BLIND.

BRIANNA CORN 2016 BFA THESIS PROCESS BOOK

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I would like to thank all of my professors, friends and mentors who helped me develop my senior thesis. You have all inspired me so much and have played a big role in getting me to the point I am at. Thank you Michelle Carpenter and Ray Sams for helping me conceptualize my thesis, while keeping me accountable in my execution. Also, thank you Gillian Grefé for being my mentor. Without your encouragement and knowledge, I don’t know where I would be. You’re amazing. Thank you to all of my friends who let me rant on and on about my thesis. You all have been instrumental to my final project. Thanks for putting up with me guys, I owe you one.

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INTRODUCTION

THESIS QUESTION

RESEARCH

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BRAND IDENTITY

STYLE GUIDE

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION My thesis idea was cultivated by the inspiration I have found through the Situationist Movement and the current anti-advertisement movement called Brandalism. Originally, I wanted to focus my thesis on creating a guerilla style, anti-consumerism ad campaign. This campaign would be a behavioral design experiment to subvert people from consuming unnecessary goods.

I began my research with the book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, by Martin Lindstrum. As I studied his neurological standpoint on buying behaviors1, I delved into the production of the products we buy. I realized that tracing products back to their origination is an important path to understanding consumption.

Guy Debord’s critique on societie’s dependence on materiality to give it meaning in The Society of the Spectacle gave way to an entirely different direction 2. Beginning as an anti-ad campaign, my thesis evolved into an awareness campaign focused on exposing the malpractices of the apparel industry in countries around the world.

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Barbara Kruger, Untitled (I Shop therefore I am) 1987

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HOW CAN DESIGN TRIGGER PEOPLE TO CONSIDER THE MANUFACTURING OF THE PRODUCTS THAT WE BUY?

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In order to describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions and whatever forces may hasten its demise, a few artificial distinctions are called for. To analyze the spectacle means talking its language to some degree to the degree, in fact, that we are obliged to engage the methodology of the society to which the spectacle gives expression.

-Guy Debord

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Inspired by Debord’s Situationist views, I became interested in finding out how I could disrupt people’s automatic behaviors when they buy products by challenging them to consider where they come from and whether they were fabricated under humane and fair working conditions.

My aim is to get people to consciously reflect on where their possessions come from, and at what cost were they manufactured?

Using detournement theory, a method of hi jacking something familiar and antagonizing it’s meaning by giving it a new context, I created a brand called BLIND that interrupts the consumers interpretation of products by utilizing first hand accounts of unfair treatment experienced while employed in the apparel industry. Using only retail hang tags, I tell workers stories, alongside visually compelling statistics exploiting egregious facts about the industry. According to Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick, statistics put people into an analytical frame of mind. When they’re incorporated into a story, people begin to think emotionally, which brings a bigger impact 4. Following Debord’s assertion that one must speak the same language as the spectacle 5, the hang tags function as a vehicle to connect the consumer back to the workers manufacturing the products they buy, emotionally and analytically.

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Keeping my thesis question in mind, my thinking process began with researching studies and audits of garment factories around the developing world. I then looked into personal accounts of working and living with the conditions in these factories. I pulled inspiration from myriad companies and artists that advocate for the lives of these people who are impacted by the substandard system.

The Society of the Spectacle is a critique on society and it’s representation of existence through false images. Guy Debord claims that society has become dependent on it’s materiality to give it meaning and identity. He continues to explain that the worker and product are alienated from one another 6. This separation between the manufacturing and the consumption of the product conceals, in some cases, the malpractices of it’s production.

Consequently, the consumer remains unaware if they are supporting child labor and unfair working conditions. BLIND isn’t as much a morality campaign as it is a campaign to bring awareness to the severity of working conditions in parts of the apparel industry around the world.

RESEARCH

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Debord argues that the “generalized separation of worker and product has spelled the end of any comprehensive view of the job done, as well as the end of direct personal communication between producers 7.” This claim of the alienation of the consumer and producer, is just as relevant now as it was in the when he first published his thesis. There is a blurred line between where the things we buy actually come from making it easy for the consumer to keep the two separated. BLIND is a campaign to disrupt this.

I studied works by Barbara Kruger who had a huge influence on the aesthetic and typographic direction of BLIND. She creates images with commentary that is comprehensible through bold typography and a simple color palette.

I admire her work and how striking it is. Occasionally, her message can be unsettling, however, I aim to be just as bold as her with my brand identity.

