I found watching the True Cost incredibly beneficial to moulding the direction of my work and it really helped me to gain a broader range of knowledge. It was really eye opening and I have taken some really poignant sentences from the film which i’d like to integrate into my project. It has also helped me with ideas for visuals and in what style to portray my work, I really don’t want to use any guilt advertising techniques.
I really feel that by looking into these areas of the ethical side of the clothing trade it gives me a much clearer understanding and therefore gives me many more ideas for visuals, expanding upon my initial visual thoughts.
After researching a variety of clothing brands which support similar aspects which I would like to campaign for I picked out some of the most affordable brands and the most likely to be aimed at people aged 18-30. I am undecided now as to whether I would like to advertise for a clothing company to physically ‘give back’ as well as be fair trade and organic/natural, as it could become a very expensive brand which is not quite what i’m going for as i’m aiming it at younger people, including students.
Millionhands is a fairly small and fairly new brand which uses 100% organic cotton t-shirts, is Fair Wear Certified (sweatshop free) and Climate Neutral. The other newish and fairly small brand is Wasted Heroes which prints on 100% combed cotton t-shirts and screen prints using environmentally friendly water based inks. Both of these are quite small brands but they make the effort to be kind to the environment.
The other brands I included are Rapanui, People Tree and the Eco Edit of Asos as well as their Asos Africa.
These brands carry out a variety of positive actions such as:
These are some of the things that I definitely want to support in the campaign, to encourage and persuade people to buy from clothing brands like these!
I think I may just stick to these principles and make it very clear how buying and not buying these clothes affect people and the environment negatively and positively.
If I am to continue with this brief there are various areas which I need to consider researching to give me the broadest outlook on the project. I have also started to consider which aspects are going to be necessary to design. So far I have thought about designing some clothing (possibly four female tops), clothing labels, stickers (to be sent with the clothing) and a website. However I feel as though I may need another point of advertising perhaps?…
So my first areas of research are:
Environmental charities
Fashion brands that give back
Fashion brands which are eco and/or Fairtrade
Environmental Campaigns
Clothing websites
Clothing design (natural dyes, African/Indian pattern)
I have started by searching for fashion brands which encompass some of these factors and have found several which I will research into how they portray and advertise themselves:
Asos Eco Edit – An eco-friendly edit of sustainable fashion, accessories and beauty buys, sourced from across the globe. From the best of British and hand-crafted jewellery to upcycled vintage, these pieces are produced with a little extra love. Plus, don’t miss out on our fair-trade label ASOS Africa, made in partnership with SOKO in rural Kenya – it’s fashion that doesn’t cost the Earth. http://www.asos.com/Women/Eco-Brands/Cat/pgecategory.aspx?cid=10062
Asos Africa
Sevenly
Feed
Out of print
Ivory Ella
Elegantees
Love your Melon
Toms
Too Apparel
Rebuild Globally
Million Hands
Wasted Heroes
I think it will be really useful to see what they believe in and how they portray themselves and the visuals and design that they use, this should lead me in the right direction. I really admire how smaller brands such as Wasted Heroes care about making their clothing environmentally friendly and fair considering they are smaller.
This is the final project of the year (which is mad) and i’ve decided to create my own brief or do a YCN brief if my brief isn’t good or broad enough.
When I looked around last years exhibition I took some photos because some of them really stood out to me! I feel that these have influenced me slightly because I found them inspirational.
So I have decided to do a natural, fair trade and charitable clothing brand and here is my initial draft brief:
Title
(Title not decided yet)Topic
A clothing company which uses sustainable sources such as organic cotton and natural dyes, that do not affect the environment negatively or destructively. It will also be a fashion company which gives back, so each item bought will support the charity that it works alongside which helps with environmental preservation. Both fashion and environmental care interests me. I’m fairly conscientious in regards to the little things that I can do to help the environment. Using energy saving bulbs, turning off lights and appliances, having quick showers and shallow baths and recycling are some of the things that I contribute to daily. Therefore, I feel that combining two of my interests together would contribute positively to my portfolio and would be enjoyable to work with.Project Aim
The aim of this project is to advertise and make people aware of buying clothes which are ecologically and fairly sourced and manufactured. It aims to sell the companies clothes which in turn will help support the environmental charity.Potential Audience
The potential audience would be between 18 and 35, to encourage younger generations to also buy clothing which contributes to good causes, making a difference to the future.Personal Aims
Upon completing this work, I hope to gain a strong project which could potentially be used in my exhibition at the end of the year. Of course I hope to improve upon branding and advertising and aim to gain confidence in this area. Photography is something that I have little confidence in so I would really like to develop this skill and think that this project could be one that pushes it further.
