Tuesday, 31 March 2015

OUGD401 | Idea Generation & Research

I am finding COP particularly difficult in deciding how to approach my practical research. I am unsure about the aims of my practical work and its relation to my essay. I feel that it is appropriate that there is a reasonable connection between my essay and practical as through this my arguments will support each other and hopefully prove my points. 
After putting forward an idea given to me by a tutor in a crit, the mixed feedback has encouraged me to carry out some focussed idea generation and attempt to understand the brief at hand more. 
Target audience was a main point identified in this crit, although it may be obvious I would like to aim my work at the younger generation. This is because youths are more easily affected by advertising as during puberty you are trying to define your identity and a part of this this is unfortunately defined through advertising images. At this moment in time I plan to aim the work at women, as I am a women myself and I feel strongly about the issues surrounding advertising. However, if appropriate I may aim to educate young women on the true representation of the opposite sex, rather than the representation portrayed by advertising. I feel that this issue as just as important as identifying yourself. 

I have begun my idea generation by identifying my key points/arguments in my essay in the hope that this would spark ideas and focus my practical work in terms of what I am trying to prove.
In terms of form, I am open to all types of graphic design including posters, books, zines, websites, social media, advertising and more. I feel that a magazine may be appropriate as this is a vehicle of understanding gender representation commonly used by young women. I myself as a young girl often looked to magazines to try and improve my image and I understand that I must have subconsciously formed by understanding of gender identity through the advertising offered in these. 

Essay Arguments Mind Map 
 I do not feel that I have a solid idea at this moment in time but I do have some fair ideas that I feel I can build upon. The strongest idea I feel I have at the moment are:
-Honest Ads - Replacing claims that the product advertised will produce amazing results with the realities of the product. For example, perfume will not guarantee increased sexual attraction to the opposite sex, it will however make you smell better! This would be done using simpler, more effective tag lines, and I feel it would be most appropriate in poster form. The target audience would be hard to define, this could either be the target audience of the adverts themselves, or the public in general who consume and conform to the adverts.
-A booklet on how NOT to understand the opposite sex/ identity crisis(how to understand yourself and the opposite sex?)- this booklet would be targeted at a younger audience and would aim to give a better understanding of identity and gender and highlight the tricks of advertising early on in the hope that they would become less susceptible to this. I would maybe focus this on sexualisation as this is a huge issue especially at this age as this is when an understanding of sexuality becomes more developed.
-Collection of advertising images with supporting text from essay sources - This is a more developed idea of the one I put forward in the critique. Rather than using quotes, I would give a more detailed explanation of the concept along with the adverts which support the theory e.g. Bergers theory of envy and power.
-Comparisons (publicity image/reality) - a series of posters exploring the representation in the form of image of men and women. One image would feature an advert, the other being the reality e.g. a real woman. The issue with this is what image I would use for the 'real woman'.

Ideas Mind Map


Campaign/Advertising Research 

To gain a better understanding of the work I should be producing, I have been carrying out some research into campaigns against advertising and similar topics including gender to understand how an argument is successfully put across in graphic design and other formats.

EMMA WATSON

Emma Watson in particular has interested me as I feel that she is a strong role model for the modern woman, trying to break the traditions of society and not conform to the rules similar to that of advertising. She has recently been a strong ambassador for the #heforshe campaign and has made various speeches on gender equality and the issues and misconceptions surrounding feminism. The #heforshe campaign in particular encourages men to support feminism and women rather than women fighting the battle of inequality on their own.

I was also inspired by some of her quotes which I feel could relate back to the subject of women in advertising:

"My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder."

"I find the whole concept of being 'sexy' embarrassing and confusing. If I do a photo-shoot, people desperately want to change me - dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there's the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that's not me."


"I do worry about the expectation to look a certain way."




The design of the he for she campaign is sleek and professional. The simplistic style is successful in that the message is easy to read and the campaign is easy to recognise, meaning more awareness is likely to be raised. The striking black background communicates the seriousness of inequality as well as the seriousness of the campaign. It also highlights the type and logo, making the whole design readable and legible. The campaign doesn't mess around with lots of messages, all it requires is the title of the campaign and a very short description. I would like to achieve this minimalism in message and design for my own work - especially if this is a campaign of some sort. 


THIS GIRL CAN

One of the most recent and well known campaigns has been the This Girl Can campaign. It features women in situations typical of both genders and encourages the belief that regardless of the activity women are just a powerful and capable. The social media based campaign has encourage many women and girls to do things they wouldn't normally do because of any stigma against them. Like #heforshe and #thisgirlcan, perhaps a social media based campaign supported by graphic design e.g. billboards would be ideal for tackling the issues related to advertising. 



