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.