Is it Over?

I can't really seem to be able to grasp the thought now that the main part of 2nd year is already over (and its only March!).

This year has been a lot of fun and I feel that I have been quite challenged for the majority of the time. The studio briefs, although they could have been better in some aspects such as Typography, were enjoyable for the most part.

Although I cant wait for a good relax over the summer, I feel that after probably the first 2months of the the 5 (yes 5) that we have been awarded that I will be looking for some form of new challenge. I have contacted a design company Big Blue Dog in my home town with a view of looking into maybe doing some work with them if they will take me.

Well roll on summer and heres thanks for the last 7 months.

Assignment 5

Activity 5A

The growing trend of celebrities being used in advertising has become a multi-million pound industry over the past few years. In the last semester I explored this topic from a point of view of that used secondary research. A great amount of information was found through this method, using the library and cross-search facilities that are at our disposal. This method however like everything else has its flaws, as you are using someone else’s findings which at times can be unreliable and leave you being slightly removed from the subject. This time around I am looking into the possibility of ways that I could improve on the previous task in a way that will provide some more salient information. In order to gain a firmer grip of this topic it would prove beneficial to carry out some primary research of my own this time. I have planned some possible methods that could be applied and from experience on similar projects, carried out in such a way that would yield the most positive, well-rounded responses.

I believe that when researching this subject there could be a number of initial problems that would have to be addressed. Mainly there is, for some reason, a sort of shame that goes along with this type of topic. Although there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with admitting that we like to follow trends or dress like celebrities etc. people still don’t like to admit it when asked. I don’t believe that many people would like to think of them self as followers or sheep but instead as trendsetters, when in actuality very few people are these. Even those who try to stand as “individuals” out like Goths or Punks for example are conforming to a stereotypical group of society even if not consciously. I myself would probably act in the same was if questioned however; I do know that I would fall into a certain group of the public although probably wouldn’t admit it if asked. I will openly admit that I bought my Sharpie markers after seeing the David Beckham advert, although I don’t believe that it was him having them that drew me to them but the fact that he drew my attention to them. After seeing this I perhaps thought, “maybe I will buy some markers” but it probably wasn’t a conscious thing in direct response to the celebrity endorsement. I think that the idea of a product being brought to your attention is the more likely result of this style of advertising, as after seeing it you may see the product somewhere else and believe it was your decision to buy it, this probably more than anything relating to fashion.

Considering the previous point if I were to conduct interviews I would have to be quite careful with my wording. The best results would not come out from openly asking people if they are effected by celebs so careful wording would have to be applied as you approach the subject with caution. The likely answer would probably be negative and at that would be a yes or no. With that in mind the sort of question that should maybe be used could be:

“So tell me about your outfit, where do you get your ideas from?” From this you could derive a number of things like if they buy designer clothing that could be endorsed by celebrities for example or if they take their ideas from the ‘what are the celebrities wearing’ columns of fashion magazines. Questions that could apply to all would be such things as “name the last thing that you bought” or “last expensive thing” and ask their reasons why. Even asking what future purchases they have in mind as from this you could derive if there are any current advertising campaigns that support these products.

There is no limit to the range and amount of questions that could be asked with relation to interviews of this subject as everyone buys and everyone views this form of advertising. If I was to carry out this type of interview I feel it would be most constructive to focus on a particular age range, predominantly the 18-25 bracket as this is when I believe we are most bombarded by targeted advertisements.

For interviews it could be useful to incorporate a pictures element with blurred out products and likewise in videos. A study could be undertaken to see if participants can still name the product because of its flagship celebrity.

A study that could return varied results may be the analysis of pictures. If photos of a select age and gender group of the public were scrutinized then we can look for similarities in clothing, hairstyles etc. This wouldn’t be the most accurate way of researching, as we would just be assuming for the main part, however the analysis would produce some form of results and patterns. For example: you can tell that stripes are in this season by taking a very brief look at women from the ages of anywhere between 6 and 60. This wont simply be by chance and it is unlikely that it has only caught on through one person copying another, therefore there must be some form of media that has shown that this is what is “in” this season. In our 1^st assignment when we had to analyse a person from only photos of them it wasn’t particularly difficult figuring out the type of person they are from very small amounts of information. Using this technique research could be done quickly but not wholly accurately.

