Study Task 6 - Consumer identities

In what ways can products/services relate to consumers identities?

- People believe (or are led to believe) that their belongings represent them, who they are, their role in society and to show what social class they fit or try to fit into. 

- Others will judge others for consumer habits and belongings, people can envy others if they have something they do not or cannot have.

- People want to share lifestyles - to be attractive, wealthy or different, always chasing their idea of ones 'Ideal Self'.

-Realising and understanding who you are through consuming, following styles and being individual through what we purchase.

-Products and brands can become social symbols - becoming part of our social environments and our own way of life, they are embedded into our lifestyle.

- Consumerism is used as a means to change how we are as people, it dictates how we want to better ourselves, this is done through company and brand marketing campaigns, through consuming we try to realise our ideal self, and are lead to believe that our ideal image will be better than our actual one.

- Personal ideals can be seen through consumer habits, people's beliefs can also dictate how we consume, be it for religious, political or personal reasons if one of our beliefs or ideals are challenged, then we will avoid these brands or products.

How do consumers use products/services within social interaction?

- Consumers judge others on possessions, creating envy and feeling of sadness through not being to have what others can, this can be seen as social classes clashing.

- Companies and brands, particularly cosmetics companies, fashion brands, food brands and magazines/newspapers, set high standards of the 'Ideal Image' the comparison between this and our own selves causes people to consume more and use services to reach these almost unreachable 'Ideal Images'. It can be dangerous and unethical, in ways, for companies to use tactics such as image editing/photoshopping to create impossible high standards to sell products. 

-This has to lead to brands to use more realistic models and 'regular people' in ad campaigns, this tactic is used so that people can relate and also make the product/brand/service appear more trustable and honest.

Visual communication strategies that effectively promote to its target audience -

Guinness - Strong powerful ad campaigns, making the product desirable and everything else weak in comparrison 

BT - Big actors used in ad campaigns - parodies of themselves for humorous effect - exciting loud ads

Nespresso - Celebrity endorsement - sunny settings and a feeling of high-class living (George Clooney)

UK Army - Aimed at 18 to 22-year-olds through language and characters - army will make you a better person and have a life of happiness and adventure.

Dove - Using 'real people' throughout their ad campaigns to appear to be an honest brand and a trustworthy product.

Considerations - 

- Ethical viewpoint - not to mislead or lie

- Anarchist views may clash with others - must target correct demographic

- Be open - honest and approachable

- Consider people's images - anarchism does not agree with consumerism so it must be key to not fall into using consumerist tactics within the work

- Do not be aggressive but put across the point

STUDY TASK FIVE - SB2 - Research

STUDY TASK FIVE

TASK ONE - One Design sheet outlining relevant contextual research.

Four relevant areas of contextual research - Client/ project background/ industry - sector/ cultural aspects/ sub-culture/ specific technologies/ methods/ history/ branding

TASK TWO - One design sheet outlining the target audience for the project

Who the target audience is and outline them by creating three personas to show how the subject will reach these three different people who fit within the target audience.

TASK THREE - One Design board of four examples of visual work which is related and will help the project, analyse the images for better understanding.

STUDY TASK THREE - RESEARCH

4 Relevant areas of contextual research/information that will 
inform my design.

- Publication / Periodical of satirical/Against the establishment news reports (Possibly all completely ridiculous and irrelevant news headlines) Look at Sunday Sport, The Onion, Daily Mash and News Thump.

'Design Anarchy' - Kalle Lasn

This radical new aesthetic vision from the founder of Ad busters Magazine looks unflinchingly at contemporary art and graphic design and implicates their seemingly innocuous practitioners in crimes against our culture and our planet. Design Anarchy pioneers a hybrid graphic/text language that is by turns intimate, anarchic, abstract and accusatory, to explore the responsibility of the visual designer and artist in the pollution and redemption of our mental and physical commons. It makes an urgent call for artists, graphic and industrial designers and architects to reengage with the world, and it includes work from some who have already heard that call: Jeff Wall, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan McGinley, Gregory Crewdson and Barbara Kruger. Kalle Lasn is the founder of Adbusmedia foundation, such as Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week, and has pioneered the spoof ads, billboard liberations and TV mind-melters featured here. 

