Wednesday, 25 November 2009

3rd year...

... is like an emotional roller coaster already... day to day, hour to hour even, I go from calm, its ok Ive done lots of work and some of it's good to OMG I havn't done anything, I don't know what I'm doing, this is rubbish.

I can't wait to leave uni it'l be great to finally be out of education and getting on with my life Vs SHIT what the hell am I going to do EVER?

I know what will help, go on my blog and write another essay, that'll take up some time and I can pretend to myself I'm doing work.

eek!


poster



Tutorial 24.11.09 - Competiton brief

Unfortunately I was still at the research stage yesterday in the tutorial. I've been trying madly to catch up this week but there is so much to do. Still, I thought I was wasting time researching but we chatted it over in the tutorial it helped me to sum up what I'd found and now I'm moving onto the ideas stage. Since I've been getting stuck into this brief I realise it is a much bigger challenge than I previously thought and actually the research that I've done was a vital starting point in order to come up with an idea that actually works, even if it's taken me a bit longer than it should have done. The age group of 13-16 is so difficult to reach and so varied that I don't even really know where to begin!

To sum up my research, the main things I'm going to work to and include in my ideas are:

1. I want it to be a positive message - not shock or negative consequences, but something young people can aspire to, offering an alternative to drinking.

2. Although I want the campaign to be partly informative, this is covered else where in the government campaign and information about alcohol can be found if they're pointed in the right way, so my main message is that it's ok not to drink, there are other ways to have fun, and it is ok to talk to people about drinking.

3. I want the tone of voice to be quite light hearted, not 'authoritative', but coming from someone young people aspire to.

4. I want to use ambient/guerilla or non traditional media, or a mixture of both to really connect to young people and interupt their daily lives.

So now all I need to do is hit upon the idea!

Tutorial 24.11.09 - silence round up





Yesterday we had our weekly tutor group with Liz. Because we missed last week as Liz and I were both helping out with UCAS in London, we spent the first half recapping the silence brief.

My review was in the morning before we flew to New York in the evening. As soon as we got back I went home for the weekend and spent most of the time working on my essay, then as soon as I got back to manchester I went of to London to work at the UCAS fair for a few days. So really I felt like I'd had two weeks off and not got very far at all with anything, especially silence. At the weekend I had looked through my silence work for the first time in what felt like ages to try to re-evaluate where I was and what I needed to do and I totally began to freak out and worry that my moving image piece wasn't going to round up everything I'd done, worrying that I had bits of work that I wanted to include that just wouldn't fit into it.

A good chat with Helen and Liz got me back on track again though. I calmed down and realised that I don't have to include every little reference to what I've done and that my moving image piece will be contextualised to my work if I do it properly. I also finally got it clear in my head that I, personally, need to contextualise my work. I find it really difficult to just go off and do something for the sake of it just to see what happens if there is absolutely no link to my idea and work. This doesn't mean I can't experiment and push boundaries, but I need everything to be done for a reason otherwise I don't feel there is any point to producing it.

So, I decided with Liz that my plan of action is to brainstorm some narratives that can tie my work together into a moving image piece and begin to draw storyboards up. On Thursday I am going to see Gary about equipment and technical stuff, and then it'l just be a matter of a day in the studio filming. I know I have a lot of work to do to make this work, but it's manageble and I feel a lot better now I've got a definite plan!



Advertising is dead - Long live advertising

This is a really great book of alternative advertising campaigns that I've been looking at for my alcohol awarenedd brief. There's also some amazing amnesty international stuff in there too that I didn't find on the internet. Most of the campaigns I can't find on the internet so it's well worth looking through the book.

Some other inspirations

Most of the adverts I looked at before I didn't think were very successful so here's some stuff that I really like.

