OUGD504 - Studio Brief 1 - Print Info Pack Research

Seventeen booklets in a wooden and expandable case:

Pass it on:

Personal Portfolio of Cecilia Negri:

Food Chocolate Design:

0.01% Book:

The Shit Book:

In regards to type and imagery design I would like everything to be very flat based. I have never worked in this way before so it will be good practice for my practical design skills at the same time as delivering a clean and simple aesthetic to my print books. Examples of inspiration are:

Icons (Everyday Things):

Profesiones Ilustradas:

Kolo Bike:

Bar Typeface:

OUGD504 - Studio Brief 1 - Secondary Print Research

Screen printing:

Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil to receive a desired image. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A fill blade or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink into the mesh openings for transfer by capillary action during the squeegee stroke. Basically, it is the process of using a stencil to apply ink onto a substrate, whether it be t-shirts, posters, stickers, vinyl, wood, or other material.

Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of polyester or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance. Ink is forced into the mesh openings by the fill blade or squeegee and onto the printing surface during the squeegee stroke. It is also known as silkscreen, serigraphy, and serigraph printing. One colour is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicoloured image or design.

Embossing:

Embossing refers to the creation of an impression of some kind of design, decoration, lettering or pattern on another surface like paper, cloth, metal and even leather, to make a relief. In regular printing or an engraving, plates are pressed against the surface to leave an imprint. In embossing however, the pressing raises the surfaces adding a new dimension to the object.

I found a very good website which explains the processes involved in embossing here.

Laser-cutting:

Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to cut m2aterials, and is typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, but is also starting to be used by schools, small businesses, and hobbyists. Laser cutting works by directing the output of a high-power laser, by computer, at the material to be cut. The material then either melts, burns, vaporizes away, or is blown away by a jet of gas, leaving an edge with a high-quality surface finish. Industrial laser cutters are used to cut flat-sheet material as well as structural and piping materials.

Letterpress:

Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press. A worker composes and locks movable type into the bed of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type.

In practice, letterpress also includes other forms of relief printing with printing presses, such as wood engravings, photo-etched zinc "cuts" (plates), and linoleum blocks, which can be used alongside metal type in a single operation, as well as stereotypes and electrotypes of type and blocks. With certain letterpress units it is also possible to join movable type with slugs cast using hot metal typesetting.

Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the twentieth century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form.

Lino-printing:

Linocut is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for the relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised (uncarved) areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed. The linoleum sheet is inked with a roller (called a brayer), and then impressed onto paper or fabric. The actual printing can be done by hand or with a press

Foiling:

Foil stamping, typically a commercial print process, is the application of pigment or metallic foil, often gold or silver , but can also be various patterns or what is known as pastel foil which is a flat opaque color or white special film-backed material, to paper where a heated die is stamped onto the foil, making it adhere to the surface leaving the design of the die on the paper. Foil stamping can be combined with embossing to create a more striking 3D image.

OUGD501 - Study Task 3 - Identity

Essentialism means you have an innate characteristic about you, such as if you are black you are a criminal, etc.

Otherness in visual representation:

• Creation of Identities.
• Concepts of ‘Otherness’.
• Analysis of visual example.

Identity - who we are, and how others perceive who we are?

Socialisation.

Your parents/family.

Money.

Environment.

Diet.

Past experiences/emotional baggage.

Genetic problems/Deformities.

Where/How you were educated.

How do you express your identity?

Your friends/relations.

Mannerisms.

The way you decorate yourself.

Brands

Consumerist objects.

Diet.

Interests/Hobbies.

Social Interactions.

Accent.

All these things are subjectivity. - Our sense of self. Complex to understand.

Circuit of Culture - Stuart Hall. - “Culture is the framework within which our identities are formed, expressed and regulated.”

Jacques Lacan:

When you are born you don’t understand that you are distinct or separate from your mother. 

• Process from psychoanalysis.
• The 'hommelette.’ - scrambled up confused stage of a baby’s life.
• The ‘Mirror Stage’. - between 6 and 18 months is the first stage of identity understanding. 

The sense of self built on: 

• Sn illusion of wholeness.
• Receiving views from others.

Own subjectivity is fragile.

Constructing the ‘Other’.

• Problems: relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness.
• We are constantly trying to make ourselves who we want to be and for that reason we are never happy.
• To make our identities more solid we have to measure ourselves to what we are not.

Othering with brands:

Buying expensive things to prove to both yourself and others that you aren’t poor.

Othering with accents:

You don’t want to sound common or working class so enforce a posh accent.

Analyse one image from the media which for the audience of that image, attempts to secure an identity for the reader at the expense of othering. What the images promise? How it does that with stereotyping?