The design for this campaign is equally minimalistic, requiring only an individual slogan for each poster paired with the instantly recognisable logo for the campaign. The serif typeface communicates a kind of trust, like you would believe an academic source which would traditionally be in a serif typeface. If I decide to create a campaign I need to identity whether a logo is appropriate or whether my campaign is successful without. 


DOVE 

Dove Real Beauty is another strong campaign that was launched in 2004. It aimed to improve the standard of its own advertising and challenge the idea of beauty. "Imagine a World Where Beauty is a Source of Confidence, Not Anxiety". The campaign is on going and Dove are increasingly using only real women in their ads, rather than only using extremely thin women. They aimed to start a discussion as well as a debate in the hope that expectations would be changed. 
Although I praise the company for trying to make a change, I would still argue that their are still issues with the advertising. For example, in their real beauty campaigns the women are usually in underwear only which I feel still encourages the idea of the male gaze as well as sexualising women, even though this is more subtle. A lack of clothing was not necessary to show that the women were real. 




In terms of design although I understand the design decisions, I dislike the design - but I think this is out of personal style. The white backgrounds allow all focus on the women themselves - like you would see in a photo shoot for a high fashion model. I think the issue I have is with the type. It is a typeface similar to (or is) helvetica, which I feel is overused, however I feel that the text sizes and typographic hierarchy is slightly off, the line after the tick boxes is too small and blends into the background with its thin stroke weights. The type also feels squashed in to the image, it may just be my eyes but it seems as though the letter forms have been made narrower which unbalances the composition. 


STOP THE BEAUTY MADNESS

Stop the beauty madness is a campaign that was launched by Robin Rice, the creator of Be Who You Are Productions. The campaign does not have a specific target audience e.g. plus sized women, but rather it is aimed at all women. "These ads are unapologetic in their boldness and bluntness".
I feel that the adverts have a very strong message, however from a graphic design point of view, they could have been designed more effectively. I feel that the logo isn't bold enough and the black border creates too much separation between the logo and image, meaning it does not flow. 




From my research, I feel that an advertising campaign could be a could way to go. I would need to decide a direction for the campaign and identify what I would want it to argue against, ensuring that this satisfies the original question answered in my essay.

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

OUGD401 | Final Critique

For the final crit, I put forward my book idea of combining quotes from my essay with advertising images to back them up. I put forward several questions to help guide the content and design of the booklet. The questions I asked were as follows -

1. Should/Can I use photos from advertisements or should I use full advertisements with all the logos and any text still present? 

This question caused disagreements and there was no final opinion. Some felt that the logos were necessary to shame the branding, others felt that the kind of advertising is usually obvious from the images so this is not necessary.

2. Do I need to reference the images I use within the book?

No this is not needed.

3. Could I use advertisements from just fashion/beauty advertisements, or should I cover all kinds of adverts?

Again, this question caused disagreement. Some felt it was important to show all kinds of advertising, whilst others felt that if I focussed the kind of advertisements I could define a target audience and focus my work more. It was argued that specificity is always better, the rules differ between different forms of advertising so I should focus on a factor or sector of advertising.

4. Could I use quotes that weren't in my essay but are from the same sources?

Yes. However the group felt that quotes could be difficult to achieve and misleading with images. They felt that I should tackle a concept rather than quotes e.g. the male gaze.


Other points raised in the discussion included the fact that I need to establish a target audience in order to focus my work and thus produce more appropriate designs. There was a suggestion to not only focus on the negative forms of advertising but to offer alternatives as a contradiction to these. I also need to define what the problem is and how my practical work will solve this.

Friday, 13 March 2015

OUGD401 | Study task 6

The dissertations I have chosen to analyse are the following -

"How does Ikea sell the idea of "home" to the masses?" 
"The role of self-set projects within a progressive graphic design practice"
"Is Print Still Relevant within the Digital Age"

I am going to analyse the written form as well as -
-punctuation
-grammar
-tone-of-voice
-referencing
-vocabulary

What I first notice about the structure of each is that it is split into clear sections including contents page, introduction, chapters (main body), conclusion, image references (all in one section rather than in the essay) a bibliography broken down into sources e.g. websites and appendices. The order of this varies between dissertations. The introduction tends to explain the structure of the essay and how this will form an argument to ultimately answer the question. Infact, the answer to the question is vaguely given in the introduction e.g This essay argues that - preliminary answer to question - .