I don’t believe that there are that many of the techniques that we have learned that couldn’t really be applied to the furthering of this study although this may be naive and be from the preparation side of the research. The only way that you could really be sure would be to carry out the actual processes.

Activity 5B

When asked to apply the techniques of primary and secondary research skills we have learned this year to a studio brief that could have benefitted I chose one set to us by the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI). I decided on this particular one, mainly because it was the most factual based but also because there were times during it when I feel that I hit somewhat of an information brick wall and I could have gained an advantage from having some extra knowledge other than the standard Google search results.

The brief asked us to investigate SCRI and their research into certain fields of soft fruit. My fruit was strawberries, which I soon found out that SCRI no longer produce, at this point it probably would have been useful to apply some of these skills in research.

I could of perhaps utilized the online cross-search facility a lot more as this would maybe have given me a more in depth background on the discovery of non allergic white strawberries, which I chose to base my project on. I linked this discovery to the idea of appearances after and questioned whether people would be drawn to these beneficial strawberries over the familiar red ones. I wasn’t sure if people were as much drawn to the appearance of the fruit as they were to the taste. This would have been the ideal opportunity to create an investigation of my own.

If I were to redo this project I would definitely take the opportunity to answer questions rather than just simply posing them. I think that the best course of action would be to conduct interviews on the subject of food appearance over taste. In Assignment 4 when we were asked to conduct interviews, along with two colleagues we conducted ours on this subject asking a variety of questions in attempt to get peoples perspectives. It was more on food in general but from the type of process we used I feel if this was used again but slightly altered we could have got some interesting results. Questions along the lines of, for example: “Name me your favourite food or fruit and why” this type of question could point me in the direction of foods with particular appearances or either tastes.

There are a number of other primary research methods that I feel could have added sustenance to my research for this project, even basic ones such as showing people pictures of the different coloured strawberries and seeing which ones were most preferred. Ideally if I could have acquired some white strawberries then a blind taste test would have been quite simply the fastest and easiest way to get to the crux of the issue.

At first I did originally see the methods used in design studies and the briefs that we were set in the studio as completely separate entities and couldn’t really see where they would eventually cross over. However I find that mainly because of discussions that we have held with peers those things have became more apparent as the year has progressed.

I do feel that the idea of doing research work on the computer as being beneficial in some respects such as ease, but I don’t think that anything really compares to gathering information yourself. It was perhaps a dismissive thing or because of the nature of the 1^st semesters studio briefs that I couldn’t quite see where research methods would really slot in. But now that that my attention has been drawn to the fact that all these skills we have learned are interchangeable, I feel that this gives me more opportunities to create a more solid basis for my studio work in 3^rd year. I have certainly found that the process of planned and unplanned discussions has played a large importance when it comes to developing ideas and helping others do the same. I found that as the year has progressed that I would notice ourselves as a group more often having what could be seen as “important” conversations regarding design issues. It has been firmly expressed that the importance of communication is key in this area and I’ll admit that I was once again sceptical of this. I now believe however that the talking element is very much as important as any other skill that we may learn during our time at university as it has the power to simplify any issue that you may have. If we were to have a planned discussion it, at times may not go as well as something that comes naturally. I think that the use of Tony Buzan’s Mind Mapping techniques perhaps threw me as; as much as I tried I couldn’t link it to any projects without consciously doing it. Ironically the turning point for me was probably the Tipping Point, as the discussions we first had as a group came without trying, as we were actually interested in these issues. I feel that this is because of opinions that people have now formed and that we now have a more advanced knowledge of design as a whole.

Personally at the moment I still very firmly see myself as a Graphic Designer, this is perhaps not due to my unwillingness to become something on a much more global scale but because mainly of my affection for my chosen speciality. I think that given the chance to progress and build on the skills that I have acquired so far that there is potential for the boundaries of specialities to change and easily cross over. I think that I came in with the idea that one side of thing would be practical and the other theory but once you get over these perceptions you can see that both are neither simply one or the other.

