Research Health/Addiction/Fitness
- The obsession of the ‘perfect body shape and size’ - Idea of the ‘Perfect body’ leading to eating disorders - Look at addiction such as drugs/alcohol and conversations surrounding these topics - How some people are health conscious - Look at illness and how people are affected by different illnesses - Look at charity’s and support and the positives and negatives of them (how there isn’t enough support/how they may benefit an individual or help a family)
Body size and the media
- models tend to be thin giving the wrong representation that all women look like that or should look like - The link between health and body/beauty expectations portrayed by the media/fashion etc - The idea that the media dont portrey the ‘average body size’ - Look at conversations surrounding cosmetic surgery and how people are having surgery to gain the ‘perfect look’ - Look at peoples opinitons on body size linking to the media
Advertising
- how it affects consumerism - how technology affects the w (positives and negatives) - i.e. some artist and against h potential - gender stereotypes and givin people should look like’ (mod the wrong representation that should)
Conver
Links between Techn
- Conversation between technology, the internet, - How developing techno population and each gen i.e. younger generation c developing technology to for an aging population
world of advertising
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Unbranded
- Look at adverts where they advertise something without using the brand or logo. - Where do you see the adverts i.e. cinema/ billboard/poster - Think about how people recognise the brand when the advert is unbranded - Think of companies that use the unbranded method when advertising i.e. McDonalds, Heinz ketchup advert etc. - Look at fashion photography how it advertised the brand without using the brand logo/name.
Political conversations
- research into popular conversations in politics - Look at political debates in the past and present - Possibly discuss supporting ideas and critisisms of political ideas/parties
Social Media - Conversations around social media and how its affects people (positive/negative responses) i.e. Twitter/Facebook/Instagram - conversations outlining the dangers of social media i.e. addictive, cyber bullying, paedophilia etc. - topics surrounding benefits of social media i.e. reconnecting people, bringing people together, arranging social events, meeting new people etc.
Stefan Sagmeister I personally find Stefan Sagmeister’s work rather interesting. The way he combines photography and typography works very well, he manages to create a personal feel to his work by using images of him self. The Lou Reed cover works very well how he manages to write the lyrics on his face as if they have been spoken. I am going to take influence from Sagmeister work to experiment with photographs of the
human body to try and give a personal feel to the imagery. Sagmeister tends to use his own handwriting for his work rather than a specific font. I believe that this also adds a personal feel to his work as every individuals handwriting is different and personal to them. I am going to experiment with both exisiting fonts and my own handwriting to see the different effects that it may create.
Laura Williams
Laura Williams is a young Graphic design artist that is known for her multiple exposure work and illusion photography. I find Laura Williams’s work interesting; as she uses the aspect of illusion to create a slightly surreal appearance to her work. I find Laura Williams’s work very inspiring it has helped me to generate a range of ideas of a photoshoot. I really like
the idea of experimenting with multiple exposures in order to create a very interesting piece. I believe that by using this technique will enable me to generate more ideas and help me explore by trying out new techniques that I haven’t tried before. I believe that Multiple exposures would be a great idea for my theme as I will be able to create mixed message images.
Martin De Pasquale Martin De Pasquale is one of my favourite Graphic Designers; I find his work very inspiring. Martin De Pasquale has a rather surrealistic style to his work, he uses a mix a photography and photo shop to be able to manipulate images to add surrealism to his work. I find his image of the man drinking from the glass very interesting, as it appears that as he drinks from the glass it adds colour and ‘fills up’ the man. His work always inspires me to try different techniques as I find it so interesting how he creates these slightly disturbing yet fantastic images. I am going to take
influence and inspiration from De Pasquale’s work and try to experiment with photography and surrealism . I believe that this would be a great way to show body image in a shocking yet interesting way as i will be able to show the effects the media has on a womans inspired ‘body image’. I will experiment with different ways to make my images slightly distorted and surreal as I really like the affect that surrealist art has on a viewer in a way that it can shock, confuse, intrigue yet inform them. I would like my work to have a similar affect.
Jerome Abramovitch Abramovitch is a black and white photographer that uses mannequins and also manipulates images of women to make them appear like mannequins to create rather surreal photographs. I find the use of surrealist photography rather interesting and I believe this could be a good way to put emphasis on the idea of the perfect body image portrayed by the media being unobtainable. I would like
to be able to experiment with photography and surrealism to try and create an shocking reaction to the public. This would be a great way to show the seriousness of the media can affect individuals negatively. I will look at possibly making image of people appear like mannequins to focus on the debate around mannequins not representing the ‘normal’ body size.
Marie-Claire Montanari I believe that Marie-Claire Montari’s photography is very interesting as she manages to make mannequins appear life like. She takes photos through shop windows and managed to capture a double exposure as you can see a reflection of the city in the shop windows. This creates a really interesting effect. I really like the use of the mannequins in these
images, as I believe it gives a slightly surreal effect to her work. I would like to experiment with photography and the body image, then i will place double exposures over the top of my images. I believe this would be a good way to show how an individual may be feeling by overlay images.
