Product Range Distribution: FOOTPRINT workers co operative

Footprint are a worker owned co operative established in 2000 when environmental activists inherited a litho press. They specialise in zines, for example music zines as well as comics - work that can be done using a limited colour palette. 

Leeds zine fair workshop, got people to produce art and then compiled into a zine.

Part time job alongside other job as a hobby to get paid for. Enjoy the job and have a way of printing own stuff cost price.

Campaigners - Leeds queer festival, against undercover police operations, against fracking

if they don't agree politically they wont print (sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic), 1 person opinion matters. - ethics

donation scheme. worthy cause.

However they soon considered process uses solvents and aluminium plates - not environmental. They found out about risograph at a print fair. Easier machine to use as well as environmentally friendly. No energy consumption, soya based ink instead of toner which is better for environment. 100% recycled paper. Don't ship overseas, work with waste reducing companies. Little decisions add up.  don't do just one print.

Workers co op - government will approve the collective. Surplus goes back into business to improve it. 

7co op principles 

co op amongst co ops. work with other co ops regularly to support eachother

1. Voluntary, Open OwnershipOpen to all without gender, social, racial, political, or religious discrimination. You may shop, you may join, and you may leave the co-op at any time.
2. Democratic Owner ControlOne Owner, one vote. Your voice will be heard.
3. Owner Economic ParticipationOwners contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of the cooperative. The economic benefits of a cooperative operation are returned to the Owners, reinvested in the co-op, or used to provide Owner services. You control the capital.
4. Autonomy And IndependenceCooperatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their Owners. Together, you are autonomous. 
5. Education, Training And InformationCooperatives provide education and training for Owners so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperatives. They inform the general public about the nature and benefits of cooperation. You can develop yourself into the consumer you want to be. 
6. Cooperation Among CooperativesCooperatives serve their Owners most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, regional, national and international structures. You are more successful when you cooperate with others who know how to cooperate. 
7. Concern For The CommunityWhile focusing on Owner needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies accepted by their Owners. You can do something for the community even as you keep succeeding. 

Product Range Distribution: Ethics and Sustainability

ethics - moral principles that govern a persons behaviour
brand of knowledge that deals with principles

In philosophy, ethics is branch of knowledge concerned with moral principles. Not primarily in order to develop strategies by which to judge each other. pursuit of truth - questioning whether there is such a thing as the property of goodness and testing the resultant ideas against various models (Roberts, 2007)

technology destroyed distance and time little excuse for not being aware of worlds ills. every decision we make as designers has an ethical dimension requiring us all to balance the forces in our own small way as responsible individuals. (2006)

do you think ethics is important in graphic design?
Yes - to design for something you don't believe in betrays purpose of being a designer - aim to communicate and change the world. If you go against your beliefs you can also compromise your design - not believing in the cause affects the quality of the finished product.
Considering who you work for - big corporations, controversial people etc. If you don't do the job someone else will, you could make a positive situation out of a negative one by doing the best to improve and enforce change upon these people. (jacqueline roach quote)

what defines "good" in graphic design
Belief behind the purpose - it shows through in quality and delivery of work. Combined with successful aesthetics, strong concept and informed research.

what does ethical practice entail in graphic design - what principles?
eco friendly (reducing carbon footprint, sustainability etc)
designing for your beliefs (e.g. vegetarians would not design for KFC etc)

Stephen Heller (2003)
good design is good citizenship
a designer must be professionally culturally and socially responsible for the impact his or her design has on the citizenry
an elegant logo can legitimise the illegitimate; a beautiful package can spike up the sales of an inferior product etc...

Katherine McCoy 
remove our freedom of speech and graphic designers might never notice - we have trained a profession that feels political or social concerns are either extraneous to our work or inappropriate.

AC Grayling 
ethics vs professionalism. You don't do things you don't agree with.

Jacqueline Roach 
ask if theres some way you can have influence, something you can bring? Design is about influence and persuasion. Challenging views

AC Grayling (self and aesthetics)
deep connection between ethical and aesthetic. You've got be good to yourself to do good in the world. 

