OUGD405 Design Process- Deception research

Deception- 'to mislead by a false appearance or statement; delude'

• Fraud
• Misleading
• Unfaithful
• Lies
• False
• Entrap
• Advertising
• Banks
• Politicians
• Media
• Small print
• Exaggeration

I chose the subject of deceiving adverts and how they mislead/deceive the public through false claims, incorrect visual representations and exaggeration.

As a starting point I looked at controversial anti ageing and make up adverts that have been in the news the past few years for different reasons; false accusations, or misleading images.

This first set of images are adverts for mascara, but have all been banned for their false claims or their use of false lash inserts when claiming it makes lashes thicker or adds length.

The image above was originally shot for lipstick but Dior claims it 'had been digitally enhanced in the post-production process to "tidy up" Portman’s eyelashes, replacing damaged lashes as well stylistically separating and extending them.' Even though Dior admitted to 'replacing damaged lashes as well stylistically separating and extending them' the advert states that the product is "Last-multiplying effect volume and care mascara. The miracle of nano brush for an unrivalled lash creator effect. It delivers spectacular volume-multiplying effect, lash by lash."

This image is actually worse than the Dior advert, the headline is 'Is your volume true? of "false"' From this statement the advert is asking that does your eyelash volume come from mascara or fake lashes?, it also claims the brand of mascara 'gives you true volume'. However this is all a blatant lie and it completely deceiving because in the bottom left hand corner there in tiny small print which is barely visible states 'Lash inserts were applied to both of Nicole’s lashes to add lash count before applying mascara'. The disclaimer is at complete odds with the copy in the ad because her 'volumed' lashes aren't really created by the mascara but by fake lashes. However companies are allowed to deceive consumers because they put a disclaimer in the advert. 

This image shows three shots of a profile showing the models eyelashes becoming progressively longer while accompanying text explained the product and included the statement, "shot with lash inserts". It makes me think is it really an advert for mascara or false eyelashes, because it does a good job at showing what false eyelashes can do for ones eyes but not the mascara. The company behind the mascara 'admitted there were three different kinds of lash inserts used in the ads, but claimed they were not misleading as they were an accurate representation that could be achieved by using the product.' Many adverts for female make up are extremely deceiving and lead women into a false confidence thinking they'll achieve the same results but the reality there's not much change. 

The only reason companies get away with such lies and deception is because the advertisement must only contain a "reasonable representation" of the item being sold. Therefore as long as the model is at least wearing the mascara even if they're wearing fake lashes it's acceptable as long as they add a disclaimer.

Another way to deceive and mislead people is by airbrushing and editing photos to such a level that models can look around 20 years younger.

'They were the ground-breaking adverts that made British women proud of their bodies - whatever shape or size - but according to reports the ad campaigns featuring 'real' women were in fact retouched.' This has recently come to light after a well known photo retoucher has claimed he had 'altered the photographs heavily'. However Dove has stated that this is lies and the only retouching was removing dust from the film and minor colour corrections.

The advert above has been banned because it's been heavily touched up to the point where it completely misleads women. L'oreal who own Lancome produced a statement saying they only retouched the image to "lighten the skin, clean up makeup, reduce dark shadows and shading around the eyes, smooth the lips and darken the brows," and added that they 'still believed the ad accurately reflected what the product could do"

They're leading on women and giving them false hope that the product will have the same effect on them when in reality it's a digitally produced image, they don't gain any trust trust from these acts because they're basically lying about their own product. They're conning females to pay extortionate amounts for a product that is falsely advertised. Research by cosmetic company Transform Cosmetic Surgery found four in ten women spend an average of £20-50 a month on anti-wrinkle creams, although 45% said they were unhappy with the results.

