Essay structuring study task 4

In this seminar, we were showed a presentation that tought us how to answer the essay. I found the seminar incredibly helpful and it will definitely be useful when I begin to write my essay.

To write a successful essay, I should:

- Consider the question carefully.
- Ask relevant sub-questions.
- Outline what you know already in a mindmap.
- Hypothesis - what will you aim to argue?
- Read with purpose.
- Direct research with hypothesis.
- Use contents pages and indeces.

When planning the essay, I should review and organise my research and put the not so relevant findings to one side. By doing this, it will help me to decide what to include and what to leave out of my essay, which should, in turn, avoid me going off on a tangent.

The essay should be structured along the lines of the following guide:

INTRO - Address the question, why is it important? How will you answer it?
MAIN BODY - Build argument, ideas in sequence to make persuasive argument. There should be one main point in each paragraph.
CONCLUSION - Summarise your arguments and evidence, show how they answer the original question.

My essay should enforce the following guidelines:

- Write in third person (Objective - facts).
- No sweeping statements.
- Evaluate information sources.
- Analysis and conclusion must be well reasoned and justified.

We were then set a task to create an essay plan for our own essays. My plan can be seen below.

What is the relationship between branding & the consumer self?

Intro - introduce the question and what the essay is going to address in regards of consumerism, use quotes that summarise consumerism best as possible

main body - Include self esteem, gender roles, disconnection from society, planned obsolescence, the commodity self, apple case study, re-branding tactics, commodity fetishism, 

conclusion - conclude each point made and summarize how it all relates to and answers the question

Bibliography 

Essay Hypothesis (OUGD401)

I had to create a hypothesis for to briefly answer the essay question the things I needed to consider where; context, historical, visual, aesthetic, technical, style, technology, language, communication, concepts, ideology, politics, identity, values and ethics.

Branding has a direct relationship with us as the consumer self and completely orchestrates the way we act in daily life. The way things are branded and advertised creates a general presumption of quality and level of class related to each product creating the false promise of status and acceptance when buying certain things. Visual pollution infiltrates our minds creating a society of people desperately overconsuming the un-necessary to impress each other. We have no consideration about environmental issues and even our own mental health that is affected by living this way. Rebranding of similar products creates a hierarchy of class status related to things, we then buy them to increase our feeling of value and belonging among each other. We are given a choice of products which gives us a false sense of freedom but manipulates us to have aspirations to be able to buy what's considered the most attractive and best quality choice. The subliminal messages in advertising creates a desire for us to be better than everyone else, we become in constant competition with each other. Judging each other by the things we own rather than each others personalities leading to a society of unhappy, insecure people with separation anxiety (that are also in crippling debt).

Consumerism mindmap (OUGD401)

I created a mindmap of all the things related to consumerism I could think of. When it comes to writing my essay hopefully I can try include everything or at least the most important things on it.

Harvard referencing - consumerism (OUGD401)

I found a load of great quotes from books on consumerism that I can practice Harvard referencing on and possibly use in my essay.

Above shows a quote from the book...

"I am so sick of the design scene - the art stars, the gravity bending techno-prowess, the insatiable dissimulation of form and function. I am sick of the endless competitions, the must-go pat-on-the-back conferences, the slick publications full of trivial show-and-tells. I am sick of the Apollonian pixel-pushers, the corporate ass kissers, the self-appointed arbiters of good taste.

Lasn, K. (2006). Design anarchy. Vancouver, B.C.: Adbusters Media Foundation.

 "I know how to slip moods, nuances, values and perspectives right into your brain without you ever knowing it..."

Lasn, K. (2006). Design anarchy. Vancouver, B.C.: Adbusters Media Foundation.

"As a child living in an Australian immigration camp, indulgences were few and far between. I did however, manage to establish one private and totally extravagant ritual: a weekly bottle of ice cold Coca Cola. Purchased with my allowance, and always with a straw, which I could jiggle up and down to excite all the bubbles. When I left the camp, I discovered something that I never had imagined: a competitor for the cola crown. Something called - stupidly, I thought - Pepsi. It was not Coca Cola. I hated it. Pepsi was the ultimate betrayal."

Lasn, K. (2006). Design anarchy. Vancouver, B.C.: Adbusters Media Foundation.