'Oh So Pretty. Punk In Print.' - Toby Mott

A Visual guide to the punk movements from 1976 to 1980, looking at periodicals, posters and artwork from the time of anarchy and anti-establishment fuelled sub-culture which stormed the nation. It presents 500 artefacts - 'zines,' gig posters, flyers, and badges - from well-known and obscure musical acts, designers, venues, and related political groups. While punk was first and foremost a music phenomenon, it reflected a DIY spirit and instantly recognisable aesthetic that was as raw and strident and irrepressible as the music. As disposable as the items in this book once were, together they tell a story about music, history, class, and art, and document a seismic shift in society and visual culture.

STUDY TASK THREE

STUDY TASK THREE

A3 Design sheet which defines and outlines the research question:

1 - Research Question
-is it viable?
-What is there to study?
- How can we know about it?
-How do we study it?

2 - Defining the design problem (E.g political/anarchy branding)

3 - Clients needs and requirements
-Specific requirements to guide the project

4 - Audience??

STUDY TASK TWO Parody and Pastiche - Jameson and Hutcheon - Study Task 2

Pastiche = an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.
Parody = an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

Frederick Jameson -

- Pastiche
- Parody becomes pastiche
- modernism
- postmodernism as a capitalist construct


- The disappearance of an individual subject, along with its formal consequence, the increasing unavailability of the personal style, engender the wall-high universal practice today of what may be called pastiche.

- Thomas Mann

- Faced with these ultimate objects - our social, historical and existential present and the past as 'reverent' - the incompatibility of a post-modernist "Nostalgia" art language with genuine historicity becomes dramatically apparent.

- The contradiction propels this mode, however, into complex and interesting new formal inventiveness; it being understood that the nostalgia films were never a matter of some old fashioned 'representation' of historical content, but instead approached the 'past' through stylistic connotation, conveying 'pastness' by glossy qualities of the image and the '1930-ness' or '1950-ness' by attributes of fashion (in the following the prescription of the Barthes of mythologies, who saw connotation as the purveying of imagery and stereotypical idealities, "sinite" for example as some Disney-EPCOT "concept" of China)

- Post-modernism is a parody of modernism.

- Parody of modernism as it does not regard and mocks. Pastiche would celebrate through taking something pre-existing and recreating it in your own style.

- Jameson holds little regard for imitation in form of nostalgia.

- Jameson relates post-modernism to ego and believes that original work can be produced in post-modernism.

"Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of linguistic masks, speech in a dead language' (Jameson. F. 'Parody' p.16)

- Jameson's view on post-modernism as ego.

Linda Hutcheon - 

- Parody
- Political
- Post-modernism
- Modernism is a capitalist construct

- Believes that without the past work, old styles and also the nostalgia of this then post-modernism would be without meaning.

- Relates post-modernism meanings to politics.
- Postmodernism celebrating the past by using parody to subvert and legitimise the material it mimics not to mock.
- Parody unsettles all Doxa (Greek word meaning common belief or popular opinion), all accepted beliefs and ideologies.

- Hutcheon argues that parody is not depthless "But rather that it can and does lead to a vision of disconnective ness".

"Parody is doubly coded in political terms: it both legitimises and subverts that which it parodies" (Hutcheon. L. 'Politics'. P.101)

- States all postmodernist artwork should share the same quality of being "resolutely historical and inescapably political, precisely because they are parodic".

- Argues that the existence of post-modernism does not share the same principles as modernism and cannot be looked at from the perspective of it ever achieving "genuine historicity" as Jameson desires.

