Promotional Piece 2

Remembrance of Soldiers and Sailors

When walking on College Green up towards Court and State street everyday, I would always pass a type of monument with statues of people in old military uniforms. I never gave it much thought to what the monument could be in memory of until I was assigned this campus history project. I decided to do this project on the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument of Athens and to my dismay I found that the monument had far more greater meaning than I could convey. Knowing nothing about the monument I started to do research and I found that its purpose for existing actually had a meaningful purpose to me. After researching why the monument is there I then had to think of how I was going to portray it the way the citizens who built it wanted it to be seen as. I figured making a little book promotional piece was perfect because of the order of information I wanted to present to the audience and I thought it would make my readers aware and understand why the monument was put into place. I also had to decide who I wanted my audience for the promotional piece to be.

Choosing an audience was probably the hardest thing that I had to decide to appeal to but then it hit me. I was too worried about who was going to be my audience and why, instead of just realizing that anyone who walks past the monument everyday and has no idea what it is there for, is the audience who I wanted to appeal to. The audience that I am trying to appeal to is the same person that I am. I had no idea why that monument was there, but now that I do, I can honestly say that I have appreciation for why it is there. Anyone who doesn’t know anything about the monument can pick up my promotional book and get a sense of understanding as to why it is there.

The first decision that I had to make was how I was going to promote my piece in a way that made my audience understand and appreciate why the monument is there at all. I decided to make a little book to portray the meaning of the monument. The reason that I decided to make the entire book black and white was to better portray the time period in which the monument was made and to give the audience a sense of when the history behind the monument occurred. When you first look at the cover of the book it states the title of the monument and a picture to show what is about to be inside of the book. As the reader goes through it they will first be shown a dispatch showing the government calling citizens from Athens to war. The next page displays when and why the monument was put into place. On the last page of the book it shows two pictures of plaques that were placed on the monument to better illustrate what the monument stood for. What’s most important about all of these pages in relation to the audience reading it, is the order of information on each page and why I wanted the reader to see what they saw when they did.

The reason I found it important to place the information where I did was so that the reader was brought into a sense of completely understanding and appreciating the purpose of the monument. With my promotional piece being a book, I knew that when flipping through the pages the reader must go in order of the pages and not just flip through without a care in the world. I decided to use this to my full advantage. I didn’t want to start my book with why the monument was put into place because I wanted to give a little bit of the story behind it. I wanted the reader to see in order of what happened first. I felt that if I put when the monument was made on the first page, the reader wouldn’t fully appreciate why it was built. After the cover page I posted a picture of a dispatch that was sent out stating that the government needed troops to fight for the Civil War. After the dispatch page I moved on to when the monument was built. Also on this page are pictures of the soldiers, sailors, and cavalryman portrayed during the civil war. On the last page I decided to place pictures of two different plaques that stated the quote underneath each picture. I did this on the last page to sum up the emotion of the piece which hopefully is that of remembrance, respect and appreciation of the soldiers who died fighting for our country. I placed the information on each page specifically because I wanted the reader to find a sense of appreciation like I did when I was researching my topic.

I will no longer be one of those students who walk by the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument and wonder what the purpose of that piece is. I tried at the best I could to try and develop a certain mood after reading the little book. I placed certain information on certain pages because I wanted the reader to follow it as if it was being told to them from a story tellers point of view. I hope that when the reader turns to the last page that they have a sense of understanding and appreciation for the men who fought and died for our country. I hope they also find it very interesting to be living in a town where they were only asked to volunteer 200 able bodied men but instead Athens volunteered 2,610 men and because of that the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument was put into place. The reason I portrayed my promotional piece the way I did was because the monument was made to be remembered and I feel that kids like me do not even know what it is or what it stands for. My promotional piece was put together the way it was to hopefully convey some sort of emotion that stood for remembering those who had died. I know I’ll never walk by it again and not think of all those men it is in honor of.

Matt Tasker