Readings for 9/14/10 (first week)

No Logo by Naomi Klein-


        The main priority for companies is advertising, branding, marketing and expansion. The priority is not the actual production. American factories have been out sourced by factories in other countries, ultimately saving the company money, so more money can be put into advertising etc. There is a difference between  a product and a brand. There are  several ethical issues  that go along with a company abandoning it's American workers for sweatshop workers in other countries, but claiming no responsibility because the company hired  someone else to be in charge of production.That issue wasn't touched on so much in the article though. Mostly the focus was companies shifting the importance from product to branding.

• Companies put a lot of effort into making customers associate a lifestyle, specific ideas/feelings, attitude  and " deep inner meanings" to their products.
• There is a difference between products and brands: "a product is something that is made in a factory" a brand is something that is, "made in the mind."
• Brands are a lifestyle, idea, attitude.
• More effort is put into sponsoring a brand, packaging, expansion and advertising by the company, rather then machines, factories, workers, etc. THE MAIN PRIORITY IS THE BRAND.
• Companies out source the factory work to other countries, so the overall cost of making the product and paying the worker is much less, while the markup on the product for retail can be about 400%.
• In fact, many companies are  not involved in the production process and "source" factories in other countries by hiring contractors to be in charge of production.
• By doing that they can claim they have no idea about the poor standards for workers or sweat-shop conditions.
• Overall, companies have chosen to focus on marketing strategies to sell their products rather than actually making the product.

---------"Branding the Individual" by Jane Pavitt 

  

      I completely agree with the ideas formulated in this piece, that people buy things to be associated with a certain idea or lifestyle, to show social and economical status. I remember being in either elementary or middle school, but definitely young, when my grandparents took me and my sister to K Mart to go school clothes shopping.  I was completely against the idea of buying clothes from K Mart, thinking, "if anyone from school knew I'd bought school clothes here....". My mom and other grandma would take us shopping at JCPenneys and Macys, which I thought was completely acceptable. I don't know where or when the idea was implanted in my head that shopping as K Mart was bad.  I think the whole idea that, like sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has stated, self construction is about gathering belongings that are of "distinction and difference." However, Pavitt's questioning of how are people able to individualize themselves through the mass production of products and brands that are easily accessible to anyone? I think it is more about being associated with individuality as a group classification, because shopping at a particular store doesn't make you an individual, it's how you navigate through life. 

 Main points of the article:   

• People choose to purchase specific brands of clothing, accessories, and other personal items because of the image they associate with themselves, or how they want to be seen in society.
• The practice of purchasing items to be associated with an idea is different among age groups.
• Differentiation and belonging are the main reasons people buy certain brands- to determine social status, as said by  American theorist Thorstein Veblen.
• Veblen-there is an important correlation between purchases and status.
• Cultural preferences= 'cultural capital'-"the expression of social difference through value judgement."
• Certain goods allow people to establish a sense of belonging for a particular group or to individuate oneself.
• More significance is put into purchases when people shop for leisure.
• Three types of shopping Pavitt says: "doing the shopping", "going shopping", and "shopping around."
• The idea of buying an identity.
• The association to self is also through leisure activities and the types of entertainment people choose to participate in.
• "Consumption has become the primary means of formulating and expressing personal identity."
• Is the consumer a victim of this play on their identity? Are consumers products of "media manipulation"?
•  Consumption is argued to be either a means for people to create an identity or to lose individuality.
• Modern consumerism- the shopper's most concerned with the representation a product gives.

Bing! It's Fabien!  by John Seabrook

   

         This article was really entertaining to read. It presents the job of creating layouts and being an art director or graphic designer, like Fabein, fun. Fabien is the art director for Italian Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. What he does best that has made him so credible is, "let the oxygen in" to an ad, making is simple but widely attractive. The article quotes Calvin Klein saying, "his work is clean and modern and visual and strong and sexy and new. It's what I want" of Fabien's work. He is an "intuitive designer". The article basically records the authors time spent with Fabien at work and on a Calvin Klein underwear shoot, recording the creation process of Fabien.  