This is my back-up brief from YCN:
Title
Feel Good DrinksTopic
Nichols plc has recently purchased the Feel Good brand. Launched in 2001, Feel Good Drinks is a premium range of 100% natural still and sparkling drinks for adults sold in over 20,000 outlets across 15 different countries. The brand ethos is all about Feeling Good -100% Natural ingredients with no added nasties, giving 1 of your 5 a day with no added sugar. No added anything! Feel Good has been marketed in the past but only had Facebook activity since summer 2014. They want me to show them how they can spread the word about Feel Good and get more people feeling good. I am interested in this brief because i’d like to get more experience in advertising as it’s something that I feel that I am more likely to want to go into in the future. I also like that they are trying to engage people in a healthier drink option with natural ingredients, contributing to a healthier lifestyle.Project Aim
The aim of this project is to re-engage 18-35 year old females with the Feel Good brand and is very open minded as to how I go about doing it. They want me to spread Feel Goodness, driving awareness and inspiring people to engage with the brand and buy the product. They want to remind and reassure the target audience that Feel Good is relevant for them, that it’s simple and honest and that it delivers against their needs of wanting healthier cleaner drinks.It is a deliberately very open brief and I am free to demonstrate my creative thinking in any medium or combination of media I see fit. They are open to ideas for new campaigns such as press adds, PR, Packaging, social media, sampling, on-pack promotions, in-store engagement; concepts for grabbing people on the streets or fresh thoughts for how their bottles and packs look. They want me to think about the moments, formats and contexts in which we can most successfully engage with our target audience. How can they spread positivity and connect with this audience in fresh and memorable ways?Range of refreshing good, honest, great tasting drinks:
- 750ml Sparkling fruit juice
- 275ml Still & Sparkling Fruit Juice
- 400ml Still Fruit Juice Drink
Available in Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Spar and cafes, parks, deli’s and restaurants across the country.
Potential Audience
The audience would be 18-35 yr old millennials.
- United by attitude rather than age, sex, money or geography
- Healthy but not obsessive eg. they go to the gym but they will enjoy that slice of cake
- Want quality at a fair price
- Lead busy lives and use technology to save time and communicate
- Sociable, Ambitious, Adventurous
- Must talk regularly to them, they care and can help
- Marketing savvy….. keep it real!
- They are socially conscious
- Work hard – play hard ethos
- When would they drink FG? At lunch in 275ml or 400ml format and then in the evening with their meal instead of alcohol (750ml larger bottle poured into glass)
Personal Aims
Upon completing this work, I hope to gain a strong project which could potentially be used in my exhibition at the end of the year. Of course I hope to improve upon branding and advertising and aim to gain confidence in this area. I would also aim to submit this work into the competition which would be as well as the D&AD competition I am entering.
I would really like to do the clothing brief however i’m a little worried that it will not be a big enough brief but this is something I can talk about in my tutorial today.
I’ve started to consider the message behind the idea that I am going with.
I want to show how eroticism doesn’t have to be something blatant that is pushed in our faces everyday and I want to relate it to my dissertation in the sense that it can be an entirely subjective and personal experience.
I want it to be a ‘how to’ manual and a means of storytelling so that the eroticism is not visual but is mental.
I feel however that I need a slightly better message, a little bit of a more original twist to add to it. I’m not sure whether the manual/app should be to help passion in relationships or if that’s too obvious.
I have developed the idea of the manual and feel that it may also work as an accompanying app, both of which I have never done before so will be a challenge.
The typography will also reflect the experience..aside from the typography on the front which will reflect eroticism, the writing within the manual will be ordinary and regimental like the visuals.
