A frog placed in a pot of boiling water will jump out, but if it is placed in regular water that is gradually heated, it will not perceive the danger until it is too late.

Boiling Point explores the system of capitalism and its hold on us. It seems that we are being asked to sacrifice increasingly more and more for our careers and our livelihood – our time, our well being, our planet – often in ways that we do not fully recognize. The project is based on the parable of the boiling frog, described above, and how this story provides a framework to understand our high pressure and rapidly changing world.

We are being constantly bombarded with advertisements, whether they are on our phone, on our bus windows, on storefronts, the list goes on. We are being told to buy and consume, to keep the economy progressing and ensure that the rich remain rich. I created ads and products for this project with the aim of making the viewer think about this system, and to think about their place in the boiling frog analogy. Some of the advertisements show imagined products, things we might see in our future as we get closer to the boiling point, while others are real products available to you now.

The idea for this project came to me when I was thinking about advertisements and the necessity of them in a society based so heavily on consumption. Advertisements are everywhere, and each one has a unique design and psychology behind the design, which I wanted to explore. The design of each of my ads is tailored to the products, inspired by advertisements for similar products or ideas seen in the world.

I am Henry Fillmore, a graphic designer from Gunnison, Colorado, and a recent graduate from the Design program at the University of San Francisco. I specialize in print and web design, but have always loved art and design in a wide range of mediums, from paintings to printed publications. I was introduced to art at a young age by my father, who obsessively admired and collected landscape paintings of the American Southwest. While I enjoyed being creative throughout my childhood, it wasn’t until my teenage years that I understood the power that art and design have to express and communicate abstract ideas or feelings. I now see art for what it is: an essential component of culture and humanity, as important as language and technology. While my focus is in graphic design, I love exploring new design disciplines and their unique potential for expression. I have a deep love and respect for typography, especially typographic abstraction, which has evolved into a passion for branding as well. My goal is to work in publication design or branding, while perpetually learning and exploring all the disciplines the design world has to offer.