Frank anti-drugs adverts:
I really like the whole idea/campaign of these adverts. I think the tone of voice is perfect, the visuals are shocking but the sarcastic humour keeps you watching. There's more of a harsh reality to the advert. The use of David Mitchell in the voice over is a great choice - Young people recognise the voice and humour and his celebrity status is right - doesn't feel like he's preaching. I don't think this advert would have any effect on young people who heavily use drugs already, but I do think impressionable people who are thinking about it/worried about it/hanging round with people doing them would feel that Frank is somewhere they can get information and someone to talk to.

The 'Your eyes will give you away' Drug Driving campaign is also something I really like. I think a lot of young people are much more likely to drive when stoned than drunk - it impairs you in different ways and I think people think they will still be competent drivers. This advert is a very good incite into the minds of someone one who has taken drugs and their behaviour. They're not saying don't drug drive because you might kill someone, have an accident, end up dead. People don't think that will happen. They're saying don't drug drive because the police will be able to tell and you will get pulled over. This is a much bigger and more real consequence for most people. I think especially when this is viewed sober it would have memorable effect next time you think of getting in a car stoned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAevpklHrfg&feature=PlayList&p=4C75A5BC1B09E93D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

This Drink Drive advert is also nicely done. It's a great simple way to highlight the chain of events that can take off if you get caught drink driving. I think a key point about the adverts that work is that they don't just try to shock, they focus on real consequences that people can really relate to, not minority, far fetched tragedies that people find easy to ignore because they just don't believe it applies to them.

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Alcohol Awareness Campaign

I saw this in a book of ambient advertising over summer and it's one of the best campaigns I'd seen in a long while. I just remembered it now I'm looking at the Alcohol brief. It is soo simple, but I bet for the women who found it in their drinks this has probably changed their behaviour completely. Sometimes with tricky and sensitive subjects such as date rape, the police campaign last year and now binge drinking it is almost impossible to get people to listen to a message, no matter how well executed or designed, when they don't think it will happen to them. Once bitten, twice shy though - this is what it takes to get people to realise that these serious issues can, do and will effect them if they do not change their behaviour.




Looking at the alcohol brief this weekend, I have realised just how difficult it is. I have come up with a few ideas, though nothing I think I'm going to go with yet, but it's a big battle between advertising and design for me. Virals and information packs and talks and social media are the solutions to the problems they want solving, but these are not things that I feel I can produce on this course or things that are going to look right in my portfolio. So I feel like I'm in a complete dilemma about how to start!

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Amnesty International brief

When the silence brief came out I was really interested in the Amnesty side of it but it didn't really relate to anything that I had been looking at. Then Helen and me decided to give it a go as a separate project. Haven't really got far yet because of New York etc. but here's some research into previous campaigns that Amnesty has done. They definately have a strong visual style - every poster really does pack a punch. I'm not one for the in your face shock factor - i think people have seen it all and tend to just shy away from the real message. However, I think Amnesty do the shock poster very well. They have such a sense of reality and when I first see them they always take my breath away.

They also have quite a strong graphical style when they use it. I think for the brief that's set us for the silence project, the work can be a lot more subtle as it is not for a specific cause, but freedom of speech all over the world in countries that don't value it as highly as they should. You're not supposed to reference any country in particular which either makes it a lot easier, or a lot harder, I can't make up my mind!

Well these posters don't need any introduction...




































Friday, 20 November 2009

MOMA

This gallery was another huge one, a lot to look round but here are some of my favourites! I found a lot of work I liked in New York, but I don't know whether I was just tired or what, I didn't really get any ideas while I was in the City. Usually when I go to galleries I come away brimming with ideas, but for some reason on this trip inspiration just didn't come to me! Still, that didn't take away from an amazing experience at all!

Monet water lillies


Various posters -



Stefan Sagmeister -




?



Irving Penn

Jenny Holzer -





Carol Bove -


Jack Pierson - Heroin


Paul McCarthy - Penis hat


Mark Grotjahn:-

Martin Kippenberger:-


Charlene von Heyl: -



Marcel Odenbach - you can't see the forest for trees
A newspaper collage of a large German concentration camp, with hidden faces and text.

Hanne Darboven - Month 3 (March)