(Insert Visuals)
Constellation has been a part of all three years however third year dissertation has been the most important part of all three years for me. I never really gave much attention or credit to constellation in the first two years and found them a bit of a pointless distraction to my subject and field work. However, I now have a completely different outtake on constellation. First and second year constellation were in my opinion a means to helps me develop skills and knowledge to help me with my dissertation. If I had made the effort to engage more with it, I would have practiced my writing skills, learnt how to reference properly and perhaps have had a clearer interest in topics before third year. Of course I can’t change the past but at least now I understand the importance of constellation.
The inspiration for my chosen dissertation topic interestingly came from college and university. Firstly, since learning psychology for a period of time in college it has always fascinated me since and I find that I am quite a perceptive and observant person. This encouraged me to explore how psychology worked within the design world as I could find out more about an interest of mine, whilst applying it to the subject I study at university. As a designer I have also always been interested in how certain design appeals to certain people and how this sways consumerism. So essentially, combing the two, I was intrigued behind the psychology of communication, so this is what I decided to explore, as it would feed my interests and my area of study.
All of my design work this year has contributed to my dissertation choice as it has all involved communication. In particular, the D&AD project because the communication had to be very carefully considered with creating a bathroom product aimed at both males and females and how each sex can perceive colour, type and shape amongst other aspects. Since writing my dissertation it has, to my joy, influenced my latest project ‘The Big Idea’. I have found my dissertation to be very useful as it is influencing the direction in which my current project is going. I am incorporating the idea of perception, subjectivity, imagination and personal experience to create a sensory experience. I feel that learning such an extensive amount has broadened my knowledge and therefore opened my mind, enabling me to enhance the creativity within my design work. So far it has very much contributed to the enjoyment of my most recent project.
Whilst writing my chapter one before Christmas I found it difficult to balance constellation and subject and found that my dissertation was suffering because subject work was very full on. My original question also changed the more I began to read, which I believe was a good thing as it meant that I was learning and forming new opinions and beliefs on the information that I was retaining.
Chapter two incorporated my favourite book for my dissertation but caused me the must frustration due to its length. I found Understanding Comics a very informative and visually interesting read and felt that it influenced much of my writing.
Chapter three was a further elaboration on chapter two which helped me look at it from different angles. This is a method which I can now further apply to my subject work, looking at the same idea but from very different perspectives, even if they are wildly different.
Chapter four was considerably different to the previous three chapters and was taxing in a different way. I did an analysis based on everything that I had learnt and discovered throughout the dissertation. I felt that this helped to reaffirm everything for myself and the reader. It also communicated the importance of the research for artists but also for me, a graphic designer.
Writing my dissertation has moulded my year both academically and creatively. As a person I feel as though I never aim very high to avoid disappointment, however, I really wanted to put the effort in and aim higher than usual. Due to these thoughts I was determined to get a lot of the reading underway over summer so that I felt relatively confident about my chosen topic, more relaxed and ahead of schedule. I found that this head start helped to reduce how daunting the dissertation actually was.
A challenging aspect was not the writing itself but instead was the reading. A couple of the books that I read were fairly comprehensive but the majority of the reading was very advanced and time consuming. This higher level of reading helped me to re-engage with reading on a much higher level than on day to day life.
For me, the dissertation was a test of balancing work and time management which I found I struggled with at times. Balancing subject and dissertation was probably my biggest downfall as both suffered at times. However, I can now put all of my efforts into subject work as I was doing with dissertation before.
My entire dissertation was a process from knowing very little about the topic to learning a lot, which is now influencing my design work. My dissertation helped me to understand that there is so much more behind design than it just being something visual. Behind design there is emotion, personal influences and perception, all of which transform the communication of design. It has taught me to regard my design work a lot more closely and to consider how colour, line, shape and ambiguity largely affect communication. The idea of how ambiguity can create a deeper, more engaged response is fascinating because before I wrote my piece I believed that the very simplistic design work being designed in my design class, for example, was communicating a far lesser message.
I feel as though my dissertation is going to have a big impact on my latest project ‘The Big Idea’. I feel that I am already thinking in a way which is considering all of the factors affecting communication. I think that it will help me in communicating a stronger sensory experience and feel that I will be more understanding towards this project and how the audience will engage with it. I believe that my ‘Big Idea’ project may portray more thought that has gone into it and a better understanding that is not simply visual.