Bibliography

Buzan, T (2003). The Mind Map Book. London: BBC Worldwide Limited

Gladwell, M (2000). The Tipping Point. London: Abacas

Assignment 4

For Assignment 4 we were asked to conduct some further investigations as we continued our look into primary research. Along with Connor and Sam, we decided to focus our interviews on the topic of food preferences, continuing research that I started on a previous project set by SCRI. We looked at whether the appearance of your food matters as much as the taste. This came from when I looked into the possibility of producing non allergic white strawberries rather than the traditional red kind. In my opinion white strawberries wouldn't have appealed to the public as they don't hold the same connotations as red ones. We conducted 6 interviews on a variety of 1st year students.

I found the initial idea of carrying out interviews quite daunting and was perhaps a bit apprehensive at first to undertake the experiment as this was unlike anything we had been asked to do before. The decision to conduct the interviews as a group came after a pilot test when on discussion we found it to be easier to get a response from subjects if they felt like they were in a more relaxed conversational environment than a one on one question answer situation. We took turns with one taking notes while the other two talked to the subject, this way both us and them felt more comfortable.

The questions asked were:

- Describe your favorite meal?

- What makes this special?

- How does the environment effect the experience?

- What would you do if your received a bad looking meal?

- Would you taste it first?

- If a meal looked nice but still tasted bad what would be your actions?

We got a variation of answers but mainly the thing that we found was that people generally preferred comfort more than anything. By this they ment meals at home cooked by family members as they felt that they could more easily say if they wanted moe food or if they didn't like something. They also mentioned that having say their gran make them food, it took them back to a happy stage in their life. Of those who said that they would like to eat out there were a mixture of feelings regarding sending food back as some said that they would definitely do it as they were paying for it while others said that they never would as they would be too embarrassed. The general feeling was that they would always try their food no matter what it looked like and if something looked good and tasted bad, it was mainly their fault.

Afterwards we has a discussion with other class members about our findings. I found this to be very purposeful as it helped me to fully analyse what we had found out. I also quite enjoyed hearing other peoples opinions and giving my views on their findings. I definitely feel that this was a worthwhile task however I think that next time I should maybe put a bit more planning into the type of questions asked as although the results I received were good, they could have been a lot better. Perhaps a series of pilot tests followed by group discussions would yield the best results.

London 2012 Logo

We all know how terrible the London 2012 logo is, well this website offers some alternatives.

Flick through the logos and look at the comments, some of them are SO funny.

http://www.fubra.com/london2012/

Invisible Worlds

If you get the chance try and watch Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds on the BBC iPlayer. It has some really beautiful slow motion images as well as a lot of very interesting facts in it too. Its around an hour long but really worth it.

http://bbc.co.uk/i/rmrln/

Chiquita Branding

This new sticker rebrand caught my eye recently. The iconic Chiquita banana sticker has been given a fun new spin. It was the colours are the most noticeable thing about them in my opinion as they appear so bright and happy. Theres some nice variety of pictures. Enjoy.

http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/03/chiquita-banana-brand-refresh.html

So Easy You Could Make A Fuss About It

I have a small gripe with the current Oven Pride adverts. The slogan that there going with is "So easy a man could do it". It is quite obviously a joke about how men are stereotypically bad at house work and leave it to women. However if this was turned on it's head and it was, say a car advert saying "So easy to park a woman could do it". Even if it was said in jest I highly doubt it would be seen as a joke and would probably receive a host of complaints. Something that is now seen as a joke when women say it about men would very likely be seen as sexist if the other way around.

We will only really know if this would really be how people would react though if someone bravely (or stupidly) tries this technique in advertising.

Exhibition

Friday 26th of March saw the opening of the Origin of Food 3D Typography. The exhibition showed off the work of all the 2nd year Graphic Design students.

The show was themed around research done into soft fruit and vegetables for crop research company SCRI. The exhibition was well received and attended and lated till monday the 7th of March.

Heres a snippet of my work.

If any students would like a full copy of the exhibition photos just ask and il get them too you.

The life of Sooty McKay

The life of Sooty McKay wasn't an easy one but she brought a lot of happiness into the world. Sooty joined the McKay family 15 years ago in the summer of 1995. She came from a farm and although she was only young she had the free roaming farm spirit embedded deeply within her.