"I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic"

Ballard, J. (2004). Age of unreason, The Guardian.

"I did a rough calculation once:

-about ten thousand images flood into my brain every day

-But only about 1% of them are honest and genuine

-99% are corporate/commercial"

"I did a rough calculation once

-There are about one hundred thousand graphic designers in the world

-But not even one in a hundred of them do any real work 

-99% are commercial hacks

After the crash this will be reversed"

Lasn, K. (2006). Design anarchy. Vancouver, B.C.: Adbusters Media Foundation.

"Studies show the following reasons why people buy magazines on the newstand: 

Table of contents: 10%

Name or brand: 15%

Cover itself: 75%"

Lasn, K. (2006). Design anarchy. Vancouver, B.C.: Adbusters Media Foundation.

I found a ton of other amazing quotes I could use from this book for my essay and inspiration also like the one you can see above.

"A few years back, as I was visiting a touring exhibit called 'Eternal Egypt' with my ten year old son, it occurred to me that while the ancient Egyptians built great monuments to endure for countless generations, just about everything we produce in North America is made to break. If human history reserves a privileged place for the Egyptians because of their rich conception of the afterlife, what place will it reserve for people who, in their seeming worship of convenience and greed, left behind mountains of electronic debris? What can be said of a culture whose legacies to the future are mounds of hazardous materials and poisoned water supply? Will America's pyramids be of waste? The point of this book is to raise this troubling question."

Slade, G. (2006). Made to break. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 

Consumerism initial project ideas (OUGD401)

After doing quite a bit of research into consumerism and the different ways I could take this project I had an idea of the main parts I was interested in. 

Firstly I was interested in the idea advertising is creating a socially awkward society where people would rather be alone and surrounded by technology and products rather than other people. A good quote to reference this is "We are drowning in a media-fed fantasy. We are the first generation in human history to have our lives shaped - not by nature - but by the beguiling images of the electronic media. We spend more hours watching nature shows than experiencing the real thing; more time laughing at tv jokes than joking around ourselves; more evenings experiencing virtual sex than actually having sex ourselves. As we forgo the role of participant in the real world. We become spectators in the flickering of make believe."(see photo above) The quote was from an Adbusters book called Design Anarchy. The book was written by Kalle Lasn, published by ORO editions. This book has a ton of really good quotes that are also inspiring.

The next thing I was interested in is the idea of planned obsolescence. I found a quote as you can see in the photo above. This quote is making a very valid point, ancient Egyptians made things that would last not just a lifetime but through their afterlife too. Because of this passion to create lasting things we can still see products of theirs and architecture in amazing condition today. The contemporary things we make today are made the opposite and are designed to break after a certain amount of time, so we will be remembered for creating landfills filled with all our unwanted waste.

My next idea had come from a video I watched called Life lessons from an ad man by Rory Sutherland. He spoke about how in the 18th century Prussians had a really poor diet and Frederick the great wanted to improve this by getting people to eat potatoes. He tried making them compulsory to eat but it just wouldn't work. The problem being they didn't look very appealing. So he made the potato a royal vegetable and created a royal potato patch that had its own guards but the guards were instructed not to guard it very well. The peasants at this time figured if something was worth protecting it was worth stealing and soon they stole potatoes and began an underground potato growing and selling market. This essentially was Frederick the great rebranding the potato and creating a demand and desire for it by making it forbidden and only for rich and royal people.

So we had a cit presenting these initial ideas and everyone said the best route to go down would probably rebranding to create demand as it could be most closely linked to graphic design. There is an idea that through rebranding you can take a product, say a toaster and constantly change it as a way to continuously sell the exact same product over and over as people always want the new versions of things they already own to 'stay with the times'.

So continuing from this I have come up with the idea of taking possibly an item, food or current brand thats seen as cheap and unappealing and rebrand it in a way that makes the exact same product seem like it has a higher value. This would show how branding can completely change the amount of money people are willing to pay for things just because of their aesthetic.

To get some initial ideas for products I could rebrand I started by looking in the corner shop for things I personally see as unappealing and badly branded.