Food and drink

'Vitamin Water makes health claims for all of its various flavors, using words like defense, rescue, energy, and endurance. The company also says that the drinks promote a healthy state of physical and mental being, and provide the drinker with antioxidants and other nutrients that reduce age-related eye disease. While Vitamin Water does include the vitamins it lists on the labels, the advertising glosses over the fact that all of its 125 calories come from sugar, making it as unhealthy as a soft drink.' Coca cola say that no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitamin Water was a healthy beverage, which is absolute nonsense. The name and packaging of the product is completely deceiving, it comes across as a healthy drink with its clean crisp labels and the name vitamin water. You never really hear of unhealthy vitamins.

The set of images above is a series by Dario D. He traveled around fast food restaurants comparing the food to the food advertised in adverts. All apart from the Big N' Tasty were in fact far smaller and less appealing than the advertised burger which relates to my subject of deceiving adverts. They're misleading customers into wanting a product that actually doesn't exist.

Envelope

Below are a few mailshots that I have research to give me a basic idea of what a mailshot should look like and how designs can be applied to an envelope such as adding designs inside the envelope like a mountain or in my case a bike.

The envelope below shows different ways of creating envelopes, it would be suited to me because my design will be printed on the inside as opposed to information cards.

This is just a mix of envelope designs I could take inspiration from. Particularly the different styles of envelopes.

OUGD401 Context of Practice study task 2

2012/13 Leeds College of Art prospectus

The cover stock of the 2012/13 Leeds College of Art prospectus has a cheap aesthetic to it which is made more accentuated by the foil letters on the front cover. When the foil has been embossed it has become translucent allowing little bits of blue to come through which creates low quality aesthetic to it. I believe if they used some higher grade stock it could look different or even use a different colour foil that might not be as translucent.

As soon as you open the first page you are met by this plain ugly powerpoint like page. It looks really amateur and poorly done from the border to the font choice, as a collective it looks basic and has a business feel to it not an art college that produces some of the best graphic designers in the country. To add to the business feel on page 4 the picture of the Principal looks as if it is advertising a solicitors or a compensation company. I can't really think of a solution to the picture but the first page can be changed easily, the stock could be changed, the border could be removed, font changed to a lighter weighted font and maybe some form of image could be added.

On the subject of changing stock the whole book would look a lot less commercial and business like if it was less glossy because when the bold type is printed onto a glossy surface I believe it has a cheap aesthetic and tactile quality to it reminding me of a catalogue. However using glossy paper has its advantages, the photographs have a cleaner more professional finish to them which couldn't be achieved using a matte paper.

I believe the double page spread photos are a success and create interesting visuals and enable the reader to achieve a greater understanding and a feel of what the college is about. However, there are some issues with other photos. The layout on some pages just look as if the photos have been thrown in to position and little thought has been put into placement, scale and positioning. For example page 58, the small image on the left just be of greater scale to illustrate more detail but instead it's lazily positioned leaving a mass of white space in which a tiny photo is floating.

I find the overall laying out of the prospectus a little amateurish, from the centring of the 'Leeds College of Art' logo on the back cover to the randomly placed images, to the odd black page sections throughout that don't follow any set pattern. It feels like it has been rushed or at least some issues haven't been taken into consideration as much as they should have.

The cover font doesn't work, the 'O' is absolutely massive and has been poorly kerned which means it centres the page and is the focus of attention, instantly attracting peoples eyes to a flaw. Also the 'W' doesn't work well with the font as a collective. I think in this situation a font like Helvetica should have been used, even though it is used excessively, it's used often for a reason. When struggling and in need of a simple but professional sans-serif font turn to Helvetica.

Lecture 3 - Graphic design, a medium for the masses

Introduction of the term ‘Graphic Design’:

"In the matter of layout forget art at the start and use horse-sense. The printing- designer’s whole duty is to make a clear presentation of the message - to get the important statements forward and the minor parts placed so that they will not be overlooked. This calls for an exercise of common sense and a faculty for analysis rather than for art" 1922, William Addison Dwiggins (successful designer)

Cave Paintings are heritage of visual communication, there are no written words meaning the images tell the story.

By adding type to an existing image does it then become graphic design?

