VISUAL EVALUATION
‘However, despite these toys being intended for children, they objectify each gender with grown adult dolls, showing them with fully developed mature bodies.
Unlike action man with its twenty movable joints, the original barbie only had joints where the arms, legs and head attached to the body’ – Judy Attfield.
‘Advertising is not a rifle; it is a shotgun, and any campaign featuring outdoor boards of a cartoon animal inevitably will catch children in its spray” – Bob Garfield, ad reviewer for ‘Advertising Age’
Her image [Barbie] is one of a stereotypical male fantasy – Jean Kilbourne
When I first started my visual exploration I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to go in and how best to represent gender without being too generic.
I also didn’t know my initial themes which I wanted to work on or how I could explore gender visually.
• After looking at how some advertising presents itself exclusively to kids and manages to differentiate its market between boys and girls, I became really interested in how this would work in a domestic setting. • I became interested in how we perceive gender in toys and whether I could create characters for kids which were themselves agender and non-‐binary.
ED CHEVERTON • Ed Chevertons work has really inspired me during this module, crafting whimsical anthropomorphic characters out of everyday items. • His use of colour and form has a real sense of charm and childish wonder.
• I wanted to bring my work into the third dimension and I felt that the way Ed translates his work is really inspiring. • He also works with cut paper that he then makes into 3-‐D, a process that I’ve been using throughout my visual journal during this module. • The heavy use of colour throughout is also something I’ve been trying to incorporate into my own practice as an illustrator.
• I then started drafting some ‘blueprints’ and general ideas which I could later try and make into a 3-‐D model. • I was inspired to do so after our ‘megacrit’ and looking at illustrative practitioners such as Ed Cheverton. • I also looked into how these could look as fully realized pieces using papercraft and pencils crayons.
• After making some ‘blueprints’ I wanted to try and try making more detailed paper cut pictures of possible outcomes for my toys. • I knew that I wouldn’t be able to properly translate these into wood but I enjoyed the process of making them and it was fun to see the types of toy I could imagine. • I still wanted to these characters non-‐binary and I found it a real challenge to try and avoid traditional gender tropes. • I don’t think I was able to do this successfully for all my toys but I’m happy overall with the outcome.
• For the actual making of the wood blocks I planned how some of them would actually look. • At this point I felt that simple would be better for this project since, through the making of my paper characters, I’d learned that more features gives someone more visual clues as to a block’s potential gender.
• Cutting and sanding down blocks to have different shapes. • I also wanted them to be reasonably simple so that they’d be easy to stack for children.
• I also tried drawing out possible combinations of blocks and how they could stack.
• After painting the blocks they gained a lot more character. • Painting something 3-‐dimensional was also a real challenge since each side had to dry before I could add another layer. • I kept the colours simple with mostly red and white as I found that red was more gender neutral than pink or blue.
• I also wanted to experiment with print during this module. • The stencils I used were reasonably simple but I drew faces over the top and gave them character. • I really enjoyed this aspect of my module and If I’d had enough time I would have taken it further. • These felt like a natural progression of my work as my development continued on from my blockmaking down another strand into traditional print.