Richard Holloway 
instrumental and intrinsic 

Themes
Being a good citizen
Who to work for
Influence and persuasion
Aesthetics and ethics
Value and purpose

Sustainability 
environmental (the planet), social (people and societies), economic (capital and growth)

Tom Joyes workshop

• represent words differently - using Youtube search 
• design on demand
• ideas and research
• Black Mirror - use objects to make story convincing
• Dunne & Raby
• Critical Mass (Jonas Lund)
• Alan Warburton (Spectacle, speculation, spam)
• brass eye (spoof comedy show)

BRIEF
1 GENERATING
Designers will form groups of three. Each group will receive a random output from the ‘Possible Futures’ generator consisting of a fictional three word term.

2 DREAMING
Each group will speculate on the possible meanings, situations, conditions and politics of their fictional term. Think of the term as a window into another reality/time and the scenarios surround it. Start with a basic understanding of the term and then let your minds wander whilst collecting visual references.

3 INVENTING
Each group will then prototype an artefact that exists in their speculative scenario. This could be an object, product, invention, film, text, policy, game, poster, piece of technology, etc. Think how this artefact can be politically motivated—what stories is it telling us? Experiment with aesthetics and use your repertoire as communicators to convince, seduce and confuse.

4 (CON)FUSING
Collectively, the artefacts will form the ‘Museum of Fictions’—objects of possible and impossible futures. There will be no formal review.

think about vernacular, language makes it more believable
work within your means (e.g. webcam would look more real than SLR photos)

PSEUDO ILLEGAL COMPLEX

PSEUDO

• fake, not genuine
• pretentious or insincere

ILLEGAL

• contrary to or forbidden by law
• criminal law 

COMPLEX

• complicated, involving many parts
• a related group of repressed or partly repressed emotionally significant ideas which cause psychic conflict leading to abnormal mental states or behaviour. (giving someone a complex)
• building complex (interconnected structures)

IDEAS

• Glasses - see the world as illegal (using psychology)
• Advertising campaign for drug that gives you ability to do illegal things legally
• Model doll house (eg. drug dealers mansion) (look at the Miniaturist)
• police brutality 

We began looking at the word complex and a subject that sprang to mind was a superiority complex. Combining this with the word 'illegal' made us think of police and the ever growing issue of police brutality.

We collected some imagery of police, riots, brutality etc. and decided to let the process guide our outcome.

Police brutality is becoming more and more of an issue, particularly brutality against black people. The Black Lives Matter movement, an uprising against the systematic racism shown towards African American people made headlines in 2017 after many black people were killed unnecessarily by officers of the law in the US.

The aspect I wanted to focus on more than anything was the unnecessary killings, ones that had happened sparked from a ridiculous reason. A high profile case is one Eric Garner, who was choked to death after an altercation with an officer over cigarettes. Another even more unreasonable case came about when a police officer body slammed a girl in a classroom of a school.
Inspired by this 'unreasonable' aspect we began to look at ridiculous laws to base our outcome on. This also links to 'PSEUDO' and 'ILLEGAL' in terms of a law being so ridiculous that it must not be real (pseudo). 

One law I found that I really liked was the law that it is illegal to flush a toilet past 10pm in Switzerland as it is considered noise pollution. Of course doing this would not warrant a visit from the police, and certainly not any brutality but that was the point we wanted to highlight - how ridiculous police brutality has become.

We decided to make a gif acting out this scenario. Creating a storyboard for the gif gave us an idea of what we wanted in each frame, as well as the overall layout and elements of the story.

Final product:

I am really happy with the outcome of this workshop as I think we looked in depth at the words given to us and explored a variety of directions. Any direction we would have chosen would've been really interesting to develop further, particularly the advertising campaign for a drug. However I am glad we chose this direction as it brings into the spotlight a world issue. Tom agreed with this, saying that he was happy we took the concept and abstracted it as far as we did because it isn't a concept that springs to mind immediately but after a bit of thought you can see the connection clearly.