- Postmodernism should be looked at as a form of protest on that it challenges the possibilities of there ever being an 'ultimate object as modernism tries to achieve.

- Criticism of Jameson's description of pastiche. Stating that post-modernist architecture is not random or "without principle" to think this would ignore and disregard architects such as


TASK

- Jameson's view on post-modernism is that is a parody of modernism, though there appears to be a hostility towards parody, as it seems he believes modernism is a strong deep movement and that the imitations and mimicry through post-modernism mock this work in ways. Jameson sees "the incompatibility of a post-modernist "Nostalgia" art language with genuine historicity becomes dramatically apparent" meaning that whatever homage or celebration of modernism trying to be achieved in post-modernism is out of touch and only ends up mocking modernist design rather than to celebrate it. Hutcheon's opinion is the opposite to Jameson's, she believes that all post-modernist artwork shares the same quality of being "resolutely historical and inescapably political precisely because they are parodic"(1986, p180), Hutcheon sees the historical celebration in the fact that post-modernism is parody rather than Jameson's opinion that it cannot celebrate modernism through parody, only mock it and decrease its value, though Jameson does state that he believes the mocking style of parody can become pastiche through original works of postmodernism, again Hutcheon criticises Jameson's description of pastiche, where he describes, post-modernist architecture as "random" and "without principle" to say this would be to ignore the work of postmodern architects such as Joel Bergman. Barbara Bielecka. Ricardo Bofill. Mario Botta. Hutcheon believes that postmodernism should not be compared with modernism in some aspects, for one because they do not share the same principles and postmodernism can not be looked at from the perspective of it ever achieving "genuine historicity" as Jameson desires, though this can stem from Jameson's unwavering view that modernism is king and should not be parodied as he believes postmodernism parodies it.

Looking at examples of pastiche within the contemporary graphic design world, brought up design studio 'Stranger and Stranger', a studio which focusses on packaging and branding. They are known for their bottle packaging, branding wine, spirits and beers. Their look is distinctively old-fashioned and high end, this adds a bespoke quality within their style. The designs which they use employ multiple design methods such as illustration, embossing, foiling and typesetting. 

Another example of pastiche and parody is James Reid's 'God save the Queen' artwork for the punk band the Sex Pistols, his work uses imagery of the union jack and the Queens portrait, collaged with type to cover her face, this uses popular imagery parodied into new art, though it changes the meaning of the original imagery to create something with a completely new perception, the images were used to show the queen and the flag to show the country but within Reids work he changes them and they are now iconically known as anarchistic images which represent punk music and culture.

STUDY TASK ONE - Triangulating Texts - Visual Pleasures

Laura Mulvey's essay on Visual pleasure and cinema narrative is a paper which focuses on the males gaze and perception of eroticism in cinema. Mulvey, British Feminist, film theorist is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck university.

Richard Dyer's essay looking at Mulvey's original 1975 paper on cinema narrative. Dyer is a British Academic and published author.

One of the main points Mulvey puts across is that women are traditionally portrayed in cinema as being relative to the spectacle rather than narrative, they are there for the purpose of the males gaze and heterosexual look. She refers to the presence of a heroine in cinema as alien, to show the uncommon aspect of female leads in classic cinema, it is a male dominated business and women are used more as sexual objects to be there for the male gaze. To support this point she refers to Molly Haskell's theory of 'Buddy Movies' she eludes to both roles of a spectacle and narrative can be filled without a need for a feminine character. Mulvey explains that women's roles in cinema rarely break the boundaries of being an object of attraction to the male in the film and/or the male watching.

Laura Mulvey discusses the generalisation and sexualisation of females roles in classic cinema, she believes women are displayed on two levels, firstly as erotic objects for the characters within the story and as an erotic object for the person watching the movie, within her writing she says that the concept of a lead women, who holds more narrative within a film, is alien within classic cinema. John Storeys 'cine-psychoanalysis' talks about Mulvey's essay and he picks up and adds his own opinion to her thoughts, in comparison to Richard Dyers essay discussing Mulvey's work, this is a lot less balanced, where Storeys writing agrees with Mulvey, it does not expand much on what is being said in the original paper, whereas Dyers builds and contradicts Mulvey's, it offers more opinion and argues that men are also objectified in cinema as their objectification has a context to it, it has purpose to the narrative rather than just being objective.

