Studio Task 3 - CoP Re-Proposal

Pre-Tutorial

Research Question

Do the differences in advertising techniques used by dog food companies and dog charities justify the criticisms of wasted talent according to the first things first manifesto?

Practical Element

Some sort of advertising for some sort of Dog Charity in a manner that is more representative of a company that sells either "luxury" pet food, dog chews, or some other consumerist product that's not vital, but is generally used.

Post-Tutorial

Feedback

This question was too narrow, and because of it's specificity, it would limit what I would take going forward from the research. We discussed my principal disagreement with the First Things First Manifesto, and decided that the following question would be good for me to investigate, using some of my criticisms of the manifesto as points within my essay. 

Research Question

What is the role of ethics in contemporary advertising for charities?

Research

• Look up the lecture on ethics that I missed
• Advertising strategies
• Ethics within design

Globalisation - My Thoughts

To me, the message behind this lecture was, that in order for something to become truly globalised, it must be stripped back to become truly simple, as this means that as many people will understand it as possible, McDonalds and its no frills service being a prime example.

I think cultural imperialism seems to be very prominent, especially in developing economies such as Brazil, China and India, and if they opted to go in a different way to the western culture, the media would give us reason to worry about it, as is sort of the case with China, and I suppose this is a good example of Chomsky's theory of filters, in this instance Flak being the appropriate filter.

Chomsky's filters have highlighted how important it is that graphic design, especially in adverts for magazines, newspapers etc etc shouldn't be politically influenced, as you run the risk of stopping a certain article being published or something like that, which isn't something that should be happening in a developed, free and democratic society.

Lecture - Globalisation, Sustainability and the Media

Socialist: The process of the transformation of a local/regional phenomena into a global one through economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.
Capitalist: Elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasing integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result.

McDonaldization (George Ritzer): The idea that describes the wide-ranging sociocultural processes that allow the principles of an American fast-food restaurant to begin to dominate other sections of national and global economies.

Marshall McLuhan - Understanding the Media (1960's)
Discusses the idea that electrical technology is an extension of our body because of how it allows us to see and hear what is happening elsewhere, which reduces the idea of space and time, increasing human empathy and sympathy. This would lead to a "global village" where people and businesses would work together and share responsibility.

What has actually happened is Cultural Imperialism, which is the rise of a homogenous culture based around New York, Hollywood, London, Paris and Milan. The media could be thought of a system that spreads the evidence of the successes of western culture.

Schiller suggests that the dominance of a US driven commercial media forces a US broadcasting model onto the rest of the world, even though not all of the world can afford it.

Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent (1998)
Discusses the idea that the news is propaganda for American capitalism which is causing people to buy into Americanism being the ideal way of life. He says that there are filters which get rid of critical messages, these filters are;

• Ownership - Most people who have access to what is broadcasted in the media are controlled by one of a small bunch of people or companies such as Rupert Murdoch.
• Funding - Adverts provide funding for the media. Anything that would be published or broadcasted that has a message that goes against any of the adverts that it uses will be stopped.
• Sourcing - The news is only as accurate as your access to the source, which will be limited accordingly to reduce the quantity of negative reports.
• Flak - Whenever a challenging idea arises, organised groups of people and companies will aggressively challenge it publicly to pressure the public into not buying into the idea.
• Ideology - Creating and "us and them" scenario (often against Islam) makes us blind to our own problems.

Studio Task 3 - CoP Proposal

Pre-Crit

Research Question

Could consumerism function in a society where the First Things First Manifesto is more influential that it currently is?

• Look at the intentions of the manifesto, with various points of view about it was "really" about.
• Look at how consumerism has allowed people to "choose" their identities.
• Compare how both things have an element of political deception about them to keep people "happy", through a sense of empowerment, but it's how the senses of power differ that cause the separation.
• Talk about potential repercussions of having charities play off against each other to win public favour like supermarkets do, and how a lack of choice for consumers shows a regression within society.

