OUGD403 - Message and Delivery: Research Pt3

For the Message and Delivery: Distribution part of the brief, we have to create a mail shot using the same message that we came up with for the three posters. I have two ideas that I want to explore further which are raising awareness for inequality in the workplace, and raising awareness for a women's charity.
To complete the brief I have started to compile some further research together to help me with my message.

'Gender Inequality still an issue in the workplace'

‘There’s no question that the gender pay gap is alive and well, particularly in the top ASX companies,’ Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick told ABC News Online. Only 13 of the 500 largest companies in the world have female CEOs.'

I picked out this key point because the statistic 'Only 13 of the 500 largest companies in the world have female CEOs' highlights the big gender gap is on a worldwide scale, and some of the companies could be one of the recipients of the mail shot to make them aware of the gender inequality in their workplace. 

'Pay inequality is most blatant in the finance and insurance industry, according to research by the EOWWA (Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency) revealing that women in the industry are paid 40 per cent less than men. Only 17 per cent of Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) in Australia are female.'

As it says 'pay inequality is most blatant in the finance and insurance industry' these could be one of of companies I send a mail shot to, as then the women in the company can question the company, and the company can be made aware of the discrimination. 

Because the research is by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency I decided to research them further, and I found another article on 'Women falling from executive ranks'. I found some statements from it which could be helpful for my brief:

'The number of companies with no women executive managers has risen sharply to 45.5 percent, up from 39.5 percent in 2006'

'While 54.5 percent of Australian ASX 200 companies have at least one woman in an executive position, this compares poorly to the US where 85.2 percent of companies do. In Canada the figure is 65.6 percent, Britain 60 percent and South Africa 59.3 percent.'

'while more women than ever were participating in the workforce, they were overwhelmingly represented in the low-paid, low status roles.'

I think these statistics and statements are really useful to me because they highlight the fact there are definite inequalities, however, the EOWWA are an Australian government agency, so I highlighted the part where it says 'Britain 60 percent' because that is relevant to this country. Now I am going to research the same subject but look for examples in the UK.

I found an essay on 'Women and Gender Equity in Employment', which talks about the subject in depth in the UK, so relates to my message and recipients a lot more. Here is another study on the same topic.

I found a very recent set of statistics stating the exact amount women are paid less than men from the BBC website.

I then found a another article stating exactly how many women are FTSE 100 directors.

'The latest numbers from the Professional Boards Forum show that 17.3% of FTSE 100 directors are women, a rise from 12.5% when Lord Davies published his 2011 report setting a voluntary target of 25% of board seats being filled by female directors by 2015.'

I found some more statistics on the Guardian

I then started to look into my second idea of raising awareness for a women's charity, and went onto the Women's Aid website and looked at a campaign called EQUALS.

When I started reading it, it was about the belief that men and women should be equal, which fits into the previous research I was doing about gender inequality in the workplace. So I've decided to go with my first idea as the message still supports women and equality, like this charity does. 

OUGD403 - Message and Delivery Pt2

For the article research, I decided that the whale article had no depth to it, and I decided to focus on another article I found in the daily mail. It is about a photographer, Alison Baskerville, who documented womens lives in the army in their job as engagement officers. She was commissioned by the Royal British Legion to take some photographs to mark Rememberence Sunday. 
What I find interesting is how women's roles in society are percieved, and how this story can be seen as a celebratory thing that women now have a bigger role in the army, but it can also be seen as something which is still an incredibly inequal job as only 9.1% of the British Army are in fact women, and they cannot do every job available.






To be in the army is a brave thing to do because of the high risks involved. The fact that women want to be involved with the army still even though they are not allowed to do all of the jobs shows how much they want to be involved. I want to research further into how talented and brave women are, but how we are still treated unfairly when it comes to equality between men and women.

This is a video showing the exhibition in which Baskerville's photographs were shown. Baskerville says that the project documents the 'daily life' of women and 'looking at their lifes behind what everyone percieves as normal'. I want to explore further what people do percieve as normal, and not just women in the army, but the roles which society think women should do.