The beginning of her turbulent life began after only 1 year of living with us. Unknown to us she had fell pregnant without us knowing and during one night wondered in to my mums bedroom. She hopped onto the bed and succeeded to have 3 babies. Without any fuss she cleaned them up within minuets. Completely unaware of what had happened we were shouted to come down stairs to see Sooty with 3 new children, 2 girls and 1 boy.

The next few weeks proved to be quite trying with the house full of noise. One of Sooty's girls had jumped on top of Jerry (the gerbil's) cage. Jerry may have proceeded to "pass on" if you will from shock. He was a quite boring old man anyway. However the house was becoming too crowded and some had to go. My Auntie agreed to take the boy, she made the grievous mistake of letting her 4 year old some name him though, from there on in he went by the name "Bang". A family friend took the girl, Jess, who much like her mother and brother were completely black haired. The remaining girl stayed with us, she was called Tess, unlike the rest she was half black and half white with a lightening like marking on her forehead (I wonder where JK Rowling got her idea for Harry Potter...). Although I now like the name I was adament that we should call her tiger, although this was to no avail.

Time passed on and Sooty and Tess both grew in size and personality. Sooty who was once the centre of attention took more of a back seat with Tess grabbing all the limelight as her mother once did. The pair sadly didn't always get on and at times could be heard fighting in the middle of the night. Sooty from there on preferred to spend a lot of her time alone sitting on the fence in the garden or sitting in the sunshine.

As much as Sooty liked being at home we found that she actually at times lived a double life and would spend many a meal time at our neighbours house without us knowing. In their time Sooty and Tess both had there own amount of drama, both went missing for over a week a piece. We did our best to try look for them, Tess when she disappeared managed to find her way back on her own. Her mother on the other hand was shown up by her daughter as she had to be rescued. Apparently she must have been walking along rooftops one night and jumped in a skylight that she thought was ours and got trapped in an old mans attic. This gentleman only happened to check his loft once every 5 years or so and it just happend that one day he went up only to find Sooty who had been trapped in there for over a week. She was nursed back to health after her return home.

The autumn of 2000 however brought sad news for the family when we found that Sooty had been hit by a car. She suffered bad injuries and sadly had to get one of her legs amputated. Her spirits never seemed to be dampened thought and continued to keep mobile, sitting on the fence and enjoying walking showing her routes from the farm.

Her and Tess both enjoyed 9 years together after that with us, but as all good things something had to give and in 2009 Tess passed on from suspected cancer at the age of 13 unfortunately being outlived by her mother. Sooty who was always reserved and enjoyed being alone took on Tess's roll and began to venture in and out of the house more often, entering the living room that once used to be Tess's domain.

Sooty once again reverted back to what she used to be like when she was the centre of attention and lived out the remainder of her life in the loving company of others. Sooty passed on one year after her daughter at the ripe old age of 15.

Never one to do anything by half it could say that she came to the end of her 9 lives.

Sooty McKay

1995-2010

Assignment 3 The Bingo Blend

For Assignment 3 as our task was to people watch we chose as a group to take a visit to the bingo to learn their "rules" and observe how individuals behave here when put under scrutiny.

I will start this off by firstly stating that try as we might we did not blend into the regular bingo crowd. Through no fault of our own I may add, just simply because the majority of them had a good 50 years of "experience" on us. We will bypass this fact for now though.

We went on a Wednesday night, i'm not particularly sure but this may not be a very important night on the bingo calendar so this factor may have to be taken into account when you look at the findings. I would imagine that if we perhaps we had went on a Friday or Saturday then the atmosphere and cliental could vary. On entry to the foyer I was quite surprised by the decor as I always just assumed that it would be quite dim and dingy for sum reason. It was however very fancy and quite smartly decorated. We weren't particularly sure of what to do at this time as i didn't initially know that you had to become a member before playing. The staff however seemed used to the look of blank faces and asked if we would like to join. In this area of exploration peer help was quite necessary as although the staff were willing to help they didn't really give you any indication of what to do. After signing up and being handed a welcome pack (that didn't have any instructions on how to play the game) I found myself stranded alone at the pay desk, completely unaware of what I was going into. There were a list of games on a board telling us what we could buy however the woman on the desk was just trying, hard as she might to get me to buy the most expensive package. I eventually settled on the 80p tight fisted option.