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Around one million workers suffered industrial injuries, and about 20,000 others were victims of occupational disease throughout China.

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At least two garment workers killed in a stampede, in Bangladesh.

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280 workers fainted at a facility in Cambodia due to malnourishment and air contamination.

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300 people killed in a fire at a garment factory in Pakistan.

112 people killed from a fire in Bangledesh and hundreds more injured, some broke their legs and backs jumping from the windows.

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1,130 people killed and 2,500 people injured in Bangladesh, where an eight story commercial building collapsed.

29 employees at a garment factory killed in a fire, also in Bangladesh.

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11 workers injured and 15 killed at an underwear factory in China.

16 killed in a shoe factory from a fire, also in China. www.waronwant.com

It is all too easy to turn a blind eye to the working conditions people are subjected, and sometimes forced into. There are organizations that have been created to establish workplace codes of conduct. These systems, however, aren’t always effective and have the tendency to fail. I started looking into personal accounts of workers and auditers. A common theme I found were deaths related to working accidents and occupational diseases contracted from working at factories lacking safeguards.

These two trends became the foundation for the content I used for BLIND. I decided that in order to make an impact of any kind, I would need to tell a compelling story. I found a case study performed in the Berlin, Germany, where a vending machine was installed in the Alexanderplatz selling plain white T-shirts for €2 each. Before the shirt comes out, a photo would appear—a black-and-white image of rows of sewing machines. “Meet Manisha,” the screen reads, dissolving to a close-up of a girl in a head scarf who looks about 16. She earns “as little as 13 cents an hour each day for 16 hours.” The Berliners put their hands over their mouths. The vending machine then prompted the consumer on whether they would like to purchase the shirt still, or donate. Understandably, the next step by the consumer was to donate 8. This experiment challenged the consumer to reflect on exactly what they were about to buy, and where it came from.

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I found this to be a really powerful method of bringing awareness. The inclusion of a call to action gave me inspiration to incorporate this apprach with BLIND. I started researching brands, companies and organizations that I could include with the stories and statistics I found. I focused on finding companies that respect human rights and ensure appropriate working conditions for the workers of their production partners. Keeping these ideals my top priority, I compiled the most powerful one’s to include in my brand. I found that putting them directly on the hang tags was a compelling aspect to BLIND. I paired the brands and organizations with the stories to motivate people and show them there is something that they can do to help.

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THE BRAND BLIND was created to bring awareness to consumers about poor working conditions practiced in the garment industry around the world. BLIND is an advocate for better working standards and communicates on an emotional and informational level to consumers.

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Can you see it?

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Logotype

Inverted Logo

Shorthand

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Aa

Cooper Hewitt Bold ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890!@#$%^&*()[]

Aa

Cooper Hewitt Book ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890!@#$%^&*()[]

Aa

Cooper Hewitt Light ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890!@#$%^&*()[]

Red #DE1900 RGB : 222 25 0 PANTONE : 2347 XGC CMYK : 7% 99% 100% 1% Black #000000 RGB : 0 0 0 PANTONE : black CMYK : 75% 68% 67% 90% White #FFFFFF RGB : 225 225 225 PANTONE : white CMYK : 0% 0% 0% 0%

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I’m giving a voice to the people who don’t.

I can’t solve the problems of production in the world today, but I can bring awareness to people in order to start the conversation.

Just one person deciding not to buy certain companies or shop at specific stores isn’t enough. If I can reach people on a deeper level so that they are able to decide for themselves whether to purchase an item based on the conditions they originate from, then I have succeeded.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1

Martin Lindstrum, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (New York City: Doubleday, 2008), 17-24.

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Guy Debord, “Unity and Division Within Appearances,” The Society of the Spectacle (Paris: Buchet / Chastel, 1967), 16-20.

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See Debord’s chapter “The Proletariat as Subject and Representation,” 21-29.

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Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to stick: why some ideas survive and others die (New York: Random House, 2007) ,67.

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See Debord’s chapter’s “Separation Perfected” and “The Commodity as Spectacle,” 5-15.

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See Debord’s chapter “Commodity as Spectacle,” 12-14.

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See Debord’s chapter “Separation Perfected,” 9.

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Michael Hobbes, “The Myth of the Ethical Shopper,” Huffington Post, (July 2015): http://highlinehuffington post.com/articles/en/the-myth-of-the-ethicalshopper/ (Accessed 3 March 2016).

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CHEERS! WWW.BRIANNACORN.COM