Seminar 2 - Consumerism

In todays Seminar we had a quick recap of the lecture which was what the seminar was to be about - Consumerism.

Some of the points we had gone through were:

• Freuds theory - instinctual desire for sex and violence
• Pleasure principle
• Docile
• Incompatibility with society
• consumption to satisfy desire
• Political control
• Public relations
• Fordism > Mass Production > Disposable Income > Increased Consumption > Brand Culture
• Manufacturing False needs of sex, desire, power, status.

We were then split into groups of 5 and given a task to look at a section of the last chapter of 'Ways of Seeing' By John Berger. I was in a group with Lizzy, Issy and Jnae. We had decided to look at a perfume advert, the advert we chose was this one:

We decided that this advert would be suitable for the quotes we were going to be looking at as the main ideas which is covers are envy, desire, appeal and glamour. The first quote was

Publicity does not manufacture the dream. All that it does is to teach one of us that we are not yet enviable - yet could be.

This advert is an excellent example of this as from the get go you know what the advert is going to be about and the use of actress Scarlett Johansson in the advert straight away implies glamour, as the advert goes on she keeps talking about wanting to be desired, and being the woman you've always wanted to be. The advert end on her saying 'Oh I'm not looking for a million things, just that one, perfect thing, love' the bottle of perfume is then shown and is actually saying that the way to become this desirable and enviable woman is love which in fact is the perfume.7

The gap between what publicity actually offers and the future it promises, corresponds with the gap between what the spectator-buyer feels himself to be and what he would like to be.

This heavily links into the point made above how publicity offers and promotes different ideas to what you will actually receive from consuming this product. In this case the buyer is meant to feel that the perfume will get them love, desire and make them enviable and without it they are incomplete. But this would only work if the buyer can see themselves once they have consumed the product.

I thought that this task was very interesting as it teaches you how advertising has a sense of control over society and how they sell false needs in order to sell these products which we do not need.

Seminar and Study Task 1 - Communication Theory

This was the first session of Context of Practice for Level 5 of BAGD.

We looked at the Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model.

The model was initially designed for the Military and to analyse forms of communications. This very model can also be applied to Graphic and visual communications as well. 

The model consists of 5 stages as you can see. 

We were then asked in pairs to think of how the model could be applied to graphic design and to identify the five stages, the ones I came up with my partner were:

1. Research
2. Concept/Idea
3. Development/Experimentation
4. Production/Process
5. Final Outcome

We then all said one or 2 we had as a class to make a more precise one.

1. Brief/Client/Concept
2. Designing
3. Medium
4. Communication
5. Audience

There are problems which can occur at each stage of the model though, in a graphic design term here are a list of problems which could occur:

Brief/Client/Concept

Too Vague

Bad Concept

Wrong Information

Designing

Rushed

Consideration of Audience

Bad Designer

Bad Concept

Medium

Cost

Format

Production Issues

Communication

Misunderstanding

Location

Language

Audience

Lack Of Feedback

If They were Blind/Deaf/Colour Blind

Some of these problems can be resolved

Brief/Client/Concept

Ask Questions

Better Research

Designing

Feedback

Development

Experiment

Medium

Better Planned out

Communication

Their Language

Better thought out

Some examples of Noise for each stage could be:

Brief/Client/Concept

Ethics

Distractions

Designing

Style

Mind set

Clients not letting you work properly

Medium

Technology

Limits of the media

Communication

Understanding

Interpretation

Situation/Surroundings

Communication Problems

Level A - Technical Problems (how the message can be transmitted)

Level B - Semantic Problems (How precise is the message conveyed)

Level C - Effectiveness Problems (How effectively does the meaning affect behavior)

Level A:

• Printer Broke
• Ability
• Skill
• Software

Level B:

• Mis-interpretation
• Mis-Understanding
• Tone of Voice
• Colours
• Layout

Level C:

• Location
• Lack of Feedback
• Mis-interpretation

Entropy - Unpredictable

Redundancy - Somewhat predictable or sends the message across simply

We were then set a task to look at one piece of communication and apply the Shannon and Weaver Model to it.

I have chosen Nikes 'Stand Up Speak Up' campaign.

I would say that the image above and the whole campaign was a good way to raise awareness and importance of anti-racism, and to some extent was slightly entropic as when these wristbands had actually come out a lot of people mistaken them simply as accessories without knowing their actual purpose. 

In this case I would say that the information source would be racism within and surrounding sports and I the transmitter would be the designer of the bands but could also be the director behind the initial idea as it was not simply just a series of posters it was a campaign with the wristbands being at the centre of it all but had many components.

Linked in with that the channel for this would be the advertising for the campaign as people would not really see it if they wasn't going into the shops where the bands we being sold, broken down it would be photographs like you can see above with text. The receiver would technically be the public in general but I think it was aimed at people who enjoyed and were into sports and younger teens such as 10-16 year old's as they were very popular in secondary schools and I think that secondary school is a very important part of every young adults life as it somewhat molds you into what sort of adult you will grow up to be and what sort of things you will be interested in so trying to convey a message of such meaning to this age group would seem fairly crucial. The destination for this campaign would be that it doesn't matter what colour you are and that we should stand up and speak up against racism.