The first thing I found were Fray Bentos tinned pie, these are really outdated and personally I don't know anyone who eats these. These could be a challenge to rebrand as id have to decided whether to keep the tin or not but they definitely need a modern rebrand to make them seem more appealing as at the moment they make me think of old men going fishing and camping.

Spam was the next thing I saw. This could be a really good challenge as it would be quite hard to make mashed up meat look nice.

Tinned fish is another great one and I actually have seen expensive nicely branded tuna in Harvey Nichols before so its possible!

Next was pot noodle, they're not unappealing as such but it would be interesting to try make a posh and high class version with different branding and possibly some more sophisticated flavours. 

Lastly is my favourite idea so far. Rebranding cheap cider brands like Frosty jacks and 3 hammers. You already see high end ciders that are really popular and I believe if branded right these products could quite easily be sold for a much higher price.

 Here you can see 2 litres are sold for £3.09 and higher class ciders you can only get about 500cl or even less for this price. 

I also asked some of my classmates if they had any suggestions for other products and the image above shows some of the suggestions. Out of these hotdogs and prunes are definite contenders. I think the next place to look for inspiration will be looking at high class food products and the way they brand and advertise.

This is an example of some high end tinned tuna, it can be found in high end shops such as Harvey Nichols and is sold at around £5 per tin. The spanish writing makes it seem exotic which it isn't its just the same as regular tuna found in the supermarket just branded differently. The colours are really bright primary ones and instantly grab your attention. The vintage look to the design through the typeface used and illustration style gives it a desirable and reliable look in comparison to your usual tuna tin branding. The way that its not completely obvious at first sight makes it interesting too as you're drawn in by colour then have to work out what it is, that interaction with the customer is attractive.

When you search posh pot noodle in Google this image of Marks and Spencers take on it comes up. I think this is a definitely a more appealing and classy branding than pot noodle but I think you could go even more inventive with this idea to make it more high end.

This is another image that came up and obviously the glass would be too expensive to produce but the idea of a clear container and bright coloured veg makes it so much more appealing. Instead I could make a pot noodle contender that is high end and would be microwave noodles rather than hot water ones so I could have bright colours and softer noodles that would look attractive within this kind of packaging.

This is some branding for a pie company. I could for canned pie keep the tin and play on the idea of vintage branding that is so popular at the moment. Recreate a pastel coloured new vintage style that made it look more approachable and safe rather than outdated.

This is a great example of cider branding, the use of a glass bottle instantly adds class to the design. The simple and individual script style writing suggests a homemade quality which is something people find more comforting and reliable than large cheap alcohol brands. 

This is a great example of high class branding. This is cider placed in these wine style elongated bottles. The whole minimal branding and the use of the word premium screams high class and although it most likely tastes not so different to any other cider they can charge a much higher price for it and cleverly convinces the customer that this product is worth paying more for than the cheaper variations just because of its aesthetic.

I looked at other beer and cider branding and there are so many inspiring designs that show any brand of alcohol and be made upper class by simple changes in appearance. It would be amazing to take a brand like frosty jacks known for being a chosen drink by alcoholics and very lower class people and rebrand it into a high class drink seen in bars that sell draft beers etc. 

I even found out you can get blue beer bottles if I decided to keep that part of the branding as its certainly something that would make it stand out from other types of cider and it would still have elements of the old design.

Script and brush lettering is popular among high class alcohol branding and it adds an element of hand crafted ness to the products rather than mass produced which puts a lot of people off. Also once again bright colours here are really grabbing your attention and distinguishing between flavours. 

On the other hand you see really minimal branding like this. It says to me that it doesn't need to be flashy or extremely detailed to look appealing. This looks so perfect and composed you'd want to see if the taste of the drink was also as composed and elegant. People often say less is more, rich people are known for their minimal interior design and would almost definitely find a design like this appealing despite what cider was actually inside you could market and brand it in a way that would make them feel drinking it made them high class and worthy of beautiful things.

Consumerism, Gender roles, society and politics (OUGD401)

We had a seminar on Consumerism, Gender roles, Society and Politics to help us in choosing one to write our essay on.

 The questions for these subjects are...

Gender representation-To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?

Consumerism-What is the relationship between branding and the consumer self? (Ewen).

Social/political-Discuss the role graphic design has played as a part of social and political change?