I have chosen this advert as an iconic example of a media image selling a product or service in the form of othering a group in society because of it’s obviousness and intensity.

Abercrombie and Fitch are a leading manufacturer of “California-style surf wear” like it’s sister company Hollister, based in the United States. Since the beginning, the founder of both companies has taken to branding themselves to be worn by only popular people or aesthetically pleasing males and females in their teenage years. Their aim is to categorise these teenagers into different levels of social interest between each other, and this aim leads to them only being worn by only the people in those top groupings in society.

The advert itself is a monochrome billboard on an American highway displaying the company logo in white alongside the body of a muscular male. This, being aimed at teenagers inevitably reminds them that they are either not popular or attractive and will never be unless they wear the designated brand, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, reminds the kids who deem themselves as popular that if they do not wear the brand, they aren’t actually going to be seen as at the height of their social group and people will not want to hang out with them as much.

This is devious but also intelligent as it is hitting two birds with one stone in regards to social groupings of vulnerable minded teenagers. The obviousness of the use of otherness in this advert essentially comes down to the fact that in that whole billboard, not a single mention or even a photograph of their products are shown. It makes you realise they aren’t advertising their clothes at all but merely the social highness of the people that would wear them.

OUGD501 - Study Task 2 - Consumerism

Consumerism.

Desire - False needs for commodities, manufactured desires, greed, stratification, inequality.

Social Control vs Freedom.

Freud - Irrational desires, animal instincts, the pleasure principle.

Bernays - PR.

What does humanity need?

You can't escape it, you are totally consumed in it. It becomes natural and part of every day lives. Because it is so natural and built into our subconscious, the effect and impact it has on our decision making and every day lives remains unnoticed. 

Natural competition increases the ideology of consumerism as it enforces the desire for the newest and best things to make you feel above other people through the products that are bought.

The idea of consumerism is the way people try to present themselves as individuals, however this leads to following a social trend or group because that is how you want to be perceived by others.

Write an analysis of an advert in the context of consumerism and issues of social control/false manufacturing of desire supported by John Berger quotations/statements. 500 words.

A car is an object considered as a variety of things, this could be a tool of transportation, a symbol of wealth, an object of classification but overall it tends to be a mixture of those options to a man. A man of wealth will buy an expensive car to drive to show others that he has money. It puts this mentioned man above general society in his mind because women will notice and be attracted, and other men will notice and envy him.

This has always been the case in our lives since consumerism took a toll of our society from the early 1910’s onwards. Adverts have evolved to use marketing strategies of false needs and added values, which increase the desire for said products. This BMW advert is a very simple but clever use of these marketing strategies aiming it at men. It consists of a landscape photograph of a brand new and shiny BMW parked on white gravel outside a modern and expensive home under the blue sky. Type conveniently placed above the car and in the sky, possibly instilling the idea of “high aspirations” to the viewer, says a single word “Can.” - “These images belong in the moment but speak of the future produces a strange effect which has become so familiar that we scarcely notice it.” [Berger J (1972) p.130].

         This single word can have a powerful effect on a man with aspirations. This word enhances the idea of a better life, a better future, a powerful and envious life and not only that but happiness. - “It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer – even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.” [Berger J (1972) p.131].

The psychology behind this marketing has been perfected throughout a drastic array of media publicizing a vast variety of products to different audiences using the same tools and attachments of false needs. - “The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.” [Berger J (1972) p.132]. These methods of publicity are used to such a degree everywhere that we don’t realize it - “We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. As a result of this act, what we see is brought within our reach” [Berger J (1972) p.8]. Before we know it, we are living to spend. We go to work and save up for more “things” being marketed to us to satiate our hungry desires for a better and more fulfilling life, once that product has been bought there is another one to buy.

         Target audiences are very well picked out and addressed in advertisements such as this BMW image. It is directly addressing the working-man and telling him that his dreams and aspirations of success will come from buying the car pictured. - “Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable? The envy of others.” [Berger J (1972) p.132].

OUGD501 - Lecture 2 - Identity.

Lecture Summary:

To introduce historical conceptions of identity.

To introduce Foucault’s ‘discourse’ methodology.

To place and critique contemporary practice within these frameworks, and to consider their validity.

To consider postmodern FUCK.

Theories of Identity:

Essentilism (traditional approach)

Our biological make up makes us who we are.

Physiognomy / Phrenology:

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) - Founder of Positivist Criminology - The notion that criminal tendencies are inherited.

Physiognomy Legitimising Racism:

Historical Phases of Identity:

Douglas Kellner - Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics beteen the modern and postmodern,1992.

Pre Modern Identity:

Institutions determined identity. 

