Brief 3: Step On Posters

Even though I had fun with the illustration and envisioning the image it wasn't working, so took it back to basics. Illustration was very out of place in the set of posters.

Brief 5: YCN Art Fund

Brief to make a campaign for students to get an art pass in Autumn 2018.

Want to approach this in a relatable humorous way to make the campaign stand out 'amongst all the freshers clutter' as they say in the brief.

Before I get feedback in a tutorial today, my inital ideas are:

Exploring the worlds beauty on your doorstep

'Gap Yah' play on student cliche's- instead of a gap year they go on about all the amazing places they have visited with the art pass
Get Cultured
Something to talk about
Get Inspired
Something to share

Bringing galleries and museums back in fashion
No more expensive dates to impress your Tinder date

Sick of your laptop screen?
Words not making sense anymore?

FREE: culture, history, escape, trip, procrastination, date, inspiration, discovery, flat outing, adventure, city hopping

Brief 3: Ever Fallen In Love poster design

To keep in a punk/rock and roll fashion the song/time of the song is in, people have suggested to represent the heartbreak-

Pour black thick liquid on to a heart
Stick pins in the heart
Photograph the heart smashing
Punk DIY aesthetic
collage/pins
cut outs/rough texture marking
screenprint broken heart

Brief 2:Plan of Action

Create the Instagram based on 'New Year New Me' terminology, the phenomenon of after the holidays when everyone starts to feel guilty and review their body images. Can be a stressful time for those with body image issues. Start positive Instagram that references beauty headlines as a reminder to love their body quirks, These will all be from responses I obtained.

In the run up until this point, I will create gifs of these phrases and continue to decide what to add to the collages I have so far. Will also keep contacting and looking out for zine submissions to spread these to a wider audience.

Suggested was also to turn this in to a zine as a contradiction of the famous 'Burn Book' from Mean Girls, a film that in this generation is notorious for being quotable and is one of the most popular films. The style of the burn book is DIY and in the film, was to slate people. Turning this around and in to something positive matches my theme and would attract attention as a zine for the recognizable style.

This way it can also attract more attention online for its association with the famous design and give the series another layer.

if this was to be made in to a zine i wanted more feedback, preferably written. therefore i have stuck up envelopes for students to post in, around the university.



If i receive a decent amount of feedback (which hopefully i will as they are situated all over the building) the zine will go ahead as more content is needed for the purpose of this project to become a zine as well as an Instagram.

Brief 2: Final Feedback

-Symbolism of flowers works well for the target audience and as metaphor. Adds positivity they need to get message across
-Make a zine as edits are very DIY
-Actually cut and stitch in zine style
-Draw, add illustration to images
-Start an Instagram and keep it going, keep adding content, ask for submissions
-Add positive wording that is a pastiche/mockery of the phrases magazines use such as 'Hot Right Now' and 'Style 'Steal' to make the account larger
-Keep making these
-Add GIFS to Insta
-Stickerbombing, spreading positivity
-New Year New Me- manifesto?
-Instead of 12 Days Of Positive christmas theme, go for the 'New Year New You' angle using magazine phrases to give inspiring positive messages opposed to those in magazines. Using the rest of the responses I got within my survey in which people sent what they didn't like about themselves.

These phrases were picked up whilst cutting magazines up for my initial collages.

These are also on publications in most high street shops.

Hot Right Now- Stretch Marks
Style Steal- comfortable in your own skin
Beauty Hack- celebrating all skin tones
Mix and Match- moles, scars, stretch marks, vitiligo, quirks
Life Hack- love your wobbly bits
The Perfect Excuse- to celebrate your hair type
Trending- boobs and bums of all sizes!


Within feedback there was a contrast of opinion on wether to make a zine or not, as this project has developed to focusing on social media platforms, and the style and particular subject/content may not be big enough for a publishable zine. Making an Instagram will suit the message better as they are shared worldwide through hashtags. To get these featured in a zine/mag would be the ideal way to get the images and message distributed.

Contacts

-Today the images have been sent to Honey Magazine (taking submissions for next issue on Instagram)
-The Butterfly Project charity in Australia.
Body Gossip- replying saying they don't respond to work other than programme enquiries

Brief 2: Distribution methods

Instagram Account

“Prior to Instagram, you just saw whatever online. Now you can follow people that are into body positivity, feminism, radical body love, artists. People that inspire me,” 

“It’s really important to surround yourself with people that uplift you and support you, and so you really have a community of that.”

A digital space for all sorts of bodies

A recent study ranked Instagram and Snapchat as the worst social platforms for body image, though Instagram had good marks for self-expression, self-identity and emotional support. And Instagram has made a concerted effort to foster these online communities by building programs around well-being, and by prioritizing safety and inclusion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/style/body-positive-instagram.html

Zine

Zine format to reference the 'safe space environment' given by the DIY collage style, sharing and contributing to fight body image beauty standards. The contribution from those allowing me to use there posted images for the same purpose, and the collected responses produced a female based focus on embracing and celebrating previous body hang ups, and the comments the way they are answered promote acceptance and that these are normal hang ups to have- even ones consumers may have not heard others talk about before. This zine would create a relatable celebration for a variety of women, and with the Instagram format influences being familiar.

Linking to charity/getting sponsored

Sponsored ads on Instagram are now the most succinct way to advertise within a users scrolling habit of their Instagram feed. Ideally, this would be a way to bring body positivity and reflection in to their social media use while they may be comparing themselves to others on the social media app (one of the hugest modern causes of body image issues). My plan is to link to a charity in which hopefully will sponsor the images, causing them to appear in this way. This is an important end goal of this project and why I was careful to only use imagery with permission, as making this commercial would be the point of a project like this.