Starpack Tea & Coffee: brief

The Brief

To design and develop a new, exciting and eye-catching range of at least three tins for either teas or coffees. Students will need to create a fictitious brand targeting the quality retail sector, including duty free areas at airports and the higher-end retailers such as John Lewis, Selfridges and M&S. This new range is to be designed primarily for purchase as a luxury gift pack. Metal offers great potential for creative design solutions with not only embossing and debossing but also the high quality of print finishes that can be achieved with colour, varnishes and bare metal.

Consider when designing your range (minimum 3 in range) marriageability as a set of three and that the labelling, graphics and overall presentation ensure they are a family of luxury products. When developing your designs consider re-usability of the tins for a secondary use within the home. To meet food standards, the contents (tea, coffee or infusions) would, if going into production, be sealed separately in foil bags and presented in the secondary pack.

Points to consider

• Creative use of tin

• Marriageability as a set of three luxury tins

• Innovative use of decorative and graphic elements

• Re-usability as a secondary pack

• Shelf impact

• Consumer appeal as luxury gift packaging

Materials to be used

The set of tins must use tinplate as the core element but your models can be made of any

appropriate material to represent the metal components. Similarly, any appropriate material can be used to represent the tin contents.

Starpack Tea and Coffee: Audience Research

In order to understand my audience and gain an extra viewpoint into requirements for designing a luxury gift set of tea and coffee, I created a survey which I sent to a variety of people, including my peers. 

The biggest consideration I took away from the results of this survey is that the flavour was the most important aspect in buying tea/ coffee - this is extended to the idea of having a more experimental line of teas/ coffees as opposed to more traditional flavours. The next reason respondents would be more likely to buy tea/coffee is health benefits. This is a corner of the market that would be really interesting to explore alongside general health and nutrition.

Most responses to the question about who is the biggest group to consume tea mentioned elderly/ older people. To me this is a correlation with people who would consume more traditional flavours - I think if I were to create a range around more experimental flavours, the audience most likely to buy this would be a younger audience, who hold tradition as less of a priority. I would also like to create a range more aimed at my age group as I think I would be able to create a more relatable, fun set.

Kim Stuart branding: final logos

As the brief was for a client I wanted to treat it professionally. Compiling the final logos into a presentation alongside mockups to show what the logo would look like on promotional material was the best way I could present the final versions to Kim.

Kim's feedback

Logo 1

"I think the circle shape gives a simple nod to my photography profession, as well a the overlays giving an interesting addition- I love the subtle ‘K’ shape within it, that's very clever! 

At the moment I don’t see any cons to this design, but I think it would be cool for you to explore a little bit more around this idea! I particularly like the font type as its very clear to read and stands out wonderfully! The black and white both work very interestingly! would be cool for the overlaid lines to be stitched in a different colour!" 

Logo 2

"The second one is nice and bold, I feel like it gives crossword vibes but I do really the context and how you researched into the different types of stitch! Out of all of them, I think this one doesn’t work as well as its quite simple, and gives a more direct hint to the 'K' shape. I like the way the lines continue to give the stitching impression, that's a nice detail!"

Logo 3

"The third is also very nice, I love the weave pattern! I think that it's very different and works nicely with my style of photography. However, I feel it may be more suited to a pattern designer or fashion designer as it relates a bit more to textures as opposed to my stitching. Despite this, I do really like this as a starting point!" 

"Overall, I do really like these, I feel they show a good selection of mixed media and textures, I would suggest that within my logo there should be a slight hint to photography, even if its a circle to represent the lens etc. If that all makes sense?"


From the above logos, Kim chose to use the first version in her branding. She preferred the more abstract appearance of the logo with its subtle hint to photography and her use of mixed media.

Kim Stuart branding: logo design

Looking at the brief Kim sent as well as the mini interview I had with her, I have pulled some keywords out to explore logo ideas.