Storm Thorgerson Storm Thorgerson is a surrealist graphic designer. He uses manipulation of imagery to create interesting and unique pieces. For example he has managed to create a Pink Floyd album cover and manipulate the image so it give an illusion of inception to the image. There is an image within and image within an image. The detail in this
piece is very clear and the positioning of the people in the image works very well as it is the same in each photograph except the band members switch positions in each frame. I find surrealism a really interesting movement and I will focus on adding a surrealist affect to my work in order to make it work well for my topic of conversation.
Rene Magritte
Rene Magritte is a wellknown surrealist artist. He is known for challenging individual’s perception of reality and the dream world. I personally find Magritte’s work rather interesting as he manages to combine reality with the dream world to create interesting pieces. I really like how Magritte has managed to create whitty pieces that play on
common phrases such as ‘its raining men’ which is shown in the image “Golconde” (1953) (image top right). I believe the idea of using surrealism for inspiration would be a great idea as I will be able to experiment with the perception of the human body as well as make a point of how the media may affect the perception of ones self.
Idea 1
For this idea I am going to look into conversations surrounding mannequins and the ‘ideal’ body size and try to make a piece that shows different size women’s bodies in the style of mannequins. I will need to organise a photo shoot with models so I am able to capture images of the human form. I will use these photos and the edit them using photo shop and other programmes so that I can make the models appear like real life mannequins missing parts such as a head, hands or legs. I believe this will be a fairly interesting idea as I will be able to incorporate ideas of surrealism in to the images. I will take influence from a variety of photographers such as
Jerome Abramovitch and Marie-Claire Montanari. Jerome Abramovitchi is known for her work with mannequins, She creates rather surreal and slightly disturbing photographs by using broken mannequins and making them look alive and human. MarieClaire Montanari is known for her photographs of display mannequins. She manages to capture the reflection in the window as well as managing to capture the image behind the glass. This creates the impression of a double exposure effect. I believe both these artist will help me to generate more ideas for the photo shoot so I am able to take a wide range of affective photographs.
Idea 2
For my second idea I am going to look at combining typography with photography in order to give a more personal appearance to my work. I have taken influence from Stefan Sagmeister’s as I find his work really interesting, as I really like the personal affect he adds to his work by using images of himself and working over the top of them with typography. I am going to use images of volunteers and myself so that I can get input from them on their feelings about the theme of ‘body image and the media’. I will then get them to write
a list of words of how the ‘ideal body image’ portrayed by the media may make someone feel about their body. I will experiment with a range of images to try and get a more serious message across about how the media can make an individual feel negatively about their body. I believe this idea would work fairly well as I will be able to give my work a rather serious and shocking appearance. I would like it to help people understand how big an affect the media my have on the way someone view their own body or others.
Experimentation
Organising this photo shoot was fairly straight forward, once I had explained my ideas and what I wanted to do to various people I have a few volunteers, which were proud to show their natural body beauty. I was able to find a range of people that were different shapes and sizes so I am able to show that everyone’s body is different. There is no ‘ideal body image’ as there is no true one shape or size; every form is different in its own way. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to photography all the models so if I was to do it again I would plan my time out more effectively so that I could get a wider range of images. Overall I believe the photo shoot was rather successful as I managed to take a range of images that accurately show the natural form and highlight its natural beauty.
I decided to experiment with photography that would be inspired by the work of Marie-Claire Montanari and Jerome Abramovitch. I was able to take photos of 3 women with different body shapes and sizes so that I can show the beauty of the nature body form. I have positioned the models in various poses inspired by mannequins so that I will be able to add a surrealist effect to my work. I have experimented with position, size and angle to try and capture surreal poses. In some photos I have managed to position the camera at a specific angle to make it appear as if the model is missing limbs. I believe this has given some of the photos a rather shocking yet intriguing appearance.
I am going to select a range of the images and manipulate them to appear like ‘real life’ mannequins that have a natural form. I believe that I will be able to express the beauty of the female form through these photographs this will make people see that the ‘ideal body image’ portrayed by the media is not a natural figure and only a small percentage of the population actually have that body image. I would like my images to try and inspire women to love their body and not feel the pressure by the media to look like their version of the ‘ideal body image’.
Experimentation
This is an experimentation where I have manipulated my own images of the human body to appear like mannequins. This was to fit in with the idea that mannequins should appear more natural and have the real curves of a woman rather than making women feel bad about them selves due to the fact that they don’t look like the mannequins in the shops. I managed to take photographs of the human body with different shaped models to show
that every body is unique, I then managed to add pale colours and smooth out the skin on the images in Photoshop to try and make them appear more plastic looking. I believe these images worked rather well as they do actually look like mannequins. However this is not the effect that I was looking for so I will continue with the experimentation of other ideas to get the point of my idea across more clearly.