This phenomonal infographic indicates the amount of work that women in third world countries have to do, just to provide for their families. Even though it depicts women being maternal, which is what they are all seen to be in our society and media, it also shows them being incredibly hard grafters which is supposed to be the 'man's job'.
On the same website it says 'Surveys from 45 developing countries show that women and children bear the primary responsibility for water collection in the majority of households. This is time not spent working at an income-generating job, caring for family members, or attending school.' 
Because women and children have this massive responsibility to their family, they are restricted from having careers and getting an education, which is appalling considering we are now in the 21st century, and women are still denied these privileges.
It says the amount of work that women do in one day, 28 empire state buildings could be made in one day due to the amount of hours that go into both. This is an astonishing fact, and it is not recognised in the media the amount of work that women do. 















A prime example of how women are subjected to the media is the Moors Murders. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were part of a high profile murder case were together they murdered and sexually assaulted five children. Even though it happened between 1963-65 it is still widely well known, and the public's hatred for Myra Hindley is still as strong today as it ever was. Although they both committed the crimes, it is Hindley who is most remembered and talked about: 

'it was Hindley's gender that made her so vilified. Brady, who says that he does not want to be released, was rarely mentioned in the news, but Hindley's repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her attempts to secure her release after confessing her guilt, resulted in her becoming a figure of hate in the national media. Her oft-reprinted photograph, taken shortly after she was arrested, is described by some commentators as similar to the mythical Medusa and, according to author Helen Birch, has become "synonymous with the idea of feminine evil".'

This section from Wikipedia describes how it is her gender which makes her more talked about than her partner Brady. Because every woman is thought to have a maternal instinct, the public found it impossible how a female can commit these crimes to children, which is what makes it so shocking. She committed an unforgiveable crime, but so did Brady, so surely he should have recieved the same abuse that she did?

Artist Marcus Harvey created a portrait of Myra Hindley for the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in 1995. It is made out of childrens handprints, and was an incredibly controversial exhibition piece, which recieved outrage from the public. Harvey has said: "The whole point of the painting is the photograph. That photograph. The iconic power that has come to it as a result of years of obsessive media reproduction."

 









The same year that Hindley and Brady started committing the murders together, Betty Friedan published a book in America, The Feminine Mystique. Friedan wrote about women's lives at that time in America, and 'defined 'the problem that has no name.'' It is an incredibly influential book, and sparked the second wave of feminism. Here are a couple of quotes from the book:

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

"Here are the complete editorial contents of a typical issue of McCall's (July, 1960):
1. A lead article on "increasing baldness in women," caused by too much brushing and dyeing.
2. A long poem in primer-size type about a child, called 'A Boy Is A Boy'
3. A short story about how a teenager who doesn't go to college gets a man away from a bright college girl.
4. A short story about the minute sensations of a baby throwing his bottle out of the crib.
5. The first of a two-part intimate 'up-to-date' account by the Duke of Windsor on 'How the Duchess and I now live and spend our time. The influence of clothes on me and vice versa.'
6. A short story about a nineteen-year-old girl sent to a charm school to learn how to bat her eyelashes and lose at tennis. ('You're nineteen, and by normal American standards, I now am entitled to have you taken off my hands, legally and financially, by some beardless youth who will spirit you away while he learns the chicanery of selling bonds. And no beardless youth is going to do that as long as you volley to his backhand.')
7. The story of a honeymoon couple commuting between separate bedrooms after an argument over gambling at Las Vegas.
8. An article on 'how to overcome an inferiority complex'.
9. A story called 'Wedding Day'.
10. The story of a teenager's mother who learns how to dance rock-n-roll.
11. Six pags of glamorous pictures of models in maternity clothes.
12. Four glamorous pages on 'reduce the way models do'.
13. An article on airline delays.
14. Patterns for home sewing.
15. Patterns with which to make 'Folding Screens - Bewitching Magic.'
16. An article called 'An Encyclpedic Approach to Finding a Second Husband.'
17. A 'barbecue bonanza', dedicated 'to the Great American Mister who stands, chef's cap on head, fork in hand, on terrace or back porch, in patio or backyard anywhere in the land, watching his roast turning on the spit. And to his wife, without whom (sometimes) the barbecue could never be the smashing summer success it undoubtedly is...''

― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

The fact that the whole contents on that particular McCall's magazine was entirely focused on home-keeping, marriage and children suggests that that is all women were allowed to be interested in, and nobody thought to create a magazine which allowed women to have any hobbies other than sewing, any goal other than getting a husband, or any other reading material about women living the life that should be aspiring to. 
The first image from McCall's magazine shows women looking glamorous in aprons, supporting the idea that women should be in the kitchen, and enforcing the stereotype of women rather than fighting it. 
The second image shows a mother with her two children, showing the ideal american family. Having this image gives out the message to women that if you have this, you will be happy, and that is all you need. However, that is what Friedan's book is about - women who have a family and husband, but still aren't satisfied. Because even though they are told this is all they can achieve, they started to realise that wasn't just what life is about. 