- mixed media
- collage
- layering
- stitching
- texture
- beauty
- editorial
- professional 
- colour 
- clean

initial thumbnails

I focused on mainly layering texture and type experiments in my initial thoughts.
Layering is an interesting concept to try and bring into logo design and I thought I could experiment with many shapes and combinations. In my sketches I deconstructed a camera using the basic shapes - also went down the beauty route and represented a woman posing and looking in a mirror using these basic shapes and layering technique. However, I didn't like the combination of ideas.

The texture was fun to look at, I scribbled down some textures including hatching, which looked slightly scruffy (would have to neaten digitally) and some patterns of stitching including herringbone pattern and chevrons. I think I could take this down a minimal route but would look really effective when brought together with type. 

In my type experiments I looked at making Kim's name more scripted, however, I think if the icon will be more of the focus and contain a few elements, the style may need to be more simplistic, using sans serif type.

One major element of Kim's work is that she likes to include texture, whether that be through mixed media including collage and stitching or through layering. I chose to focus on the stitching as this was definitely something Kim wanted to incorporate into her branding and promotional material.

Texture
To get me started I began to collect visual research on texture, including fabrics and stitches to draw inspiration from. Once I began looking around I realised how many textures there were readily available to me in clothing, furnishings etc.

After looking further into these textures including the weave of the fabrics shown here, I began to see that pattern was also a big element in fabric and texture. Weave and stitching will also be an interesting route to explore visually.

Warp and Weft

Here I did a little study on the weave of fabrics, representing the warp and weft of the fabric using short marks. I think if the marks were neater I could minimalize them, create a pattern similar to this and make an interesting logo.

Penguin book: style inspiration

Whilst researching for the book I was inspired by minimal design as well as the realisation that behind the book lies years of research and equations etc. Thinking about this realisation further, I thought that I could take that idea of the work behind the theories in the book and show this in the book design in some form. Because of this I decided to look at data representation, in the form of diagrams, infographics etc.

I am inspired by simple space diagrams using thin lines to represent things such as orbits, light etc.  Also the old appearance of the diagrams below lends itself to the history and time aspect of the book. Type wise I could use a serif typeface to reflect the old style of diagram - on the other hand I could modernise the diagram completely and use a sans serif typeface - this would be good as the audience will be contemporary.

Ideally, linking in the minimal theme i was so inspired by - I can do this by looking at line and negative space. This is also reflective of the way ABOT is written, Hawking has tried to simplify what is complex mathematics and science so that people can understand the subject further. By simplifying the data design this would suit the content of the book well.

Minimal design

 

Data design and diagrams

More detailed sketches

Penguin book: initial ideas

• planets/stars - orbits, patterns, 
• time - time moving forward, Einstein and relativity
• light - red/blue shift, lightwaves, colour
• black holes - look at the way things get sucked in, shape, distortion
• Big Bang and expansion of the universe

Initial sketches

Since the brief calls for a mainly typographic cover, the focus will be on the type. In my thumbnail sketches, I tried to experiment with placement and alignment and also add in a few illustrations. I mainly wanted to look at composition rather than having a theme set as I will still need to do in-depth research.

Reference images

Product Range Distribution: Initial Ideas and research

Research work and ideas should reflect your own ideologies concerns and ambitions as a graphic designer. Consider role of designer in 21st century world and responsibility regrading social political and ethical change.

What am I interested in?

vegetarianism - animal, health, environmental benefits

environmentalism - renewable power, pollution, agriculture, waste and food waste

health and nutrition - talk to Susie

politics - uk politics (centre - left)

music - effect of music on the brain, as a healer, societal purposes (concerts/festivals)

people - personalities: introvert/extrovert, 16 personalities test. Encourage understanding

society

self image - social media influence, body positivity, behindthescars (Sophie Mayanne)

social media - negative & positive effects, mental health links, influencers and jobs
media influence - fake news, celeb influence, lying
mental health - depression/anxiety, other lesser understood, something for younger people

psychology

ethical fashion - materials, sourcing, labour, second hand etc.