Evaluation OUGD401

At the beginning of Context of practice I was excited at the prospect of being able to research politically charged Graphic Design, as I chose to answer the question of Graphic Designs role in social and political upheaval, a topic which I was enthusiastic about yet had not previously gone deep into. I felt that it was an opportunity to broaden my practice as well as my understanding of political art, looking at design which was more informed and directed at a specific audience.  The question meant I would be looking at design which has shaped or played a role in times of political or social change, this was a broad spectrum so I decided to explore theme of protest more than any other, looking at iconic designs used in protest or as an attack on a political change, works of revolution against conformity or the established order a topic which I found inspiring.

Through completing the study tasks given through the studio time for Context of practice I became more comfortable with the prospect of writing an essay, something which I was worried about having not written a full formed essay in a long time. The study tasks helped me to form a structured plan of which I would follow to complete my essay. Through the study tasks and the lectures for COP I learnt of a protest movement which occurred in France in 1968, where students and workers united to protest the conservative government at the time and also capitalism. Looking deeper into this I felt it would be a key point to look at not only for my essay but for my practical piece as the design which was produced at the time of this unrest is now iconic to the time and continues to be inspiring and relevant today. This research was key to my essay as it held a huge part in my argument yet the research I had gathered for this was majorly internet based, I need to broaden the range of research resources I use this was one drawback within my work.

Though I looked mainly at protest pieces I also researched pieces which were for a Political reason for example the Obama 08 presidential campaign, holds a huge place in my essay to see both sides of social and political upheaval, highlighting the moods which are set through the design work which occurs because of the upheaval. I looked at a number of texts which aided my work yet again the majority of my research took place through websites and PDF's, I have recognised this as one of the weaknesses in my work. I feel my essay analyses relevant and iconic design work which answers the question of Graphic designs role in political and social upheaval looking at the inspiring and influential nature of the work and how it shaped the modern world now. I feel that through the module I have broadened my understanding of graphics role in politics and society as well as grown in confidence towards producing essays, being able to critically analyse work and see its relevance and keeping the entire essay on the correct topic and informative.

Screen Printed Finals - Poster

The screen printed finals went really I used a dark red so that it would be clear on the pink stock, the type came out really legible, which is a concern I had to consider knowing that sometimes in screen print it can be lost if not done carefully. The Black type at the top came out really well, bold and clear, it looks almost digitally printed and is legible sitting atop of the image I used. The image came out obscure which is what I wanted it to be like, the bitmap style which I Used made the image clear enough to be recognised yet only as a person who is protesting not the actual person who it is. I did find some difficulties during the print process as the ink ran in some places yet creating some nice effects. I am very pleased with the outcome of the practical side of the brief as it is what I set out to produce yet even better than I imagine, it is a strong informed piece which works in context to the question I chose to base my essay on. It is informed and reflects the research I have carried out.

Final Digital Resolutions OUGD401

I chose to just use the body of the image of Charlie Gilmour not the entire image, for one reason that the image can be universally used and not just for London (Which was were the photo was taken) it shows a young man waving a flag for revolution and change which is a strong political statement in its self. The picture reminds me a lot of one used in France '68 which depicts a person in a long coat throwing a brick, the image I have chosen shows more of a peaceful message. I kept using the red type and image overlay to keep using the styles I saw throughout my research. The type is Times italic I used this to as it is a bold serif font, which is seen as old fashioned, this was to promote the use of the slogan and style which was used almost 50 years ago in France, they are old but still relevant as ever today. I experimented with layout to get a good idea of how the piece would work when I screen print it. Below is the negatives I have prepared for screen print. I chose to Bitmap the image of Gilmour to obscure his identity and also to get a bolder print full of colour.

