. It is colored black and white as the author states that 95% of people, the blue pills, live in the black and white. The red pills, however, are said to have more of an understanding of the grey area. It is because of this that the background of the illustration has been colored grey.

The hand also plays an important role in the illustration, though the point may not necessarily be found in the text of the blog post. The hand shows that the people who take the red pill don't necessarily fall into an abyss, never to be seen again. Instead, they find themselves around like minded people. People whom they can talk to and share a helping hand as necessary. When you look at the reactions to the author's post, for example, you can see that he has many applauds and comments on his post. This shows us that his words have reached the like-minded people that he was aiming for.

This has been my first attempt at editorial illustration. I plan to do more and would love to hear any tips from people who have more experience in the field. Thank you for viewing my work.