Writing this pdp has put into place how my dissertation has benefitted me and how it will now influence my graphic design work. I feel excited to use what I have learnt and aim to use it to my advantage. What appeared to be a daunting, unreachable task has benefitted me in ways in which I would not have expected. I am pleased that I chose a topic related to my practice as I have made the best use from it.
Chapter 3 & 4 I wrote at the end of the christmas holidays and a little into the beginning of second term. I feel that because I wrote so much over christmas I left too much of a gap between writing when I got back. I regret not getting on with it as soon as I got back because it would have given me more time at the end in order not to panic about finishing and improving upon everything. Chapter three was fairly similar to chapter 2 as it was a further exploration into what I was researching. I also found chapter three a lot more interesting that I anticipated and feel that I have learnt so much since starting this dissertation. I feel pleased that I have more knowledge in an area in which I didn’t before and feel confident to talk about it.
Chapter four was very different to the first three chapters and was taxing in a different way. For chapter four I analysed the Isotype in regards to what had been learnt throughout. So I had to really think about how to write this chapter to reaffirm to the reader what had been discovered and why it was important. At first I felt that I had written chapter four too simplicity as I had explored so much. However after speaking to my tutor it reassured me as it would be boring to reiterate absolutely everything in the dissertation. I did however add images throughout the dissertation to help the reader and I to visualise and understand the topics more clearly.
I completed Chapter 2 of my dissertation over christmas and it turned out to be the largest chapter of my dissertation. It was my most enjoyable chapter as I had so much to write about however it dragged on for quite a while which I found frustrating to write. For chapter two I used three main sources, by Scott McCloud, Dario Gamboni and Joseph Jastrow, as well as other sources. I really enjoyed reading Understanding comics by Scott McCloud and really found it enlightening as it was relevant to graphic design. The feedback I had from chapter two was fairly good however 3/4 of the way through I lost momentum slightly and went back on myself instead of keeping the flow going. I completely agreed with this and feel that I lost my way a bit because it was taking me a long time to write this chapter and I was losing clarity and focus. I did however tidy this up at a later date so that it told more of a flowing story.
TASTE
Obvious erotic food and drink associations
whipped cream, chocolate, alcohol, ice, ice cream
Aphrodisiacs
Oysters, chilli peppers, avocado, chocolate, bananas, honey, coffee, watermelon, pine nuts, arugula, olive oil, figs, strawberries, artichokes, chai tea, pomegranate, cherries, pumpkin seeds and whipped cream.
The aphrodisiacs listed above are both erotic for their physical benefits as well as the pleasures and tastes from eating them. Some raise libido and some are purely just associated with sex.
Lube Flavours
Pina Colada, cherry, strawberry, bubblegum, banana, aloe vera, fruit punch, raspberry & pomegranate, kiwi & strawberry, watermelon, blueberry, cake, peppermint, caramel, vanilla, chocolate.
It appears that these flavours are fruity, refreshing or sweet. Many are associated with fruit and some are those seen in the aphrodisiac list.
SOUND
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyN4W4JkSrQ
Kamasutra erotic music.
Consists of slow relaxing beats, wind instruments and quiet drum sounds – very mellow.
ASMR
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
Meaning: a subjective experience of low-grade euphoria.
Combination of positive feelings, relaxation and tingling in the skin.
Typically begins on the scalp before moving down the spine to the base of the neck.
Most commonly triggered by specific acoustic and visual stimuli.
Highly descriptive.
Soft sounds.
Whispering.
SMELL
Natural scents
Vanilla, liquorice, cinnamon, pumpkin pie, banana bread, citrus, popcorn, lily of the valley, sandalwood, lavender, jasmine, almond, basil, black pepper, rose, ginger, mint.
Male & female perfumes and colognes.
The research into these three seses had given me a much clearer idea about what is erotic for men and women, some unexpected. Some of the categories cross over and contain the same things, which could be interesting. I feel like I’m really making progress with my research and I am trying to get as much of my research done in one day to enable me to catch up.
mgarciawright 