•  This article discusses 'modern' advertising. It is, "clean and young and direct..modern is graphic as opposed to classic."

Readings for 9/28/10

Sustainability

A Question of Design by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

    This article outlines the  Industrial Revolution and its impact on the way we produce and consume products.  Typically people praise the Industrial Revolution for the technological and living advances its given us but I thought it was  really interesting that the authors  listed all the negative consequences that the Industrial Revolution has also given us. The designs and techniques for design in that time period were so primitive, and that hasn't changed much for today's industries. Given how we're so much  more advanced now and we know the effects this has on the environment and overall product life, why are Industries still working that way? I think the intention of Henry Ford and many  industry leaders of time were good, wanting to create products for everyone. However, the cheap way they did so and are still doing so is a really negative effect. It's funny to correlate that with the  recent decline for American car companies and the government bailout.  The authors say that today's infrastructure is,"designed to chase economic growth..it does so at the expense of other vital concerns, particularly human and ecological health, cultural and natural richness and even the  enjoyment and delight" (McDonough & Braungart 468).  In terms of sustainability  the products produced then and now are not for long term use. They are intended to be replaced by better/newer versions. This means that immense products occupy landfills, the ocean etc., polluting the Earth day by day. The authors suggest that designers make products that are intended to work for as long as possible to better the environment,  not to be replaced by a new design and  further damage the Earth. 

• Industrial Revolution : creation of factories, cities, mass production. etc.  
• The standard for living was raised. 
• With the new jobs and the raising population the economy grew and industries wanted to  efficiently  mass produce products to get them to the consumer as soon as possible. Example in article: Henry Ford's mass production of the Model T. Before 1910 when Ford moved into an electric powered factory  to mass produce the cars,  car parts were individually made by craftspeople and no two parts were alike, they were edited to fit with the product. 
• DESIGN GOALS of the  industrialists was to make a product that was  desirable, affordable,  and operable  for all people that could be cheaply  mass produced. 
• The way industries produced products at the time of the Industrial Revolution is  for the most part still  very similar to the way they mass produce products today, and it's taking it's tole on the Earth. 
• "cradle-to-grave" designs: only last for a certain period of time, to be thrown away and replaced with a newer/better version. "Cradle-to-grave" designs occupy landfills, oceans, cause for pollution.  
• The International Style- began in the early twentieth century. This style produced building  that were universal, the goal was to create a social and aesthetic environment for working that was clean, minimalist, affordable. The materials for these projects were large sheets of glass, stell, concrete.  
• Poor design = intergenerational remote tyranny (poor designs today hurt the environment and people or future generations)
• Designers should work to leave behind POSITIVE DESIGNS to start a "strategy of change" for the future.

---------------------

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Janine Benyus On The Virtues of Imitating Nature by David Kupfer

    I found this article to be really informative. Prior to the reading I never heard of Biomimicry. The idea of Biomimcry seems too good to be true and I didn't think it would actually be applied so often. Several companies have contacted Janine Benyus and her team to make a project "greener" by using Biomimicry.  I don't understand why the use of Biomimicry isn't publicized more, or why more companies don't take advantage of her service. Maybe it's just easier to keep with the way of the Industrial Revolution-simple and cheap; not caring about the earth.  Biomimicry is the epitome of sustainability in design. 