That was fifty years ago, and inequality between men and women still exists today. I found a tumblr called http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com and it shows women's reasons why they need feminism and equality. Here is the aim of the tumblr site:

About

 
Identify yourself as a feminist today and many people will immediately assume you are man-hating, bra-burning, whiny liberal. Perhaps a certain charming radio talk show host will label you as a “Feminazi” or “slut.” Even among more moderate crowds, feminism is still seen as too radical, too uncomfortable, or simply unnecessary. Feminism is both misunderstood and denigrated regularly right here on Duke’s campus. We, the 16 women of Professor Rachel Seidman’s course on Women in the Public Sphere, have decided to fight back against these popular misconceptions surrounding the feminist movement. Our class was disturbed by what we perceive to be an overwhelmingly widespread belief among students that today’s society no longer needs feminism. In order to change this perception on campus, we have launched a PR campaign for feminism. We aim to challenge existing stereotypes surrounding feminists and assert the importance of feminism today. 

I've highlighted certain parts in bold which I feel are the most important to me, and I decided to look at some of the posts people contributed to the site.

 
The fact this woman felt that she had to remove her post shows that men making objectifying comments is actually intereferring with women's lives.

I have experienced so many times when males have said to me, my friends and work colleagues that we must be on our period because we are stressed.

This problem still exists fifty years after Friedan published The Feminine Mystique.

 Even on social netoworking sites, stereotypical jokes, and delusional comments are being made about women - even women are making these comments!

Magazines are still trying to focus on how having a child is part of 'having it all' and it is expected that all women should be having children. Why isn't this article also aimed at men? Because women are seen as looking after the baby while the man works, and I personally think this is the biggest problem with inequality between men and women, and until men are seen as equal in the process of bringing up a child, then women will always be inferior to men. 
 


I wanted to look at some more advertisements where women are stereotypically subjected, and I wanted to look at how adverts have changed from then and now.

This is a genuine tv advert from the 1960s, and it shows a woman, very happy, cleaning her kitchen with a flash product. There is no man helping her, and her kitchen is spotless - suggesting that it is a womans job, and that they enjoy doing it.

This advert from the 1950s is selling a skin product, and they are doing that by saying if you use it, men will be attracted to you. This is objectifying women, and the voiceover uses words such as 'young, fresh, flawless' and 'this is the look he will notice', persuading women to buy this product.  

This advert is called 'best beer ad ever'. It is a more recent one, and, like most beer adverts, uses women to advertise the beer which are targeted at men. At the end of the advert she actually rubs her breasts into his face, all the while seductive music is playing. So although it is a lot different from the previous advert, they still use lust and objectify women to sell their products.


I have made a lot of opinons on why I think all of these examples are a reason why we need feminism, but now I want to look at some proper facts and figures to show that the problem does exist. I found a really good PDF on some facts about women, and if you click here you can see them all.

The statistic that only 19.1% of women have a seat in parliament shows just how much men and women are still not equal, as it isn't doesn't match a fifth of men in the room. This means women's opinions aren't heard as much because there aren't as many.

Only 16% of stories in the news and media are entirely focused on women, meaning all the problems that women face are certainly not documented as much as they should be, which could possibly suggest why feminism isn't taken seriously.

This section on violence against women is crucial because it says that 71% of women have been physically or sexually assaulted by their husband and partner, which just shows mens attitudes to women, and how they think it is acceptable to treat them this way.

 I found this extract here.

I found a good pdf document with lots of statistics about gender inequalities, click here to see it.

This website had a great variety of global statistics about the inequalities of men and women.

This shows how gender inequality is significant in the business sector globally, and is a document by Oxfam which you can find if you click here.














Now I have done this research, I am moving on to my next task which involves creating three posters which can be found here on my design practise blog.