Practical Development. Ougd401

Starting of developing some ideas for my practical I knew I wanted to use edited imagery, I had some stock photos of gangs of youths which could represent students and protesting, I knew I should use the colour red as it is a common reoccurring theme with political designs. I mocked up this poster using a relevant modern day protest quote which I found whilst researching. It was a start off point yet I felt it was too busy, I then thought of the styles used for the protests in Paris in 1968 and the simplicity and striking style they used. 

This is an image taken from the student protests which lead to the London Riots in 2012. It shows Charlie Gilmour, son of pink floyd lead singer, Gilmour has become iconic in the riots, most famously for swinging on the union jack at a cenotaph in London. This image depicts Gilmour waving a flag which reads revolution, if his identity could be to some extent obscured I could use the image as a metaphor for all students who are protesting or revolting against the established order. Again I edited the image to make it red to keep with the correct aesthetic of a protest piece.

I decided to use a coloured stock for my design so began mocking up more thought out designs inspired by the French posters. I looked at using a light pink stock to make the red and black screen printed image more bold, pink would also represent peace and calm to provoke a sense of peaceful protest. The image I have used is the one of Charlie Gilmour, not only have I turned it red but I have also cute it into long strip sections to represent oppression and students being told to conform. The quote I have used is one used in 1968 'Sois Jeune et Tais Toi' which translates to 'Be Young And Shut Up' a strong quote which is still relevant today as the conservative government continue to tamper with the education system and not expect backlash. I decided to create a fake protest event for art students (using leeds college of arts name) as it was the art students in '68 which instigated alot of the protests as they created the silkscreen posters which became iconic.

I continued to experiment with layout and form to test out which would be best continuing to use the type and image I had produced. Yet still felt that the image I had used was making the piece to busy and too obscure to be totally clear legible. I felt that I needed to make it more simple.

Practical hypothesis

My initial ideas is to produce a poster response using the techniques I have seen in my research, I want to produce a piece which pays homage to the screen printed designs used in the France protests of 1968, Using limited colours of Red and Black and edited imagery.

Research Practical

What I found was a lot of these politically charged pieces, especially student protest pieces, had a hand rendered style type on the design. They would be rough striking visual posters and would portray strength and rebellion. Again the use of red representing a clenched fist, to portray anger and unity in struggle.

Many of the old posters which I looked at, including the 'Support Prison Rebellions' poster, used hand rendered imagery to put across their point. In this case it uses fists (Another well used icon in politically charged design) to show the struggle of racism embedded in the US prison system at the time. Again they have used red as the only colour on the poster. One apparent aspect which can be seen in the prisoners support poster is a use of structure and layout the type arrangement in place conforms to a grid.

Another one which uses the regular tactics of political design is the screen printed 'Come Together In Peace' Poster, it utilises hands which are seen as a sign of strength, and in this case unity as the hands are clasping one and other as well as hand rendered bold type, in this case in black sitting on the image, the use of the black and red makes for a bolder image.

The use of a red stock or pink stock with black or a darker hue of red printed on it works really well and is something which I want to attempt in my practical.

 “Everybody talks about the weather. We don’t.” The 1968 poster was a response by the German Socialist Student Union to an ad campaign for weatherproof trains. The students were suggesting that like the figures pictured above, they had more important concerns than everyday things like the weather. The bold red image is eye catching and was very topical at the time of publishing, it would have been influential.

‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge’ is a lithographic Soviet propaganda poster designed by Russian artist Lazar Markovich Lissitzky. The intrusive red triangle symbolises the Bolsheviks, who are penetrating and defeating their opponents, the White movement, during the Russian Civil War. Lissitzky was a leading figure of the Russian avant garde movement, designing a number of exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work hugely influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design. 