Experimentation I wanted to look at the idea of creating my own small model mannequin. I wanted to experiment by projecting text onto the model. I decided to try and build the frame from small pieces of dowel and then glued them together with a hot glue gun. The first stage of building the frame for the model worked rather well, I then decided to try and give the model a
natural shape I was going to use expanding foam and then try to shape it once it had dried. when I tried to cover the model in expanding foam it didn’t work and just got really messy. It was hard to cover and it would not set properly so it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. The images of to the left are images of the first stage of the model making.
Experimentation
I decided to experiment with this image from the photo shoot, Its an image of me so I thought it would give a more personal feel to my work. I wanted to experiment with the idea of ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ so I thought of things that people may feel about themselves. I wanted to look into the negative feelings someone may have due to how they believe they ‘should’ look portrayed by the media. The media has a large impact on the way everyone views one another. Women and men all over my feel negative about the way they look because they don’t look like a ‘Model’.
I wanted this piece to show all of these feelings in a way that would seem personal. I looked at Stefan Sagmeister for influence throughout this experimentation. I changed the image to black and white to give a serious appearance to the image. I believe by using a black and white image it triggers a feeling of saddness and frustration . I thought that the tone on the back worked very well and made the image stand out. The black and white image helps to outline muscle tone and highlights shape. I then decided to experiment with text by overlaying it over the top of the
image. I used a Stencil grunge font that would highlight the negativity of the words that I had used. I positioned each word down the back and experimented with size and opacity. This helped to show that some words might affect an individual more than others. I believed that this experiment worked rather well. By combining text and image I was able to express a strong message through my image. The font used for the text works fairly well but I would like to try this again with my own handwriting. This would help me to add more of a personal feel to my work.
Experimentation I have decided to try experimenting with my own handwriting and placing it over the top of my image. I thought that this improved the image and made it more effective. I added the personal touch to the image that I was hoping for. I really like how the change in opacity from word to work creates a tattooed effect on the body. I believe that it makes the body/image
appear permanently marked or damage. To me I believe that this gives the impression of the lasting damage that self-negativity can have on an individual. I believe that the images using handwriting are more effective as they put more emphasis on how much damage the media can cause by insisting that the ‘ideal body image’ must be a specific way.
Experimentation I have decided to experiment with my own handwriting for this piece. I wanted to research what people were saying about the media and how they portray body image. I looked at a range of newspaper articles and I managed to find that people felt rather strongly surrounding this issue. Here are some of the opinions that I have found: - ‘Women should feel comfortable in their own skin.’ - ‘They should be the shape of real women.’ - ‘Lack of concern for a generation of extremely body conscious youth.’ ‘The suppliers have an ethical responsibility to ensure that mannequins have a certain look.’ - ‘We owe it to young girls to be more responsible with how we portray body image.’ - ‘They give you the idea that to be beautiful you have to be skinny.’
I wanted to use some of the opinions that had been expressed through the media to show how serious the matter is. I thought that these opinions would work well over the top of an image as they express the fact that people feel strongly about this matter. It makes the opinions clearer so people can understand what the issue is. I had to experiment with the size and position of the text as I found in some cases the text covered too much of the image. I wanted to find a balance between text and image that would work well.
Experimentation For this experimentation I managed to learn how to glitch images through a coding workshop. During this workshop we were able to write a code that would slowly break down the image creating a glitch effect. I though this effect worked really well so I decided to try and experiment with my work to try and create a distorted effect to my work. By changing specific settings on the image I was able to create different effects on the images. Here are a few of the outputs that I have managed to create after using the coding method.
This experimentation has worked very well as it has managed to make some of the images appear slightly haunted. I really like how this technique has worked and I will look at using this method for part of my final design. I like how the text on the image has still remained clear in some of the images. I personally find that the images with the side glitch work best as the image has still remained clear, where as some of the other images have become too broken to see the detail on the image. I have also managed to create a moving image by recording the glitch method. the link for this is below.
https://vimeo.com/145685449
Final ideas
I have created a range of poster designs to highlight the issues surrounding the body image and the media wanted to use the images that I had created using the coding process and then add my own handwriting over the top to add more text to the poster. My own handwriting will make the posters appear personal to an individual, it also helps to link in with the inspiration from Stefan Sagmeister. I believe that the images in colour have worked slightly better
than the black and white images, as they tend to stand out more. I have selected the two coloured posters as my final designs. I believe that these poster designs are rather effective and fit in with my theme of the media and body image. These images have enabled me to express the feelings of individuals on how the media makes them feel about their body. These posters are to highlight the issue but also to encourage people to embrace their beauty and love their body.