• Janine Benyus is the author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, a book that describes Biomimicry as the practice of observing the way organisms in nature solve problems, and applying those solutions to our everyday urban world. It's finding a natural way so produce.
• Biomimicry is being used to create sustainable products and processes for designers, engineers, architects, chemists, city planners,  etc. (Kupfer 5).
• "Biomimicry is not about harvesting nature's resources but sitting at her feet as students" (Kupfer 6) this means that all types of design professionals can take from the natural world to build and create sustainable, safe products. 
• We don't need to find a new  source for energy, we need to change our practices and how we consume.   
• "Coevolutionary loops"- when two species/organisms keep evolving to work together. According to Beynus this needs to be applied to humans and the Earth to increase a species rate of adaptation.
• Corporations should form t"coevolutionary loops" with their customers, to maintain sustainability and  meet the clients requests for green products.
• The website Beynus has made, AskNature.org,  allows visitors to ask a question about nature  and get an easy answer to help solve a problem. This allows  not just corporations, but designers and non-designers to contact biologists and  use Biomimicry.
• Biomimicry has been applied to several projects: borrowing the lotus leaf's use of "nanobumps", which loosely collect dirt that lands on the leaf, and is easily washed away with rain. This has been simulated for self-cleaning products for outdoor roofing, paint, wood, tiles, fabric etc.
•  Main goal for Beynus's work is to boost the respect for the natural world and she says that creating more sustainable products is an expansion of that. 

-----------------

Speculative Prehistory of Humanity by Buckminster Fuller

      I think there are some  ideas brought up in Fuller's article that really resonate with  David Kupfer,William McDonough and Michael Braungart's articles.  This article references time's in history where design of machines. automobiles and aircrafts have been or not been sustainable. The article is from 1981 and I think the idea he presents on page 75 stating that,

    "humanity does not understand the language of science...Ninety-nine percent of humanity thinks technology is a "new" phenomenon. The World population identifies technology with (1) weapons and (2) machines that compete with them for their jobs."

I don't think that people today think that they have to compete with machines for their jobs as much as they did in 1981. I think today machines make people's jobs easier and more likely advance their job performance. Also, I don't think people today associate technology with weapons. I think they associate technology with computers, social networking sites, mobile phones, GPS devices, etc. Technology will always be considered "new" because technological advances are always being made-there's always something new.

   Also on page 75 in the article, Fuller discusses the idea that nature does not have to stop and think or revise it's process for creating something, it just does it in a "elegantly simple" way. This is in line with Kupfer's article on Janine Benyus and her Biomimicing  process.  Fuller says, "synergetics will make it possible for all humanity to comprehend that physical Universe is technology and that the technology does make possible all humanity's option to endure successfully." That statement is basically Biomimicry, working with with the universe to create sustainable products.

 

• The author states that humanity's technologies waste ninety-five out of every 100 units of enegry it consumes. Based on transportation vehicles. 
• There is "design-avoidable energy wastage" because of the inefficiency of automobiles.

AMERICAN APPAREL

Innovation and Exploration- A Critique of the American Apparel


 I found this article really interesting. It is really confusing that their pitch is that they make their products in downtown LA and anti-sweayshop. However, the advertisements that CEO Dov Charney has chosen to use to promote American Apparel almost spoils the anti-sweatshop ideal.  The article says that Americal Apparel relies on SUPER hypersexual imagery to sell products, but the images they choose go far beyond the  type of 'sex sells' that  plagued Britney Spears. Not all of the ads they choose to use are hypersexual, but  the ones that are are so over the top I can't imagine anyone seeing one and saying " I need to have  that shirt so I can look as low-class as this girl." Another controversy is that CEO Charney often chooses to use "Asian and black models as the sexual nature of the imagery can be seen to encourage the belief that non-white women are more sexualized and/or submissive." But I don't think that statement is completely true because I've seen a large number of ads that present white women in just as sexual situations. 

Readings for 9/23/10

First Things FIrst 1964 a manifesto-  

  This declaration of designers, photographers, and students outlines their plea that design be more than trying to persuade the public to purchase a specific item based on the advertisement.  They state, "the greatest effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes." They insist that designers put create things with purpose, things that are long lasting. Such as signs for streets, buildings, books, periodicals, films etc.  They want to promote their skill and "greater awareness of the world" to the world, and that wasn't being done at the time they wrote their manifesto.  They  disagree with  the way design was primarily being used- a tool to  get people to buy  things based on a mediocre design or cheesy advertising. They  would rather  have graphic designers  change their priorities  from creating quick fixes to lasting, meaningful messages that show their technique for "worthwhile purposes."