I think that this exercise was very useful as it has helped me to properly dissect and look into how messages are and can be conveyed through design, which is actually a very good thing to know as a designer as there is always a message within graphic design.

Design for Web Research

After Having decided what I was going to be doing my website on I started to look at websites which were of similar content and field.

http://www.wellgosh.com/

I looked at the obvious structure of the website in order to aid how I was going to design my website.

Both of these websites use a fairly simple grid on the homepage which consists of one main image and smaller images and some text.

For the research into what I will be doing for my content, I will not be needing to a lot as all of the content I will have from the publication I made last year as I took all of the photos myself as well as sourced all of the information on the brands myself.

I did create a pinterest board for design for web, but did not end up continue to use it as It was mainly for my previous ideas as I was not too sure what I was going to be doing. http://www.pinterest.com/RineshMistry/design-for-web/

Lecture - Consumerism

Consumerism

Aims:

Analyse the rise of US consumerism
Discuss the links between consumerism and our unconscious desires
Sigmund Freud
Edmund Bernays
Consumerism as social control

Sigmund Freud : (1856-1939)

New theory of Human Nature
Psychoanalysis
Hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts within humans
Looked at peoples dreams
Humans desire violence and sex
The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
The Unconscious (1915)
The Ego and the Id (1923)
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
Civilization & its Discontents (1930
 

Edward Bernays: (1891-1995)

Based on Ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud

Introduced the idea of Product placement
Celebrity Endorsements

Fordism:

Moving assembly line
Standard production models built as they move through the factory
Requires large investment, but increases productivity so much that relatively high wages can be paid, allowing the workers to buy the product they produce

Marketing hidden needs:

Selling emotional security
Selling reassurance of worth
Selling ego-gratification
Selling Creative Outlets
Selling Love Objects
Selling sense of power
Selling a sense of roots
Selling immortality

Consumerism is an ideological project
The consumer self
Through consumption our desires can be met?
To what extent are our lives ‘free’ under the Western Consumerist system?



 

Speaking From Experience Research

Here are some image which we put together on a Pinterest account for ideas in terms of production and finishing, as well as design decisions.

Some of finishing techniques such as either Embossing and Spot Varnishing we were particularly interested in as we from the start had the idea of how 'There is More to Leeds than BAGD' which is what we were going to name the publication.

Looking at this publication above, we had decided that we wanted to 'Perfect Bind' it like shown in photos above.

Looking at the image above, we liked how each city was colour coded, as this was a good idea as we were going to have different sections in our publication.

This was a good example of how we wanted the cover of the book to look like, black on black but with a spot varnish.

Speaking From Experience Crits and Evaluation

For the first crit we had to make 3 design boards and were put into groups for them, The 3 design boards were, concept, production and method of delivery. Most of the images that were on them are on my Design Context blog.

The Crit went really well as it we did not only get feedback from the tutors but we had a 3rd year BAGD student in the crit, and everyone else who was part of that group. We briefly went through each board and spoke about what and why we were planning to do. We got some really good feedback from the tutor about not leaving the production to the last minute, the 3rd year had also said to make sure that we tried all of the methods that we were talking about and to make use of the time we had for the whole brief.

The second crit was more about how we were coming along with it all as it was the first crit we had after the easter break. We had a substantial amount done as we had example of embossing on black cards and a few on white stock, as well as all the content that we was going to put into the publication. We got some decent feedback from other people in the crit about some of the finishing techniques were planning to go with but Amber really helped us out; as we had looked up spot varnishing online and did not find any places which would do small orders or within the time frame that we had, but she mentioned that it was doable in the university screenprint facilities.

The final crit was more just seeing how people's work had come to an end with it being a week away from the deadline, we had all of our page layouts done at this point, we just needed to get it printed and bounded.

Evaluation

Overall I was very pleased with how the publication turned out, as the finish of the cover and the print and stock quality was just what we had planned it to be. In terms of the actual design we had always had it in mind to keep it simple, which we thought would make it easier to read, therefore straight to the point. We did have some issues with the finishing though as there were some holes in the screen which meant that the text was not completely clear. When it came to the content we had decided to not put all of the things in the publication, as we had initially decided to put a lot of things which would be helpful and crucial but then we thought that one of the main things about freshers and being a fresher is finding things out for yourself and exploring things about Leeds, and the nightlife. So we cut back on some of the things which were a little too detailed and would have in a way been contradicting the actual brief as It is meant to be from the perspective of someone who has already been in that position and when we were freshers we certainly did not know everything but in fact had to go and find out the places by ourselves. Apart from the screen printing I would not have done anything differently, maybe printed on a slightly thinner stock as it was quite expensive.

Communication is a Virus Website Design Research

As I was not present for most of the stuff to with idea generation and thinking of what to actually do for the brief, I was given the task of designing and setting up the website.

I looked at design profile websites, creatives search engines and portfolios to get an idea of how they are composed.

Behance 

Having recently being bought out by Adobe, the layout has slightly changed but not much from the last update which behance themselves did, But the main part of the site is done with a grid which shows all the images.

Crevado

Once again a grid is evident for the main part of the website/images. 

Various Portfolio Sites

The use a grid makes it easier to navigate through series of images and can be easily organised as well as being easier to look at than just text. After having looked at all of these and more I had decided that a grid layout for the website and blog would be best.