Practical

• A series of posters advertising for charities in a way that they may look like if they were trying to gain favour based on their graphic design, by taking inspiration from big successful corporate brands.

         or

• A series of posters showing how brands that sell similar products or services could look similar if their identities were stripped away, which would show the dullness that you get when you take away the emotional connection from advertising.

Post-Crit

Issues With My Proposal

• The subject, being consumerism, is too broad.
• It's unclear weather the essay is based around advertising/branding or ethics.
• The potential repercussions of something happening have no facts about them or any information that can be solidly relied upon.

Suggestions

• Do something with the grey areas of the FTF manifesto that were highlighted in Michael Beirut's 10 footnotes on the manifesto.
• Take something that is suggested as being a waste of time in the manifesto, and compare how the branding and advertising from that product compares with an "acceptable cause" on a similar topic, for example, compare cat food designs with cat shelters graphic design.

My Thoughts

I would like to continue to do something about the FTF manifesto, as it's something I find interesting and I'm still unsure what I think about it. I think by comparing the advertising for pet products and the Design for the RSPCA I could raise some interesting issues that cover the grey areas of the manifesto, and Beirut's footnotes could be useful with highlighting some of the grey areas. Obviously I'd have to use other texts as well, particularly one in that is more pro-manifesto given Beirut's stance on it.

Consumerism - My Thoughts

I really enjoyed this lecture, and it was particularly useful for me as I want my essay question to be about the First Things First manifesto and question if it's relevant in a consumerist society. Gaining some background knowledge on Bernays and Lippmann has helped me think about some of the points I want to make in the essay. 

Towards the end of the lecture Richard was talking about how consumerism tricks us into thinking we're free by allowing us the freedom to choose what we want to buy and how we want to portray ourselves etc etc, illustrating his point with this.

I suppose it's fundamentally true, but at the same time, I don't think it's important, because at least the cow in the image has spent time outside the slaughter house, whereas I would suggest that if this was to reflect a communist society, the cow would already be in the slaughter house.

That image doesn't show the whole image. The whole idea of consumerism is that we can try to choose who we want to be buy choosing what possessions we own. Choosing between left and right isn't like choosing between two pairs of shoes, or choosing between two cars etc etc, and so it can't really have any effect on where it takes us, which is why both the left and right path lead to the same place. If the options were between a Ford or a Ferrari, although the final location could be argued as the same place, the paths to get there would be different. Which is what consumerism is all about, us choosing how we want to live our lives within the context of society.

Lecture - Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture

Sigmund Freud theorised about psychoanalysis and human nature. Key points of his were:

• We have hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts that exist within us subconsciously because of how we evolved.
• We only understand a small portion of our personality. (More here).
• When your conscious mind doesn't function (when you're asleep) your unconscious expresses itself (dreams).
• Civilisation is incompatible with humanity because of the sexual, aggressive and violent instincts we have retained from evolution.
• Modern civilisation suppresses us.
• We displace our instinctive desires onto other, more obtainable things.
• The pleasure principle: Fulfilling our desires and satisfying our instincts make us happy and docile.

Freud was alive when WW1 was going on, and said that the sort of behaviour that war expresses and allows is what we should expect from people when society breaks down, as without society and civilisation there's no reason for people to withhold their desires and instincts.

Edward Bernays was Freud's nephew, and was employed by the American government during WW1 to help with their propaganda.

• He realised that if you can attach some sort of instinctual meaning to an otherwise arbitrary object you can make people want and 'need' it.
• This allows you to create demand for a product.
• He called this theory/system Public Relations.
• He pioneered the idea of celebrity endorsement as he recognised that celebrities are seen as icons of success, and people want to be like them. An example of this was the 1929 Easter Day Parade where he paid lots of young women to smoke having tipped off the newspapers, and portrayed them as suffragettes. He also used the idea of pseudo-scientific reports in advertising such as in the Camel advert below.

Fordism is the term used to describe the mass manufacturing of an object on a production line, it originates from Ford cars. 