From my initial encounter with the reception area I found the experience to be quite confusing, the staff, although helpful to an extent, were more willing to get the regular clients through before us. From this it seems as that this is quite a regular occurrence for a lot of people as the staff could easily tell the newbies from the old hands.

Before entering the main bingo hall we had to pass through an intense blast lof flashing lights coming of an array of slot machines, this room gave off a vibe similar to a casino, entirely different to the rest of the bingo hall. We entered a vast room that was around semi filled. We were not too sure were to sit as the etiquette of the place was by no means obvious from first glance. We opted for a seat nearer the back to avoid any horrendous faux pas.

The actual game of bingo itself I found not too bad and quite simple to understand, although all of us had a slight variation on what we thought was going on so this combination could have hindered some peoples taking to the rules of the game initially. I had a slight knowledge for the game from playing semi-serious versions of the game on holiday although some of the terminology used threw me a bit. There were occasions when people in the group shouted "HOUSE" when we in fact didn't have it as we tried to grasp the rules of the game unsecessfully. The people there responded quite well to this though and were quite friendly and helpful about it.

Onto the subject of analysing of the people there. I found that I had to take notes when I was there as there was so much to take in, I managed to disguise this and not be too obvious by taking them on my phone.

The general age of the people there was roughly in the late 40s to 80s category, them predominately being women, although there were quite a lot more men than I had anticipated. For men it seemed that the majority of them were there accompanying there wives rather than with other men however some were alone. There seemed to be quite a few mothers and daughters and groups of no more than 3 women together. As much as this seemed in the outside to be a fun group activity, from what I saw people preferred to do the opposite from this. From the look of it the majority of the people there were likely to be either retired and if not probably working class. There seemed to be very little communication between groups with relatively no conversation being audible unless it was to display displeasure after someone winning. I noticed that a trend seemed to have emerged with groups of people sitting near other groups and people on their own, sitting near others who were doing the same. I would have thought that this would have been quite a good place for older people to meet and chat between games but apparently this wasn't the case.

The halls appearance when looked closely enough at actually mirrored the outfits of the bingo goers. As the tones of the walles were very close to their clothing with a mixtures of creams, light browns etc. I wondered at the time if this had been done intentionally to make them feel more safe or relaxed as it did seem like quite a big contrast from the advertised Mecca Bingo company colours of bright blues, reds, greens and yellows. I noticed from the advertisements dotted around the place that they advertised lots of younger aged women than the ones that were actually there, this may be to try and get the next generation interested to guarantee future business. These advertisements were heavily aimed at women or even single women as even in the mens toilets there was a picture of a lone young woman having fun at the bingo. This could be interpreted in a number of ways, my initial reaction was that they were aiming it solely at women as no men were on the featured posters. However as they were in the mens toilet I was wondering if they were trying to advertise the fact to men that there were lots of single women that went to the bingo and that it would be the ideal place to meat a partner?

When it came to knowing how to play the game I felt that this was what made the place seem its most private and cliquy. There was no attempt to explain anything, either verbally or through wall images or table cards. I felt that I a perhaps a bit of an intruder in this sense as if you weren't in the know they you would flounder for the first half of the night. I don't know if Mecca are trying to keep the same type of customers or not as if you were not taught by someone who went to the bingo the you would be lost as we were for a while. There were some things such as handsignals to the roaming hall staff that I didn't really understand, which makes me think that this is quite a got-to-know type of place that has its regulars. The use of bingo language was quite difficult to grasp especially when having to concentrate hard on the game as well. For regulars this didn't seem to be an issue though as some were having tea at the same time, playing two cards and one woman was even reading a magazine. this probably showed our inexperience at our lack of skill.

Thats A Bingo!

This task was perhaps one of the most interesting and enjoyable that we have done, as I enjoyed being thrust into somewhere new as I gained an experience out of it. The task wasn't even conscious as the majority of the work was done on reflection.