Starting with consumerism, Times square is an example of a place where you are faced with an onslaught of consumer society. Consumerism is advertising forced in our faces every day trying to convince us to want to be certain people and buy certain things. Even people who choose to ignore it are subconsciously affected and shaped by it.

According to studies in 2012 the average person in Britain watched 47 tv adverts a day and with the recent increase in online on demand watching this has most definitely gone up dramatically. As a society we are saturated with these messages, this has an immense social influence on everything we do and the way we interact with people. 

Karl Marx was a very influential theorist behind communism, he was one of the first to identify consumerism as a capitalist tactic to keep a heavy flow of income to the rich people in the world. Marxism is defined as "a worldview and method of societal analysis that focuses on class relations and societal conflict, that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, and a dialectical view of social transformation." The system of capitalism depends on us constantly buying things we don't need and thats why consumerist advertising is one of their most valuable assets.

Another big figure in anti capitalist views and being against consumerism is Judith Williamson. A great quote of hers is "Instead of being identified by what we produce, people identify themselves through what they consume". The idea being we don't see other people or ourselves judging by our personalities and skills but more by the clothes we wear, car we own and things we buy. It means that when we meet someone for the first time we judge them on their appearance looking for similarities to ourselves, the bad thing being we ignore a whole other mass of people who are almost definitely great people but because they don't look like us we don't engage with them. The dominant thing that shapes our lives is the sale , production and advertisement of products. 

Advertising convinces us that its not just a car we are buying but something that changes our personalities and how people see us, it becomes the thing that makes us cool and popular. Advertising is not very successful in making us want to buy things for what they are and the needs they will satisfy. But it is brilliant at implanting an idea that it will benefit us and our personalities and lives if we buy it. 

A perfect example of this is the advertisement for CK one perfume. The advert is designed to make you feel like a model, attractive, popular, a sense of belonging, sex appeal, sophistication and wealth all from the images of the people. Not once does the imagery attempt to suggest the perfume smells nice, it focuses more on showing the models having a good time to make you think you're a step closer to being like the people in the image by buying the product, it makes you desire a lifestyle you don't have.

These days we have Instagram, Facebook and other social networking sites to post photos of the things we buy all over. So now there's the satisfaction of buying things and people seeing them in person but also posting it on the internet so the whole world thinks you're classy for buying an expensive bottle of perfume.

An example of social networkings effect on consumerism is BLK water. It literally is water with black food colouring in and in a nicely designed bottle. They're marketing strategy was to give it to lots of celebrities and people with a lot of followers on social networking sites. They then took photos of the water and posted it online creating this desire for the product that is so hard to find. Its now pretty hard to find out of London in England but people still pay stupid amounts of money for it, despite it being the same thing that comes out of your taps. Obviously people don't want to buy it to drink the water and feel the satisfaction of something they could have at home. They want to buy it to post it online themselves so people will think they are exclusive somehow. Its ridiculous but an incredibly intelligent marketing technique in a society filled with social network addicts.

A tactic of people selling products is aesthetic innovation. Convincing people the more expensive and attractive products (on trend) will make you happier. By remodelling something essentially you can continue to sell the same product over and over again to the same people just by making small changes in the look.  An example is the IPhone you get a momentary feeling of satisfaction buying one when its the newest model but that feeling is dampened when the new model is released and all of a sudden your IPhone seems crap in comparison convincing you to go out and buy another one.

Another much more dirty tactic is planned obsolescence. Companies basically make things that are designed to break after a certain amount of time. Its a horrible way to make sure that people less effected by aesthetic innovation still have to buy new things now and again.

 The system makes us materialistic about everything. We are in turn alienated by society, removed from what we are as people and instead judging other people on the goods they own and their appearance. 

Commodity fetishism is where companies cover up the truth about the real origins of their goods. You could go buy shoes from a local shoe maker who has spent their good time making them but instead you choose to spend £100 pound on Nikes made by people paid pennies in Indonesian sweatshops. We do this because Nike branding doesn't tell us the shoes origin instead its covered by third party idealisms and images showing attractive people running. It is a hidden truth. 