• Fordism increased productivity and profits within the company to the point where the workers were paid well enough to have disposable income. 
• This leads to a scenario where the demand is there for other consumer products to be produced for the Ford workers to buy, which in turn provides disposable income for the workers of the company producing the other products, and so on and so on.

Consumerism

If everyone has a car but cars are still being manufactured, how do the manufacturers sell the new cars? The nature of consumerism means that every product has a specific unique identity to make it an attractive proposition for consumers. Bernays worked for ford and sold the cars through masculine power trips and placing the car in adverts where the car was just an addition to a picture of an upper class life. This sort of advertising sells a lifestyle, where the product is seen as a way of achieving the lifestyle. By displaying this perfect lifestyle, people no longer just 'need' the product, they 'desire' it, because consumerism supports the idea of who you are is based on your possessions. 

Vince Packard wrote a book called The Hidden Persuaders, in which he wrote about how you can sell people things by making them think irrationally, and this can be done in eight ways.

• Selling emotional security
• Selling assurance of self-worth
• Selling ego-gratification
• Selling a creative outlet
• Selling a love object
• Selling a sense of power
• Selling a sense of history
• Selling immortality

Buying a big freezer is irrational, because you buy more food than you need, freeze it, then it goes off and you through it away. But you buy the freezer anyway because it gives you the emotional security of knowing you have enough food for your family, which in turn gives you assurance of your self worth.

Buying a big car is irrational because it does the same job as a smaller car in that it gets you from A to B. But you buy the big car anyway because it is shown as a highly masculine object, which gives you ego-gratification that you are highly masculine, and this in turn gives you a sense of power. 

This advert is a good example of how you can visually show some of these points.

Walter Lippmann was an American writer and political commentator who said that a new elite was needed to manage the "bewildered herd" that was the mass public under the growing influence of consumerism. He put forward the ideas that:

• If you can create a system where people feel their desires are being met (rationally or otherwise), people feel happy and are docile.
• If people aren't being kept docile and happy you have a risk of revolution like in the communist Soviet Union.
• Big businesses know what make people happy and should stop being regulated.

When the Wall St. Crash happened in 1929, people no longer had disposable income, struggled to maintain there consumerist lifestyles, and thus cause 'The Great Depression'. The consumerist system crashed because big business were allowed to do what they wanted. 

Franklin Roosevelt proposed a "New Deal" which the people then saw as an alternative to the great depression. The new deal included policies such as raising taxes on businesses to aid the redistribution of wealth. This upset Lippmann and Bernays because they saw this as challenging consumerism. 

Bernays was heavily involved in the 1939 New York's World Fair, which he used to celebrate what was great about America compared to the rest of the world, particularly the Soviet Union. These celebrations were focussed mainly on the freedom people have in America to choose what they want to own and celebrated consumerism. He started to re-sell the idea that big businesses knew what the people wanted, and consumerism started to take off again.

Deconstruction and Pastiche - My Thoughts

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a pretty interesting concept. When you take it apply it to the field of graphic design as an entity, the result is that good graphic design is more important than bad graphic design (or no graphic design at all for that matter). I think this is somewhat untrue, as both good and bad graphic design are equally important. Without bad design, you'd have nothing to compare good design too, and so good design wouldn't stand out at all or have any particular importance. 

I also think that bad design (or a total lack of it) has it's place in the world. Design communicates things about an organisation, good design tends to signify a higher quality product or service and a higher price for that. Logically, bad design signifies a lower quality product/service for a lower price. Think about the instances when you're staggering around drunk at 4am on a Saturday morning looking for something to eat. In that instance, design is not important, and so takeaways tend to have bad design. I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't want to go into a takeaway with good design, purely because I'd fear that it'd be more expensive than the place next door who don't care about design. 

In this scenarioI suppose you could say that the bad design was good because it served it's purpose, which suggests that good design can sit within bad design. But according to Derrida's theory, that means that western thinking suggests bad design is more important than good design, which clearly isn't the case. 

