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.