Study Task - Practical background research

With this research it helped to inform my practical work and make better design choices with meaning and context.

I wanted to look at perfume packaging and promotion as often times its very gender centered in the marketing.


Marc Jacobs:

I've noticed the branding for Marc Jacobs is very feminine and floral looking to match the brand name 'daisy' , even the bottle its self is very floral focused, also in their campaigns and promotion only feature women, making the target audience and obvious, possibly to give an essence to the type of sent there trying to sell to their market audience.

Diseseal:

Very bold looking promotion, not a lot of images with men but a lot of textures and bold looking type with earthy colours and grey and blue tones. I took this into consideration when looking into my own visual communication in how i could present my work and create a certain message with type and colour.

The "only the brave" packaging has a very strong essense, completely contrasting to the marc jacobs approach, giving an obvious gendered biased to each one.

A 20,00 Year Non Linear History of the Image

This lecture was presented to feature a variety of work that ranged in visual communication from different cultures contexts and epochs, demonstrating both how creative and tangential connections and continues to be traced between these diverse examples aiding us with many resources to be used in the future to tackle any creative briefs and show the importance of visual communication.

Mankind has always composed ways of communicating, the first example of any sort of visual communication was documented in France inside the Lascaux Caves, the importance of these drawings gives us a glimpse into that part of history in a form of storytelling, without them we might not have as good of an understanding of that period of time.

Inside the Lascaux caves

Images have the power to evoke strong emotions

Walter Benjamin - communication with gods, sprit of animals, fear

Mark making hallucinations unconcious - physcological

abstract expressionism, Cy Twombly, Lepanto resembe cave painting

controversial - Richard long, 'Red Earth circle' conceptual artist similarities between past and furure art- possiblt cultural appropriation

Rothko Chapel: cult chapel 'the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction'
flat monochrome muted became black more sombre falling into the void - cosmos, many said to become emotional to this.

Papel Alter and Frescoes interior of the Basilla of San Fran cesco d'assi, c 1240 spiritual also dominant money + spirituality


Mona Lisa - domesticated to western media culture.

Marcel Duchamp : conceptual dadism - attack on cultural authority.

Notes (To explore at later date):

Banksy - Mona Lisa outsider art Mujahideen


Black underclass made own art unequal oppertunity

Jackson Pollock - giant canvases, trance like state unconcious channeling, records of the physce artist seemed more other

Roy Litchenstein - mocking abstract art popular culture - pretencious

Vladamir - roses for stalin - socialist realism, innovative avant garde

progress - in 1920's banned expressionism

China - art creating icons of leaders,

Alberto Korda western imperialism - revolutionary recontextual (mona lisa)

image making - immortal transends journey of images,

Gillary "Maniac ravings, or little boney..."

Steve Bell - political

Disney - donald duck c in Nutzi land power of image making

Guerrilla girls - 1985 history has been dominated by white wester culture

L'Artelier populaire sold as artworks (shouldnt be)

post modern synaasusm

Nick ut - power of communication - human suffering of war,

rewrite hisory - biased
constable (1821) the Hayworn' representation of englishness image commissioned

OUGD401 Study Task 2 - Finding Research Sources

Source of information:

Finding research for this task I looked in a variety of places. the majority of the information was from an internet source however I did try and look for others in written examples to better illustrate my point further.

I had identified these sources to be the most appropriate for my work and was able to make connections to the content of my work and make critical evaluations of the work to the best of my ability. I think this task has taught me about the importance of finding information and using it in the right context.

•   http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/01/protein-world-beach-body-ready-ads-asa

•   Kat Hache (2014) What Laverne Cox's 'Time' Magazine Cover Means to Me As a Transgender Woman  http://www.bustle.com/articles/26305-what-laverne-coxs-time-magazine-cover-means-to-me-as-a-transgender-woman (Acsessed 9 January)

•   Michael J. Saraceno, Rachel B. Tambling
 (2013) The Sexy Issue: Visual Expressions of  Heteronormativity and Gender Identities in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
University of St. Joseph West Hartford, Connecticut , University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut (Accessed 20 December)

•  Jennifer J. Pike and Nancy A. Jennings (2005) The Effects of Commercials on Children’s Perceptions of Gender Appropriate Toy Use

• Laura Mulvey (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (Accessed 20 December)
• Shelly Grabe, Janet Hyde, L. Monique Ward. (2008) The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies, University of Michigan, University of Michigan (Accessed 20 Decemb
• Renee Hobbs*, Sharon Broder, Holly Pope and Jonelle Rowe (2006) How adolescent girls interpret weight-loss advertisin
•  Feminist Perspectives on Objectification  - 3. Feminine appearance and objectification (First Published 2010) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-objectification/

Semiotics - Lecture

Questions:

• How do signs give a meaning?

• How are emotions evoked with signs?

Studying different components e.g red evokes danger and passion. Although this isn't what red actually is its interesting to look at what connections we make with certain images.

Semiotics debunks meanings, brings things into question, makes us understand cultural codes to understand.

Barthes Mythologies (1957)

This piece of art made by John Costable ( 1821) has been brought up multiple times in an example of how manipulation has been used to portray an idea and how easy it is to do. Its interesting to analyse an image and question why certain things are there and why.

If we bring this to a more current time, there was also a discussion about the company mcdonalds and what they represent and what it makes us as the consumers think of such as health, food, obesity, corperate, cheap, quick etc.

Study Task 8 - Practical exploration experiments

The idea of these ideas was to challenge the way packaging is perceived in terms of design choices and the audience associated with it in terms of gender. I wanted to explore this in a practical sense by looking at packaging and the impact it can make with just simple adjustments.

These are the first set I'd made just to explore the type I could use and also looking at the likelihood of the functionality and presentation.

With this as a starting point I went on to look at different ways i could make these pieces stronger, such as looking more into composition and colour ect. 

I had the idea of making a gender neutral packaging idea however I feel as if thats been seen before a lot and I'd much rather prefer to look at appealing to another demographic while focusing on another entirely and exploring the perception and technique of this and also relating to the content described in my essay with the main theme of gender roles.

I always like looking at something that is unconventional or makes the audience think about something a bit more and thats the aim I have with this work.

Experimenting with colour:

The outcome of experimenting with colour sampled from a mens perfume bottle and the font used. The appearance is very minimal and bold. I like the outcome of this but I feel it could of been stronger with a rough texture placed somewhere or used in a clipping mask with the text.

Poster & Advertising ideas:

On the topic of looking at gender I wanted to explore the possibility of challenging 

I really like the outcome of this and the message its able to give with just image and text. I wanted it to be bold and make a loud statement without much explanation and I think thats what this image has achieved.

For this I used a internet found image, but photography is something I'd like to become stronger with and put more thought into when looking at making work stronger and look into more techniques of communication.

A section of my essay I looked at an image called "are you beach body ready?" which featured a very slim model used to advertise a protein product for fitness. It was an ad that had a lot of controversy surrounding it and a lot of responses and discussion about body image.

This piece I've made serves as my own response to the slender image we're often sold in advertising and other media so often. With more time I would of liked to used my own image and explore different outcomes.

Experimenting with phrasing (thought it might sound too personal and maybe feminine when put in context?)

I also did another version of this work which was illustration based.

It's very bright and bold in the way its presented, I've tried to push myself in the style of work I make and make a bolder statement. I like the outcome of this but I'm not sure its as strong as the photographic image with text version.