pursuit of creative outlets/pathways as hobbies/jobs and the effects of these (negative impacts, art as healing, etc)

gender - defying norms, pay gap

feminism - beginnings of feminism, famous feminists, extreme feminism (purpose to educate)

spirituality - outside of religion

space/ astronomy
dream meanings (unsure of how I could make this helpful/inspiring etc.)
lack of process - everyone wants to get to destination/outcome without process

outcomes

- manifesto on acceptance of people with mental health issues (schizophrenia, bpd, autism)
- publication on mental health issues aimed at younger children in order to develop understanding. could also aim at parents (separate publication)
- publication or film on the pursuit of creative outlets/pathways 
- film, publication or website/app on self image 


research

Feminism (social and political)

• Purpose to educate and inspire 
• Interesting look at the history and development of feminism - including famous feminists
• Feminism today - celebrity support, opposition (Trump, Tyson Fury etc), feminist movements (MeToo, suffragettes)
• Issues women face (tampon tax, gender pay gap, everyday stereotypes)
• Section on extreme feminism and how it is counterproductive
• Girls Against. Other businesses built of and by women.
• Intersectional feminism
• Controversial figures/issues and feminists take on it

feminism - Merriam Webster's most searched word 2017

2017 Women's march 

Women's march was a worldwide protest held in 2017 to advocate for women's rights, immigration rights, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, healthcare, freedom of religion etc. Mainly in response to President Trump, who had made statements clearly anti - women in nature. In just one day, between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people participated in the Women's March in the United States alone.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-golden-globes-a-wake-for-feminism/20729#.WlTSqJOFiRs

Girls Against - feminist collective fighting sexual assault (of all genders)

Girls Against is a collective of girls, describing themselves as intersectional feminists, brought together by Twitter. They started the collective to fight against sexual assault, particularly at concerts as they had all fallen victim to this at one point in their lives. The girls now have built a massive following, encouraged others to share their stories and have gained support from bands such as the 1975, Swim Deep etc and even NME - they were featured in NME's people of the year 2016. 

Self Image and social media (social)

• Self image - how you see yourself, how others see you, how you think others see you
• How this is affected by social media, mental health, fashion, fitness
• Make up/no make up, body hair, fashion and presentation, weight
• Body positivity - Iskra Lawrence, anybody.co, Dana Isabella

There is a big link between depression and social media, especially in young people. Influencers/models post pictures and people compare their own lives to the lives they see on the screen. There is a big pressure on people to have this perfect cyber self and the difference between this and their actual self image can cause depression etc.

The Effects of Social Media on Self-Perception - Undergraduate review by Elizabeth Gallinari

• Vogel, Roberts, and Eckles (2014) revealed that viewing social media profiles with positive content was associated with poorer state self-esteem. 
• Results of other studies conducted by Burrow and Rainone (2017) have suggested that receiving a greater number of “likes” reliably predicted greater self-esteem.

This video as part of a campaign created by Ditch the Label (an anti bullying organisation) reflects how society today portrays a different image of themselves online and social media to their actual selves - they live mundane lives like everyone else but they appear to be living great lives in their social media presence.

The body positivity movement

The idea of body positivity encourages people to accept and love themselves as they naturally are with the aim to reduce rates of depression with links to self image and improve health and well being.

On Instagram particularly the movement is popular and spreading through the platform. The plus size model Iskra Lawrence has become known for refusing to let photographers retouch her photos - believing strongly that every body is beautiful and she tries to enforce this message with every Instagram post she shares.

CHOSEN IDEA: Ethical fashion (social and environmental)

Ethical fashion - involving sustainable fashion, no use of leather/sheepskin/wool (vegan), no sweatshops or cheap labour 

http://source.ethicalfashionforum.com/article/about-source-intelligence

Sustainable fashion

• Second hand look book? Fashion campaign to encourage to buy second hand/charity shop? 
• Depop/charity shop/Blue rinse/ kilo sales
• Input from people in class who buy second hand, Nat, Marie
• interview thrifters 
• research the second hand culture and following it has
• positives and negatives of sustainable fashion (environmental benefits, effects on brands and retailers, price)

http://sustainable-fashion.com/blog/voices-and-values-for-sustainable-fashion/