Companies such as Cosmopolitan are using this sponsored feature to promote body issues and create a discussion within the Instagram community such as the above campaign which people share their make up confidence stories.

Have messaged Polyester and charities, awaiting feedback. I tried to be as succinct, clear, and especially for Polyester who get so many submissions, standing out with the title and a GIF.

Brief 2: Reading 'Cut It Out' for inspiration

From this book as well as looking at contemporary collage styles that combine mixed media by hand and digital graphic design, seeing where artists source their imagery from was important for this project.

Many are from old publications, their own companies visual work or gettyimages/ free image sites. Like with the flowers I have used which are free images, I can begin looking for relevant images to combine my existing images and experiments with for this test. Many artists also specifically collect weird and wonderful old books to use for reference images.

Although this style looks brilliant and the concept of having mixed up views on our bodies is relevant to collage, the way the project has developed is using social media imagery/comments as the core element and as it is made positive, using flowers as a metaphor for growth and natural beauty, I find it hard to maintain this message using the cut outs from magazines I have with the responses.

Therefore, to stay synced to the responses and have a positive growth spin on this series, I am going to use my developed digital experiments altering slightly adding perhaps stickers/illustration/wording, rather than a whole collage of unrelated images.

In feedback, the zine style of the experiments was a comment I got a lot, so continuing to work in this style with adding and scanning back in can be done. As well as posting these on a new body positive Instagram I will make, making a zine of the images to accompany the Instagram would fit well as the theme of these images and developed project are appropriate for a zine sharing 'safe space'.

Brief 3: Temptation posters

Cartoon eyes looked too immature for the song but experimentation with dream like layers of clouds/flowers/monoprints gives off the wanderous state he is in, in the song.




experimenting with images using real eyes-perhaps too modern to capture the era of the song which is so strong in it's sound

The style of eyes and centered block reference 80s post modernist styles. The song is very 80's and this inspired the bright dashes of colour, as well as the lyric reference of her eyes changing colours and his infactuation with the woman. This is why the eyes are put in dream/heavens opening up like backgrounds and overlays. This through feedback was agreed to be the most fitting to the song due to the 80's aesthetic.

Brief 2: Contacts for social media photos and new experiments

Ashfashlee- gave me permission to use her images on Instagram! Shares her own collages and images using her own body to fight beauty standards in a collage/riot grrl spirit
Pockyhair- sent me an image of her stretch marks to use
Connie
Becky Nallon- had an existing Instagram documenting her image issue journey, who allowed me to use her images.
Myself

Will not add a filter or maipulate original image in any way to represent truly
Flowers (Free clipart) collaged amongst the images to represent the true natural beauty, variety and growth of their views on themselves. It also gives off a positive visualization which works hand in hand with the project which intends to help people with growth of their self love and body positivity.
The idea came from one of my first blog posts in which I discussed I wanted to photograph people in their favourite clothes, feeling their best, and collaging flowers around them to show their radiance.

Using Bratz dolls variety of hair colours and styles to represent different hair colours/texures etc

Feedback for these were very positive, and those who responded I made sure saw what kind of work I was creating and they all really liked the style used here! We agreed adding words from magazines, some headlines or detail along with the flowers would work such as illustrations or stickers to add more depth. These are developing in to a zine DIY style.

I had considered drawing/painting the bodies themselves but feel the impact is higher for this particular project, using real images of people and dolls from childhood (having more of a subconscious root of body image) having more of an impact on a social media platform.

Social media posts can also set unrealistic expectations and create feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, the authors wrote. This may explain why Instagram, where personal photos take center stage, received the worst scores for body image and anxiety. As one survey respondent wrote, “Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren’t good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look ‘perfect’.”
http://time.com/4793331/instagram-social-media-mental-health/

Using this collage technique does not interfere with the body part but emphasises and celebrates it's quirks, in response to the comments people were kind enough to share with me about their body image journeys.

Brief 2: Using my Bratz dolls to address body image issues

 

“A doll is the ultimate objectification of a woman’s body,” Banks explains. “It’s a mass-produced archetype of a woman.” 
Broadening our definition of what a “doll” can be, she argues that the term can be used to describe any depiction of a female form that is devoid of humanness, or portrayed solely as the physical shell of a person.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-dolls-create-feminist-art

adding features such as stretch marks, body hair etc humanizes the dolls? representing true beauty is to be real?

With my generation, Bratz dolls were more prevalent than Barbies as we wanted something new. The Bratz dolls were more inclusive, having different ethnicities and cultures celebrated through their range of characters and their outfit theme releases. However, they were still unrealistically proportioned with tiny waists/arms/legs and huge heads with tiny noses/huge lips. Girls still wanted to have the look of Bratz dolls. With famous people such as 'Kylie Jenner' being dubbed a lifelike Bratz doll due to her surgery enhanced lips, I feel using my old Bratz dolls would be a representation of our own body expectations carried through childhood and all our influences through growing up until now.

By using the Bratz dolls to reflect on the responses I obtained, they will be seen in a different light. An already perfect body aiming for more (drawing surgery marks on the doll)
'Perfect' bodies having body hair (adding hair to the doll)
They will illustrate, alongside my other experiments, the reality that we are wanting to change so much about ourselves when we are fine as we are.

They are without clothes to represent the vulnerability of the issue and to focus on the issues about our body image that can be hidden and covered with style.