OUGD403 - Message and Delivery Pt1

We had to pick an article from any newspaper on Tuesday 23 2012, and I chose this one on a talking Beluga whale. Here is the article that I found in the The Daily Mail:

I chose it because I thought it was something positive for a change in the news, and I am interested in animals so thought it would be a fun subject to research. It is about a whale named Noc, who communicated with divers when they were under, apparently telling the divers to get out of the water. It is quite extraordinary that a whale has been found to communicate with humans, so I am going to look at this case, and other cases where animals have been found to communicate. 

Here is a video of the audio that the whale produced: 

Facts and Figures on Whales

I am going to research some facts and figures on whales, to get some background knowledge on the animals and have a clearer idea about their intelligence, population and various other facts.

This is an infographic showing each species of whale, and their population in the world. Noc was a Beluga whale, and there are only 100,000 in those in the world. I thought that was a very low number, but after researching it more it seems their conservation status is mixed, with Wikipedia saying their status is Near Threatened, but a section which says:

'the subpopulation from the Cook Inlet in Alaska is considered Critically Endangered and is under the protection of the United States' Endangered Species Act.^[2][5] Of seven Canadian beluga populations, the two inhabiting eastern Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay are listed as endangered.'

I found these facts on beluga whales, which explain core information about them. By researching them I think they are very interesting as they are very different to other species of whales. They are easily identifiable from their white skin and large foreheads. Here it says they can move their head in all directions which is pretty unique and special. 
As the diagram of its size compared to the bus shows, they are a small species, and one of the smallest types of whales.
This article also says 'They are social animals and very vocal communicators that employ a diversified language of clicks, whistles, and clangs. Belugas can also mimic a variety of other sounds.' which confirms furthermore that it could have been possible for them to make human like sounds, as it says they can 'mimic a variety of other sounds'. This is important to me because when I first read the article of Noc talking I thought it would only apply to one case or be very exaggerated, but there are lots of evidence to suggest otherwise.
If you click here you can be directed to the full article.


I was browsing through some more articles about Beluga whales, and came across this 'Beluga whales are very vocal: their chirps, squeaks and clicks are so distinctive they're nicknamed 'sea canaries'.' I found this on the BBC website, and after I have seen that they communicate a few times on different websites, I am now going to look at vocal communication in animals.

Communication

I am now going to look at communication between other animals that I have found through the internet. I first looked at this article about Noc the whale, and it said:

"While birds have been known to mimic human speech, it's not a common characteristic among mammals - the few exceptions apparently including Noc and, a decade earlier, a New England harbour seal named Hoover, who reportedly spoke with a Maine accent.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/a-whale-of-a-tale#ixzz2AIk0HRiL
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook"

This section of the article interested me as it said that a seal named Hoover has also been noted to talk, and with an accent! I decided to research this further, to see why another sea animal has allegedly spoken as well.



I then went on a website that spoke about Hoover the seal, and found a section on different animals and how they communicate vocally.


"Vocal learning - the ability to imitate complex vocalizations - is a relatively rare ability in the animal kingdom. Humans obviously are excellent vocal learners, and this ability is central to both singing and speech. Surprisingly, vocal learning of complex sounds (like speech or songs) has not been found in ANY other nonhuman primate.
However, vocal learning is common among birds, and at least three major bird groups have evolved vocal learning, probably independently: the songbirds (oscine passerines), parrots, and hummingbirds. This has led to songbirds becoming the major group in which the genetic and neural basis for vocal learning is studied. Unfortunately, however, birds have both a very different brain from that of mammals, and a completely novel vocal production system (called the syrinx). Thus, there may be important differences between vocal learning mechanisms in humans and birds.
Another large group of vocal learners are the cetaceans: whales and dolphins. Again, unfortunately the mechanism dolphins and other toothed whales use to make sounds is evolutionarily novel, and unrelated to the human vocal tract. Cetacean brains are also rather peculiar, with a very thin cerebral cortex. Thus, the similarities between cetacean vocal learning mechanisms and our own may be quite circumscribed.
Are there ANY animals capable of complex vocal learning, that have brains and vocal tracts like ours? Yes: many seals are capable of vocal learning, and they produce vocalizations with a normal mammalian vocal tract and larynx (just like ours) and have a quite ordinary mammalian brain. (The most famous example is Hoover, a harbour seal who could speak). They are also relatively common, small (compared to humpback whales or elephants, another potential vocal learner) and very easily trained to vocalize.
Thus, pinnipeds (seals, sea lions and walruses) look like the best group of nonhuman animals to help scientists learn what's involved in complex vocal learning at the physiological, neurological, and genetic levels. You may be surprised to know that we know very little about vocal production or vocal control in this group."