‘Although graphic design as we know it originated in the late nineteenth century as a tool of advertising, any association today with marketing, advertising, or capitalism deeply undermines the graphic designer’s self-image. Graphic design history is an integral part of advertising history, yet in most accounts of graphic design’s origins advertising is virtually denied, or hidden behind more benign words such as “publicity” and “promotion”. This omission not only limits the discourse, but also misrepresents the facts. It is time for graphic design historians, and designers generally, to remove the elitist prejudices that have perpetuated a biased history’

Steven Heller, Eye, No. 17, 1995, reprinted in Bierut, M., Drenttel, W., Heller, S. and Holland, D.K (eds.), (1997), Looking Closer 2, New York, Allworth Press, pages 112 - 119

This image is an example of simplified modernist graphic design created by Peter Behrens, 1910. However, five years later Great Britain still seemed miles away from the rest of the worlds revolutionary simple graphic design. The poster below was created by Savile Lumley in 1915 and is still very illustrative and fine art aesthetically. 

Below is another piece of graphic design this time from mainland Europe and 2 years later than the previous design. Around this time there was WW1 and a lot of graphic design i.e. posters took influence from heritage and promoted nationalism.

(F.H. Stingemore (UK), London Underground Map, 1931 - 2)

There is only 1 year difference between these 2 maps being created but the difference between the two seems like decades of graphic development. The one above is a more realistic, life like map whereas the map below is a more simple modernist graphic style using only vertical, horizontal and 45 degree diagonal lines as opposed to the realistic curved lines of F.H. Stingemore's map.

(Henry C. (Harry) Beck (UK), London Underground Map, 1933)    

(Oskar Schlemmer (German), Bauhaus logo, 1922)

Above is the Bahaus logo, The Bauhaus is the first institution where Graphic Design was taught and considered a discipline, breaking up composition.

(Herbert Matter (Swiss), Swiss Tourist Board, c. 1932 - 34, posters)    

(A.M. Cassandre (French), L’Intransigeant, 1925, newspaper poster)  

  

(Josep Renau (Spanish), Stalingrad: The New Star of Freedom, 1942)    

Saul Bass movie posters

‘There are other things more worth using our skill and experience on. There are signs for streets and buildings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photography, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publications, and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world’

Ken Garland, First Things First Manifesto, 1964 

(Paul Rand, logo for American Broadcasting Company, 1962 and poster for IBM, 1970)

  

‘Once we’ve acknowledged that designers have certain inherent limitations as message bearers, the question which must be asked is: “Can graphic designers actually do something to change the world?” ‘The answer is “yes”, if one disregards the fact that there are very limited outlets for this kind of work, and accepts the fact that being socially responsible means taking the initiative oneself, dealing rationally with issues, and having a commitment to a specific cause’ 

Steven Heller, 1991 

Final thoughts

• Graphic Design is a relatively young discipline

• Links between Graphic Design and different disciplines, e.g. Fine Art, Advertising are arguably becoming increasingly blurred

• Although born out of consumerist/capitalist interests, Graphic Design is arguably becoming increasingly concerned with social issues 

  

 

OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES- Frys Baskeville

Out of the 5 fonts I identified i decided to search deeper into Fry's Baskerville. Fry's Baskerville is based on the Baskerville typeface created by John Baskerville in 1757,  it represents the peak of transitional type face and bridges the gap between Old Style and Modern type design. Fry's Baskerville was created in 1768 The difference between include the characteristic squarish curves in the capital C and G which help identify it as the version first issued by the Fry type foundry, established by the Fry family after they succeeded in the chocolate business. The typeface first appeared in 1766 under the name of Isaac Moore who was at the time the foundry manager. Baskerville is known as the first of the transitional roman fonts with its greater differentiation between thick and thin strokes. These characteristics make Baskerville look good in larger sizes. 