Reification is when products are given human associations. Products themselves are perceived ad sexy, romantic, cool. An example being red lipstick being sexy, its not the woman thats being called sexy its the product, is she not sexy without? As a result of products becoming more human we are treating other people more like objects, removing their personalities and judging them solely by appearance. 

Next we looked at the extent advertising constructs our ideas of gender. Advertising over the years is very guilty of portraying harmful stereotypes of people, over sexualising women and showing them to be the domestic sex and making men the figure of power. A good quote from John Berger's, Ways of seeing  is "men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at". This is veiw something society is currently trying to challenge in showing women in their full power but its not an issue thats anywhere near to being overcome. The idea that men are the active sex and women passive is something believed by many in the world both female and male and we are far from a gender equal society, women are paid less in the majority of jobs. 

This painting above is by Hans Memling and is titled 'Vanity'. The painting was was done in 1485 and at this time painters were predominantly male and the only people rich enough to buy them were also male. The paintings were made to please that certain audience of rich men who wanted to see young, innocent nude women. This image shows where the birth of gender roles in todays society stemmed from. The idea of paintings like this was to present women as always being available sexually and put the idea into mens heads that if a woman isn't always available to serve his needs than she is not a good wife and he is not a strong enough man. The title 'vanity' implies that women are only interested in their own appearance this then justifies the sexualisation of women as they are seen as animals of vanity and ignorance. This keeps men in the position of dominance. The women in the paintings at this time were always very young and innocent looking, this was so the men never felt overpowered by the women shown. They were innocent but sexual this also led to a lot of peodophilic happenings that were seen as more acceptable because of this.

The image above is by a feminist group called the Guerilla Girls. This was a protest placed outside the met museum making a factual point about the artwork they showed and also the art world in general. Art is still dominated by men and is something they and many other women feel should be more equal.

This advert above is a brilliant ad ridiculous example of how advertising forces gender roles. The advert shows the man blowing his cigarette smoke in the womans face and suggests doing this will attract any woman you want. It shows that a man just with the power of buying these cigarettes can have ultimate power over women. Its completely stupid as of course if a man was to actually blow smoke in your face you'd almost definitely think he was rude and be disgusted and not want to follow him at all. But this advert worked, men bought the cigarettes thinking he would become a sexual figure all the women would want just from this product.

This wonderbra advert is another example the woman is oversexualised a lot and althought the product is for women the advert seems more aimed at men, making them think its acceptable to think of women as objects. From a woman's point of view this is making them think that this is the way to be a successful women and make men like you. The image signifies that women should be able to provide sexuality and and to make food as a domestic woman. This becomes an influence on mens views of men and also is an instructional lesson to women on how they should behave to be a success. 

As advertising agencies are being criticised for oversexualing women they are now trying to create a messed up equality by making men oversexualised too and createing ideals about how they now should look. This is not a good solution because now not only are women pressured by advertising to act and look a certain way but men are also suffering from it too. Dont get me wrong its not to the same extent as women are hit by it a lot harder but its not healthy for either sex. 

Next the social and political question-"discuss the role graphic design has played a part in social and political change?". The easiest way to approach this would be propaganda which is not something I would like to base my essay on so im going to keep this short as i've pretty much written it off as an option. From the seminar I took down a few notes about approaches I could take if I was to choose this question such as...

• El Lissitzky-"beat the whites with the red wedge"
• Oz magazine- About hippie culture
• Zines- They record the attitudes of subcultures (punk etc.)
• Adbusters- culture jammers
• Occupy movement- subtervising

So conclusively I am choosing to base my essay and body of work on consumerism as I find it interesting and easy to write about. I will do some further research into it to expand my ideas for studio work. 

Modernism and Postmodernism (OUGD401)

Modernism-"To what extent did Modernist design principles influence graphic design?"

Postmodernism-"How did post modernism impact on graphic design?"

The key features of Modernism are

• Use of grids to create order
• Minimal
• Timeless-ignores trends
• Stripped back to its bare essentials
• Form follows function-effectiveness of portraying its point rather than being aesthetically pleasing being the main focus
• Key purpose to be clear and straight to the point 
• Based on lack of chaos-organization
• Everything is logical and ordered
• The rejection of ornament
• Grotesk/Helvetica

Modernism became known as the International typographic style or Swiss style

• Switzerland post WW2
• Grid
• Grotesk/Helvetica
• Flush left and ragged right

Were all key components to the style

The poster above shows a quote by a big name in Modernist graphic design Massimo Vignelli. The poster also shows a great example of the style of design.