The tone-of-voice is interesting in that each chapter begins with a descriptor of the chapter "This is what this this chapter will discuss...". Similarly in the introduction "This piece of writing will discuss...". However, there is no mention of 'me' or 'I', instead each essay is written in third person 'he' 'she' 'they' 'one' and 'it'.

Within the text, if a sources name has already been mentioned, quotes are referenced with the date and page number within brackets e.g. (2010, P.4), others do not list the page number, just the date. Otherwise the name is give e.g. (Olins, 2007, P.30). Longer quotes are indented in their own paragraph whereas smaller quotes or words lie within the text. Interestingly, some quotes begin mid-sentence and so the quote begins with an ellipsis (...) . Reference names within the text are italicised.

I was very interested in the method of research which was listed within the appendices - interviews. I feel that this is a source that I had not considered as a form of research for my written work. I plan to use this for future essays if appropriate.

Sunday, 8 March 2015

OUGD401 | Initial Ideas & Experiments

I have been struggling to come up with ideas as to how I will tackle the practical work in this module. Recently a tutor suggested that I could use the ideas from my essay such as "Man the hunter" and pair these with advertising images, which would illustrate the points made by my sources. Only as an initial experiment, I have begun to pick out themes from my essay and paired them with images. 
I have played around with type and how I can use this to inform the message of the image. I found that didot was most effective as this is a type commonly used in magazines, and magazines are where adverts are found.

Potential quotes/themes : 


"Glamour"
"Envy"
"Power"
“with this you will become desirable”
"Men too are seducers"
"The perfect provocateur is not human; rather, she is a form and hollow shell"
"She is slender, typically tall and long-legged."
"the camera is an extension of the male gaze"
"Men asses women"
"Man, the hunter"
"Women pose as sirens"
"a greater future you"
"men act and women appear"
"sex-at-a-distance"
"the surveyed female"
"an object of vision:a sight"

I am.. "an object" "glamourous" "long legged" "a siren" "surveyed
I am..."dominant" "the hunter" "powerful" "seductive" "gazing"

Booklet/poster series for men and one for women?

The difficulty I have had is locating images, fashion/beauty images are easiest to pair with quotes. However, I am unsure if I should be covering ALL themes of advertising. Secondly, many of the images that I find that are ideal are not paired with a brand but are simply fashion imagery. It is still from an advertisement but I do not know if the logos are required to communicate the message of advertising. 


Man the hunter



Colcci Fashion Ads And Colcci Fashion Advertisements.






Women Pose as Sirens







I began to develop a style that would suit a book format, using images at different sizes paired with uppercase Didot. However, in the upcoming crit I will be able to identify if this idea is something I can go forward with.

Thursday, 5 March 2015

OUGD401 | Study Task 5 - part 2

PROPOSAL

My research question is "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?". My current hypothesis is that the way gender is represented in advertising is false, misleading and ridiculous. Advertising is a process of power, and manipulating the spectator-buyer into envying their future self. Both genders in adverts pose powerfully but the overall position of power lies with the man, whilst women appear as objects, ready to be observed. The contexts of my research lie in advertising itself, and sourcing examples of gender representation and analysing the tools used within the adverts, I will particularly focus on the representation of man and women within these and the positioning of them and what actions are communicated by each. I plan to find these adverts in magazines, newspapers and billboards. We are bombarded by so much advertising that this should not be difficult to source. I plan to analyse how certain products are advertised and identity if their is a common theme when advertising a certain product. I also plan to analyse the techniques used by Adbusters to understand the opposite situation and how I can use this successfully to communicate a message.  I further plan to analyse the photography within advertising, and how the composition of these effects the men, women and the product itself. I will also research products which are similar to the product that I decide to create to fulfil my answer. In order to connect this to my written work, I plan to find advertisements that satisfy various quotes from my sources such as Berger and Coward - through this I will prove the connection and therefore answer the question. In order to test my work I plan to produce questionnaires for the public as well as those in the creative industry. They will answer these questions after seeing my work and hopefully my practical work will be successful in communicating the message of my written work.

TIME PLAN

Week beginning 23rd Feb RESEARCH
Week beginning 2rd March RESEARCH
Week beginning 9rd March IDEA GENERATION AND PLANNING
Week beginning 16rd March IDEA GENERATION AND PLANNING
Week beginning 23rd March EXPERIMENTATION
Week beginning 30rd March EXPERIMENTATION /DEVELOPMENT
Week beginning 6th April DEVELOPMENT
Week beginning 13th April PRODUCTION
Week beginning 20th April PRODUCTION
Week beginning 27th April TESTING
HAND IN 5TH MAY