Pastiche

What pastiche boils down too is the idea that taking something out of it's original context devalues it. I disagree with this. I think that if anything, it gives the thing extra value, because if you're taking something out if it's context to use in a different context, it's because you want to use that thing to draw links to it's original context. The fact that this thing can now be used in two contexts surely gives it more value rather than devaluing it.

Relationship Between Deconstruction and Pastiche

My thoughts on Pastiche can be applied in Deconstruction. Western thinking values the original over the copy, so the idea of pastiche suggests that using something in a new context makes it less important, because it has been copied. My argument against this would be that whatever you're re-using, you're not removing it's links with it's previous contexts, you're just adding a different set of links to something in a different context.

Finding room for the new within the old seems like a logical way to think about anything as it allows for steady progress, as apposed making the old and new fight against each other, which could have consequences based on the context is. I think because of this, blindly going along with the idea of Pastiche as a theory can be pretty stupid, because it might make you immediately write something off that could be perfect for what you need.

Study Task 3 - Deconstruction, Pastiche and Establishing a Research Question

Deconstruction

Jaques Derrida observed that in western thinking, everything has an opposition that relates to itself that is either superior on inferior. For example, speech is superior to writing as it has more emotion involved and is therefore more powerful. 

Deconstruction is a way of questioning the balance between the superior and the inferior in western thinking to further understand how our society functions. The idea of feminism is based on this, as it is innately assumed that men are superior to women because of how many men are in positions of power compared to women.

Application

The idea of deconstruction lends itself to graphic design because it strongly supports the idea that the context in which something is in will affect the meaning of the thing itself. 

If you can manage to change the two things that are in opposition to each other so that one of them can be found within the other, it makes communication clearer. This can be seen in Swiss design, where rather than the typography fighting for superiority with the text, the typography is found within the importance of the text.

Pastiche

Frederick Jamerson same up with the idea that we use design styles from different eras of history in the modern day history to show our interest in the present. Pastiche is the theory that doing this takes the importance out of the history of the design because they're removed from their original context to become somewhat arbitrary.

Application

Examples of this can often be found in alcohol bottles. Jack Daniels and numerous brands of wine use old fashioned design styles create a more traditional look for their brand, which can be used to sell their product.

Establishing a Research Question

General Theme - Advertising
Issues - Consumerism, Financial Crisis, First Things First Manifesto, Desire

What I Want To Take From This

In Studio Task 2 we took an in-depth look at the First Things First Manifesto and a couple of other texts about it. I personally disagree with the underlying point the manifesto makes, particularly the updated 2000 version of it. I got a bit carried away with my disagreement in my triangulation exercise and think that the essay could be the perfect opportunity take a more in-depth and forcibly balanced look at the manifesto in the expectation that I can maybe start to accept it a bit more.

This doesn't seem particularly relevant to my practice now, that's because it probably isn't, but in a more long-term sense it could potentially be an important factor in what I do in the future. My first impression of the manifesto was pretty negative and I pretty much dismissed it straight away, but by doing the research question on it I'll be able to form a much more rounded opinion of it.

Study Task 2 - Triangulation Exercise - McDonalds Breakfast

McDonalds is a long established company, it was founded in 1940. It is a huge company, and in a world where society that is becoming an increasingly globalised, it has provided millions of people with jobs worldwide, and currently employs over 400,000 people worldwide. In 2013, McDonalds profit was over $5.5bn. You might say that McDonalds is the living embodiment of the multinational corporation in modern day society. The companies longevity and success runs alongside the continuity of the image and branding of the company, which has been maintained through it's advertising and design.

One of the biggest issues I have on a personal level with the First Things First Manifesto (1964) is the third paragraph. 
"By far the greatest effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted in the trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity". 
My understanding of the term prosperity is how well something is doing in terms of it's existence, and so national prosperity is about how well the country is doing. Between 2008 and 2011, the UK McDonalds company paid close to £90 million in tax, which is a huge sum of money, made all the more important given the current financial climate. If that £90m wasn't in the governments back pocket, then that's potentially £90m that couldn't be spent on things such as education, public services, and healthcare. Although admittedly McDonalds will have cost the NHS some money due to the health repercussions of their food.