The impressive thing about modernism is the designs still look contemporary even the ones done 50 years ago which proves the idea that modernism is timeless is quite true, so far anyway. The drive behind it all was an ambition to change the world into a minimal and idealistic place where everything followed modernist princliples-the buildings, interior design and graphic design. You don't see that kind of drive in graphic designers anymore so its quite impressive really. 

This is a sketch by a modernist architect called Le Corbusier in the 20's called Plan Voisin. It was his and the modernists idea of the perfect city. The idea was everything was cut back to its minimal form, they could maximise space by building high. They were mostly communist believers and thought in their perfect world everyone should live in the same sized apartment and have the same wages no matter what. I personally dont agree with this idea, I think complete equality could dampen people's dreams to do well for them selves and less talent would result. Also close living quarters could easily cause trouble and dispute creating an unhappy and cramped environment. The sketch shows the roads and footpaths completely separate using overpasses which i actually think is a really good idea, this is a minimal solution to a lot of accidents and would be more peaceful and attractive. But overall I don't think this is my idea of an ideal city at all. It was a naive vision that a project like this could ever actually work and was never carried out.

I watched a clip from the film Helvetica of an interview with Micheal Beiruit called Helvetica Period that beautifully shows the views of modernism in a really simple and brilliant way. A great quote within it was "I can imagine a time when it felt so good to take something that was old and dusty and home made and crappy looking and replace it with Helvetica. It must of felt like you were scraping the crap off old things and replacing it with beauty.".

I also watched an interview with Wim Crowel he explained how it was all about rejecting the old and over complicated ugly design and completely starting a fresh and only included the things that were necessary. 

Wim designed this grid for himself to order all his work in a way he felt was perfectly ordered and got the point across in a readable and legible way.

And above is an example of a poster he designed using this grid. I can see quite easily how he has followed it and think its quite effective in putting the message across. 

Wim believed all the meaning in graphic design should be put across through the text and possibly diagrams if necessary but the typeface should be completely neutral and give you no other feelings towards it.

Although I do like a lot of the neutral typefaces used by Wim and other modernists it makes you question whether there should be more to a designers work than just a simple representation of information. This method gives the designer a lack of individuality and creativity and makes them invisible. I think graphic designers should be able to show their personality and flair in their work.

Lastly I watched a clip from the film of an interview with Massimo Vignelli once again he talked about the belief that type should not be expressive and joked with the idea you could change weights if you really wanted to add a little personality to a piece. A brilliant quote I got from this was "Being a graphic designer is a fight against the ugliness". I really think this is a very true quote, its all designers aim to make things more aesthetically pleasing. It also shows his ambition for the style and how he believed his work was fighting the visual disease all around him.

Postmodernism on the other hand is described as...

• Exhaustion with optimistic and idealistic views
• Pluralism
• Disillusionment with the idea of absolute knowledge
• Critical of the naivety of modernism

Post modernism was talked about and practiced in the 1960's but it became a really recognizable style in the 80's and was dominant throughout the 90's. But even now not long after it already looks quite dated as an aesthetic style. Its definately not as timeless as modernism but was an important turning point for the creativity of graphic designers and has allowed us to have more of a voice in the industry. We are no longer in the era of postmodernism so that raises the question what are we in post postmodernism? That just sounds ridiculous. Post modernism more importantly was the realisation that there is more than just one way of visually engaging people and minimalist themes weren't necessarily the most effective. 

Above shows the demolition of the Igoe development, St Louis. Said to be the death of modernism by Charles Jencks at exactly 15 July 1972 3:31pm. The development was a modernist design made to be a communist way of living. It was everything the Modernists has dreamed of as a perfect way of living but it failed dramatically. The place became riddled with drugs, prostitution and crime as it was affordable people from 'lower' walks of life were living there. The place became such a liability they had to blow it up. It proves that modernist ideals of a perfect world were very naive and wouldn't work in real practice and post modernist designers laugh in the face of this failure.