  I think this essay has  an enlightened element to it. I can't see how a designer could read it and not be inspired. The authors' strong opinion and  passion for how and with what intention designers should create is obvious. Also, I appreciate the authors' straight to the point approach. They get directly to the point, make their case and end  strong. 

• Designers in the advertising industry are wasting their effort on  publications to sell  miscellaneous items. 
• Effort of the designer should instead be geared towards producing more meaningful items, such as books, street signs, buildings, films, educational aids, catalogues, periodicals, industrial photography, etc. 
• The signers of the manifesto suggest a "reversal of priorities in favor of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication."

 First Things First 2000 A Design Mainfesto: Design is about democracy by Rock Poyner

   Rick Poyner's essay takes a behind the scene look at design in the 1960s and the impact the  1964 First Things First  manifesto had on designers and non-designers at the time it was released.  The idea of the manifesto was supported by  many and  published in  Tony Benn's weekly column in the Guardian newspaper.  In agreement with the manifesto's claim Benn responded, "the  evidence for it is all around us in the ugliness with which we have to live. It could so easily be replaced if only we consciously decided as a comunity to engage some of the skill which now goes into the frills of an affluent society" (2 Poyner). After being acknowledge by the Guardian a BBC news TV program discussed the manifesto, the manifesto was reprinted in  several notable design periodicals.  Soon the manifesto was being discussed world-wide.  While some  praised the manifesto others thought it was "naive." But Poyner still claims that the signers of the manifesto were absolutely correct in their, "assessment of the way design was developing."

  Poyner  says that design and advertising are closer now than at any time since the 1960s. However most designers today are still lacking the ideals that the manifesto signatories found so important.  I think an important point brought up by artist and critic Johanna Drucker is that  what's at stake is the life and consciousness of a designer.  And I wonder about the point Poyner brings up about  today's design students learning, "very little these days other than the commercial use of design." But since my professor has assigned this article to read, that might not be true in my case. And I'm pretty sure this article is from the 1990s so maybe it isn't actual valid today?

• Today design is  not so much about the actual product but what designers associate with the product to manipulate how we feel. "What seduces us is the 'image'."
• The 1964 manifesto  confronted design as a giver of information vs. design as a persuading tool.
• Poyner agrees with the manifesto that designs should be "useful and lasting", and today that is still lacking. 
• What a designer chooses to focus on creating is ultimately a political choice, says Poyner. "Design is not a neutral value-free process"- Katherine McCoy ( American design educator).
• When Poyner says 'political choice' it is in regard to creating things for corporate/commercial purposes vs.  the "lasting" projects.
• Most designers now believe that formal qualities are more important than really capturing the meaning of something. 
• Designers should ask of a project, "in whose interest and to what ends? Who gains by this construction of reality, by this representation of this condition as 'natural'"-Johanna Drucker. 

1964: The Responsibilities of the Design Profession by Herbert Spencer

  This piece discusses the  "new" importance of 'good' design and the "international competition for trade" in 1964. The essay states that  there has been a vast exchange of information between countries, so the frame of design has definitely widened.  Integrity of designers vs. their ability is questioned at the time of this essay, being that design was a relatively new  profession.  

• EVERYTHING is designed. "there is no such thing as an undesigned product" (157 Spencer).
• The industry of design has become more complex as it became popular. 
• In about 1870  'Artistic Printing' was the result of  the new platen machine.
• printing tradition was becoming lost. 
• designers are motivated by the need to impress/out do one another rather then to make and, "honest attempt to solve specific design problems" (159). This results in too many "designer's designers"
• Designers should NOT  abandon traditions, accept 'artificial' conventions.
•  The psychology behind design: influence of color, pattern,  and lettering- THE CONCERN for the "health and happiness of our society."
• World problems that could be solved or helped by the design community: helping handicapped people navigate, street signs and helping people become literate in third world countries!

 Each of these articles confront the problem of what are the Ethics of design.  To what regard should designers  produce material?  These three articles agree that designers should not fall prey to corporate  run of the miss designing, and should  be true to themselves and the  ethics of the First Things First of 1964.