If you click here you can find the website where the article is from.
Although it says it is a rare ability for animals to create vocal sounds, there are records of certain animals that can do it. 



Visual Language

This section is just a selection of images that I think could represent the story in a visual way, such as fluid type to suggest water, illustrations of whales and various other symbolism.



Whales and Their Enemies
I thought this was a very eye-opening project by a group of students for a project where they had to create awareness for something, and they decided to focus on whale-killing. It is a whale made out of cardboard shapes painted white, and graphics screen printed on them to highlight various facts about whale killing. It is very well thought out, and the graphics are really visually interesting. I chose it because it reminds me of a Beluga whale with its colour, and it is a way which whales are used in a Graphic Design context.

I chose these illustrations of whales from designspiration for some visual references to them, as I might need them for a future task within this project. 

OUGD403 Alphabet Soup - Typeface

I am making a typeface based on a person in my class, and as her favourite font is American Type Writer, I decided to look at that and other typewriter fonts. I want to create a font that resembles the ones used on a typewriter, as it represents my partner well, and the reasons why can be found on my design practise blog.

American Type Writer - This is Charlie's favourite typeface, and as we had to base our font on an original one, I decided to base it on this. From this, I found three similar fonts...

Better Type Right - In the group crit we had, Amber suggested to create a font which was slightly uneven, with parts of letters at different angles, or just not completely precise. I decided to take this on board, and found a typewriter font which did just that. In my first alphabet sketch I drew one similar, and took it to Illustrator. However, when I finished it, I thought it seemed to unorganized.

Courier - This font is monospaced, meaning each letter is the same width as the last. This is what all original fonts were on a typewriter, so that each line was aligned. I made the first font I designed monospaced, but I think because I also made it slightly uneven like Better Type Right, it didn't quite work. It made it look unproportioned, and I think it only works well if it has a lot of straight serifs, rather than curved.

 Ernestine - After I didn't like my first typeface, I decided to look at Ernestine, and create another one based on this. I looked at the serifs in particular, and noted how it doesn't look robotic like Courier, but still keeps the typewriter style. I took this on board into my own font, and was very happy with the result.

OUGD403 Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking

Part of the brief criteria was to base all the letterforms on existing fonts and designs. Therefore I started coming up with a lot of visual research so I could broaden my ideas, and base my letters on them.

I think this shows dissection because you need to examine the outline to see the pattern which is one definition of dissect, and the 'fill' has been removed.

 This shows dissection because the ink has been dissected through using water, and there is only an outline and shadow.

 I really like this example, as part of the strokes are missing to depict dissect.

 I thought that this could be dissect, as there are parts of the letter cut out to reveal an illustration.

 I really like this example because there are only faint lines to suggest a couple of letters, but it is still clear enough to know what they are, and I like how it appears so unfinished.

 I thought this would be a good example of dissect because the way the paper is ripped suggests cutting into the letter which is what dissect means.

 I really like this letter, and it could be dissect as it appears to be pieced together as it is made up of seperate curves.

 Rather than the letter, I thought this would be a good way to dissect the actual material which the letter is drawn with.

 I thought this was a good use of materials as the letter could easily by dissected by just removing the pins.

 Cutting up body parts to study the anatomy is the main thing that is associated with dissecting.

 This is a good example of dissect, as the letters are cut in half to create the shape of the letters.

This is another good example of dissecting the ink - using watercolour and then splashing water on the letter to distort it.

 This is a papercut letter which depicts dissect as part of the letter is cut out with a scalpel, which is what is used to dissect things with.

 I liked this example because the different shapes distort the letterform, and because they are going in different directions it also dissects the letterform.

 I thought elements of this could be dissect - how the inside connects up using dots.

 I really like this type as parts of the letterform are missing yet you can still tell what the letters are, and it is very clear.

 I thought this was a good example of hand produced type, and I like how the brushstroke is heavier in some parts than others.

 I like how these show the letterforms degenerating which is what I imagine when dissecting a letter.

 As the second definition to dissect is to examine closely, I thought this fitted that explanation well.

 The presentation of this letterform only shows part of the letter which I thought was a nice subtle effect of dissection.

I really like how this physical object has been dissected to create a letterform.

A lot of these examples influenced me in creating my letterforms, although some of the letterforms I created I thought of by sketching ideas.