I feel like the 2000 version of the Manifesto is a lot more aggressive and pushy in terms of its terminology, but at the same time I feel like the message put across in the manifesto is weaker than it was in the initial one. The use of the items "butt toners" and "heavy-duty recreational vehicles" in their list of things that designers can't touch shows a bit of lazyness on the writers' part given their use later on in the first manifesto. I feel these were used because the writers' wanted to show some sort of continuity between it and the first manifesto given the difference of tone between the two. The last sentence of the last paragraph, 
"Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it's taken to heart." 
I feel quite strongly that the word "expectation" is completely unforgivable in this context, given that they talk about priorities in the manifesto. I feel like the graphic design community, in my experience at least, is too obsessive about design. If this manifesto was about the NHS or something like that, then the word "expectation" could be completely justified in my opinion. 

This sort of hypocrisy, for use of a better (or more appropriate) word is illustrated in the 7th footnote of Michael Bierut's footnotes on the manifesto, where he claims that the examples of acceptable jobs are far too vague. He says, 
"things like the FDA Nutrition Facts label, probably the most useful and widely reproduced piece of graphic design of the twentieth century, generally recieve neither awards nor accolades from the likes of Adbusters or Rick Poynor: too humble, to accessible, too unshocking, too boring." 
This, somewhat ironically backed up in Poynor's text as well in the first paragraph of the last page where he states 
"Meanwhile in the sensation-hungry design pres... ...design really can help your business more competitive". 

I agree with Bierut's claims, despite being graphic design student, I do feel like somewhat of an outsider looking in on the world of design due to how it feels to be somewhat pretentious, something which I seek to actively avoid. McDonalds is often criticised for the nutritional value (or lack of it) in it's food, and I feel that they've missed a trick in their advertising by not including things like the FDA labels. Everyone knows McDonalds is bad for you, but it's not going to stop people from eating it, so where's the harm in displaying the nutritional facts? If that was done, then maybe the company would have a more honest image, rather than the slightly deceitful one it has been given by the media because of how bad their food is. 

This advert for the in particular illustrates the difficulties of the manifesto in general, with particular reference to footnote 8. 
"Manifestos are simple; life is complicated". 
The Egg McMuffin, the particular product being advertised here, is a breakfast item. In this busy modern world, some people may not have time for breakfast. For some people, commuters especially, the Egg McMuffin might be as close to breakfast as they get, which is shown in the advert through its placement and wording. My argument against the First Things First Manifesto's claims that this is evil commercial work, would be that this piece of advertising is encouraging is encouraging people to eat breakfast, whilst at the same time, McDonalds make profit. If the manifesto is against consumerism, then surely this sort of mutually beneficial transaction is an example of good work done by a graphic designer? Not only this, but I feel that this way of thinking is only ever used by people supporting the manifesto when it suits them, note the claim in the 2000 manifesto that  
"The scope of debate is shrinking". 
I doubt they'd even entertain the idea of my argument. 

I think that Bierut has got it spot on in the first paragraph of his 10th footnote, even if he has put it somewhat sarcastically. 
"The creators of Adbusters have a dream... ...ends with mass manipulation for cultural and political ends". 
I think that he references Adbusters in particular is important, as to me, that seems to be the lesser thought out manifesto, as shown by how it's signed by more well-known signatories, such as Erik Spiekermann and Ellen Lupton. I also find the exclusion of the word "students" quite notable in the second manifesto suggests that the signatories of the 2000 manifesto are comfortable with their positions within the design world. Given this sort of contrast to the more raw and emotion-packed wording and context of the 1964 manifesto (at least from my understanding from Poynor's text), and the emotional nature of Ken Garland's relationship with design (again from my understanding from Poynors text), I find it somewhat surprising that Garland endorsed the second manifesto through his signature, such is the difference between the tone of the two.