It costs $24.75 to buy off www.myfonts.com

 “Baskerville has less calligraphic flow than most earlier typefaces” (The Elements of Typographic Style, page 56, Robert Bringhurst), and this can be said of just about all the Transitional Style types. Whereas the earlier Humanist and Old Style types owed much to the handwritten letter form, the pen’s influence has all but disappeared in the Transitional types.  English gentleman claimed that Baskerville’s ‘ultra-thin’ serifs and narrow strokes would blind its readers.
The differences between the old style fonts and Baskervilles 'Modern' font are;

greater contrast between thick and thin (sub-) strokes

Fry's Baskerville uses

Sources;

• http://ilovetypography.com/2008/01/17/type-terms-transitional-type/
• http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/frys-baskerville/
• http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=79

lecture 2 postmodernism

Post modernism;

• Postmodernism has an attitude of questioning conventions (especially those set out by Modernism)
• Postmodern aesthetic = multiplicity of styles & approaches
• Theme of ‘double coding’, borrowing, or ‘quoting’ from a number of historical styles
• Knowing juxtapositions, or ‘postmodernist irony’
• Questioning old limitations
• Space for marginalised discourse:
– Women, sexual diversity & multiculturalism 

In post modernism there are no rules, anything goes and it is an international style. It celebrates kitsch (tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value) and pastiche (openly imitates the work of a previous artist, sometimes with the intent of satire) but also enjoying it.

Art up until post modernism have been created by white middle class men. Lower class recognises the failure of modernism and gone are the clean minimalist going against modernism aesthetics. 

Las vegas is epitomises post modernism, it's tacky, kitsch and simulates the world so much that 73% of Americans don't have passports meaning they obviously see no need to view the world outside of America because of the simulations. 

"I didn’t like Europe as much as I liked Disney
World. At Disney World all the countries are much
closer together, and they just show you the best of
each country. Europe is more boring. People talk strange languages and things are dirty. Sometimes you don’t see anything interesting in Europe for days, but at Disney World something different happens all the time, and people are happy. It’s much more fun. It’s well designed!"

A college graduate just back from her first trip to Europe, in Papanek, V. (1995), The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture, London, Thames and Hudson, page 139 

The building above has used modernism as the basis but then added traditional architectural features thus making it post modern. 

This building is shocking, contemporary and all the function is on the outside which is like sticking 2 fingers up at modernism.

Post modernism saw the rise of a consumer society not functional

Pop art shows a rise in consumerism, high art, popular culture. Pop art turns youth culture into fine art. 

Cheap, tacky disgusting art, but showing the cheapness of figure art and making a statement. 

Craig Martin glass of water becoming oak tree; 

"I considered that in An Oak Tree I had deconstructed the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element, belief that is the confident faith of the artist in his capacity to speak and the willing faith of the viewer in accepting what he has to say. In other words belief underlies our whole experience of art: it accounts for why some people are artists and others are not, why some people dismiss works of art others highly praise, and why something we know to be great does not always move us."

(Quoted in Michael Craig-Martin: Landscapes, [p.20].)

Chris Ofili represents blacks in fine art, generally relates to his roots. This image poses the question that virgin Mary might have been black.

David Carson is a post modernist graphic design, it's grungy, illegible, post modern aesthetics. His work is more about the look and lifestyle as opposed modernist functionality. His work up turns the rules of layout.

Summary;
• Postmodern attitude of questioning conventions (esp. Modernism)
• Postmodern aesthetic = multiplicity of styles & approaches
• Shift in thought & theory investigating ‘crisis in confidence’
• Space for ‘new voices’ 

Postmodernism-
‘That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism.
However, it can be described as a set of critical,
strategic and rhetorical practices employing
concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace,
the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other
concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning’

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ 

OUGD403 Design Skills - Message and Delivery: Research 2

Below are just a few designs that relate to bikes and cycling, they don't relate to the Tour de France but could form a basis for my design ideas for example the wheel designs could be incorporated within my designs and related to the tour by using type.

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Below is an example of how the iconic king of the mountains polka dots have been used along with the altitude map to convey text and information. However, the polka dots make it kind of difficult to understand the text affecting readability.

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The 3 images below are basic infographs that inform and educate about doping in cycling and the different types of blood doping. I find the aesthetics and exception really poor but the information is very useful and could come in use for my posters.

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