Research Practical OUGD401

I looked at politically charged design to get a grasp of graphic designs role in social and political upheaval. I looked at a broad set of posters and books to find inspiration which will help me to produce my final resolutions, a response to the essay which I wrote. Looking at colour and composition, imagery and typefaces used within these designs, I want to pick up key elements used in political design so as to produce a piece which will work to influence, inform and inspire like most political works have done so in modern times.

This poster represents the oppression in Columbia in South America, it was made by a French activist group who raise support for what is happening over there. Red seems a common theme throughout politically charged design work I shall look into the connections. The two tone style imagery adds a grit to the piece showing the harshness of the topic.

This book cover of Steven Kelmans Push Comes To Shove book on student protest uses hand drawn illustrations to create its point, showing students hand gestures possibly towards the government at the time, again the use of red can be seen in the clenched fist, perhaps to show the anger and tension in the fight against establishment. The simple line drawings which make up the cover are clear and relevant to the context of the book, there is clear use of grid systems.

This is a lithograph poster (A lithograph is a print made by drawing on limestone with wax crayons, applying ink onto the stone and printing the image onto paper) which translates to 'We Will Go On Until The End' it is used to show the protests of the Paris 1968 unrest. The imagery used is really strong using just a black and white image of a mass crowd with large bold san serif type to clearly put across the message.

Dada was an cultural movement which occurred between the years 1915 and 1923. Originated in Zürich, the Dadaist movement and its loose network of artists spread across Europe as well as into other countries, with New York becoming the primary centre of Dada in the United States. The very word Dada is difficult to define and its origins are disputed, even amongst the Dadaists themselves. This poster takes aspects of dadaist art work and over lays it with a screen print of the event which is taking place in new york, once again it uses red heavily in its design.

This poster was run for a free speech a movement held by a university campus showing the want for peace and environmental change. the poster uses a red and pink edited image something which has occurred numerous times throughout my research.

1968 France Student Protests - OUGD401

The posters of the Paris 1968 uprising comprise some of the most brilliant graphic works ever to have been associated with a social movement. Politics aside, from a design point of view they are iconic. The artworks were not superfluous decorations meant to beautify office walls - instead they took centre stage on the streets of France in provoking awareness and action. The posters were all anonymous creations, the result of collaborations between idealistic students and striking workers. 
Atelier Populaire declared the posters “weapons in the service of the struggle an inseparable part of it. Their rightful place is in the centres of conflict, that is to say, in the streets and on the walls of the factories.” The organisation went on to produce hundreds of anonymous silkscreen posters.


This poster outlines the struggles of the universities during this period of unrest, depicting a university as a factory












This poster is La Beauté Est Dans La Rue (Beauty Is in the Street). The poster is a declaration that beauty will not be found in the bourgeois palaces of culture, but in the struggle to create a new society. The image depicts a street fighter in a trench coat hurling a cobblestone at riot police, but the artwork also alludes to a popular slogan and graffiti of the day - "sous les pavés, la plage" (under the paving stones, the beach).





When the French riot police attacked the occupied universities and workplaces, the rebellion turned violent. The initial police onslaughts were so heavy handed that many joined the strikers in order to protest police brutality. The poster at left was the artistic response to the savage police assaults, and the chilling untitled image appeared on city walls all over Paris.














This poster depicts the French President at the time tampering with universities, with the slogan 'Capitalists' printed under the imagery, this is to scrutinise the president himself as well as the concept of capitalism which protesters of the time felt was failing and ruining the country.













The style the posters use is simple and eye catching, having been mass produced using silk screen prints which are a representative of the producers who were the protesters, they became iconic to the events which took place in 1968. The use of singular colours keep them simple yet bold and sharp they represent more than just art work but a cry at the political injustices felt at the times. I want to produce a screen printed piece which pays homage to these works, perhaps attempting a modern day rendition, when students still scrutinise the government over fees and the running of the education system.