Secure Identities.

Farm-worker - Landed Gentry.

The Soldier - The State.

The Factory Worker - Industrial Capitalism.

The Housewife - Patriarchy.

The Gentleman - Patriarchy.

Husband/Wife - Marriage/Church.

Modern Identity 19th-20th Century:

Charles Beaudelaire - The Painter of Modern Life (1863) introduces concept of the ‘flaneur’ (Gentleman-stroller)

Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) ‘Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure’.

Georg Simmel - Trickle down theory, Emulation, Distinction, The ‘Mask’ of Fashion. Lower classes tended to emulate what the higher classes wore by purchasing ‘cheap knockoffs’.

“The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city."

Post Modern Identity:

Disclosure Analysis.

Identity is constructed out of the discourses culturally available to us.

What is a discourse?

“a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural ‘object’ (e.g., madness, sexuality, etc) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed” Cavallaro, (2001)

Possible discourses:

Age, Class, Gender, Nationality, Race, Sexual Orientation, Education, Income, Etc.

Discourses to Consider.

Class, Nationality, Race, [Gender and sexuality - Otherness].

Class:

Humphrey Spender - Worktown project (1937)

Mass observation, Observing British living. Went to Bolton to document it. Perspectives of the working classes.

Ascot (2003) - Lower classes playing at being upper class.

Nationality:

Parr - Think of England (2000-2003)

Alexander McQueen - Highland Rape - Claims it is not about rape of women, but about the rape of Scotland by England, sensationalist.

Race/Ethnicity:

Chris Ofili - First important black artist. - No Woman, No Cry (1998), Virgin Mary, Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars (1994). Uses Elephant dung as a stereotypical representation of black people.

Gillian Wearing, from Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say, (1992-1993). Won the Turner prize.

Gender and Sexuality:

‘Ed Bergler, an American psychoanalystwriting in the 1950s, went much further, both in condemning the ugliness of fashion and in relating it to sex.  He recognised that the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men.  Its monstrosities, he argued, were a “gigantic unconscious hoax” perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the Cold War –male homosexuals (for he made the vulgar assumption that all dress designers are “queers”).  Having first, in the 1920s, tried to turn women into boys, they had latterly expressed their secret hatred of women by forcing them into exaggerated, ridiculous, hideous clothes’ Wilson, E. (1985), Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London, I.B. Tauris, page 94

Cover of La Garconne, by Victor Marguerite, 1922, and ‘Garconne’ in dress by Welly Soeurs, c. 1926

Post Modern Theory:

•Identity is constructed through our social experience.

•Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life(1959).

•Goffman saw life as ‘theatre’, made up of ‘encounters’ and ‘performances’.

•For Goffman the self is a series of facades.

Zygmunt Bauman.

‘Yes, indeed, “identity” is revealed to us only as something to be invented rather than discovered; as a target of an effort, “an objective”’

Postmodern Identity.

Rene Discartes (1596 - 1650) - Enlightenment Philosopher: “I think, therefore I am.”

Barbara Kruger then transforms this:

“The typical cultural spectator of postmodernity is viewed as a largely homecentred and increasingly solitary player who,via various forms of ‘telemediation’ (stereos,game consoles, videos and televisions),revels in a domesticated (i.e. private andtamed) ‘world at a distance’”Darley (2000), Visual Digital Culture, p.187

“If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval.  (‘I like Facebook,’ said another friend.  ‘I got a shag out of it’)” Tom Hodgkinson (2008), ‘With friends like these …’, Guardian, 14/01/08  

“The notion ‘you are who you pretend to be’ has a mythic resonance.  The Pygmalion story endures because it speaks to a powerful fantasy: that we are not limited by our histories, that we can be recreated or can recreate ourselves... Virtual worlds provide environments for experiences that may be hard to come by in the real ”Sherry Turkle (1994), Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality ‘In the brave new world of fleeting chances and frail securities, the old-style stiff and non-negotiable identities simply won’t do’ Bauman (2004), Identity, page 27 

‘Fun they may be, these virtual communities, but they create only an illusion of intimacy and a pretence of community’ Charles Handy (2001), The Elephant and the Flea, Hutchinson, page 204

‘“Identity” is a hopelessly ambiguous idea and a double-edged sword.  It may be a war-cry of individuals, or of the communities that wish to be imagined by them.  At one time the edge of identity is turned against “collective pressures” by individuals who resent conformity and hold dear their own ways of living (which “the group” would decry as prejudices) and their own ways of living (which “the group” would condemn as cases of “deviation” or “silliness”, but at any rate of abnormality, needing to be cured or punished’Bauman (2004), Identity, page 76