The Blog of Chris McLoughlin

The intention of the Project was to raise awareness of the various and often meticulous ways in which people are commonly marketed to by big corporations, and the mentality behind the people involved.

As the research for this project begun, it was very clear that a big concern of late is that of marketing to children, and how parents are often unaware of the levels of marketing being forced upon the younger generation. This helped me to establish my target audience , which was to be predominantly parents as they often have a direct role in monitoring the degree of their child’s consumption. However I wanted the imagery to be in a style which children could relate to also, as this is often a technique employed by marketers in relation to getting a child’s attention, and therefore felt an appropriate choice of technique.

Originally I envisioned my project being that of a minimalist series of outcomes, which led to me breaking down many the facts sourced to what I felt was there rawest elements, and translated these through quick initial ideas in which I felt would represent the quote in a aesthetically minimalist way. However as I progressed my research and development I felt that having a minimalist series of outcomes with the imagery reflecting how I visualised the facts and quotes would be a slightly contradictory way of stating what I said in my proposal of creating outcomes in which children could relate too.

From this point, I felt that possibly a guerilla marketing approach may possibly be an effective way of getting my message across and therefore created stickers in which I could place outside of supermarkets, or on posters for products aimed at children and general consumers and then create a series of posters from the photos I had taken. Although again, on reflection upon this I felt that maybe my project had begun to me more of a propaganda campaign rather than an awareness project.

As I continued with my experimentation work, through techniques such as collage, and typography, I appeared to be getting drawn back towards my original minimalist approach, and therefore used minimalism as an influence for my creations. Although I am well aware that my outcomes are not what would be seen as typical minimalism I wanted to keep my outcomes to the basic required elements in order for the information to be absorbed as quickly and efficiently as possible, as such with minimalism. Hence the lack of background imagery to my outcomes, with reflective colours being chosen instead to represent the mood of the poster.

In relation to the success of the overall project, as a series of outcomes in which were created from my own visual interpretation of the corresponding quotes, and looking at the questionnaires in which were handed out (asking the target audience to draw a line from the quote to the image they felt best reflected the point)  it appears that for the vast majority of the posters produced, the members of my selected target audience, Parents/children/general consumers, translated the message in the same visual way. However I am under no illusions, especially as the testing proves this, that some of the outcomes could have been clearer in their translation of the intended message in order to enhance the legitimacy of the outcome/project.

Overall I feel that the project was one of a success, as it enables the recipient to engage with the subject matter with a more fun light hearted yet still informative approach without forcing the issue in an over bearing way which can often force the viewer to put up a shield to the subject matter rather then embrace it. I also feel that as a series of visual outcomes that they work in correspondence with the intention of gaining the interest of children through the use of familiar characters in which adults and children alike can relate to.

However In relation to hand in, and as seen in my experimentation and development books, I feel as though I could have done a far greater job in the justification process of each and every step from the development to the finished outcome of my designs, as the use of every experimental colour, layout and paper choice to my finished choice was justified to me and chosen for a legitmate reason, yet  I struggled to articulate this and make the choices apparent throughout my books through annotation, in which could have and effectively should have been far more conclusive and substantial. However I found myself at a point where I wanted to test so many various different aesthetic approaches that I did not explain why, as I felt that this may hinder my timing. Although on reflection this was not exactly an effective approach when looking at the development/outcome from an outside perspective with no real knowledge of the reasoning behind each elements choice, and effectively running out of time do so does not enhance my project in a way in which maybe it could have through possibly better time management and making the most  use of annotation for justification.

Overall, I feel as though the projects outcomes were the most effective in answering the questions of the brief, and stayed closely to the intentions of the project in which was to create a series of outcomes in which could clearly be seen as an individual set, all of which inform rather then force the viewer to make a judgement which is seen in propaganda style projects. Whilst being aesthetically pleasing to the entire target audience, from children to parents, to general consumers who all of which could relate to certain aspects of the outcomes. Therefore I feel as though the project has been a success in answering the various elements of the brief and stands strong as an overall independent and original awareness project.

Flight from the Consumer Grid

As an outcome I believe that this is a strong compelling outcome, which will gain the attention of  my entire target audience, as it conveys the message of escape clearly and is doing so in a fun appealing way, in which will evoke an emotional response from children via the imagery and older consumers through the verbal message portrayed on the reverse, without giving the sense of pressure about acting like many other anti-consumer messages do, as it is merely informative.

This post is well overdue as This crit took place roughly 2 weeks ago now, however finding the time to juggle my workload as well as updating my blog is proving quiet a challenge, as I feel that whilst I am blogging, I am not designing, and at this point in the course with roughly 3 weeks until hand in I should be constantly designing and testing out my posters on my target audience.

The aim of the group crit was to show the development of the chosen projects to date and to explain where we intend to take them, whilst showing the developed outcomes so far, in order to gain feedback.

The feedback I was given via e-mail, I fill was very fair, as I was informed that some of my outcomes may need tweaking in order to relate to my intended target audience, and also that the reasoning behind some of my posters needed for analysis.

However some of the feedback I was given at the time, I felt that to a degree was slightly unjust as I struggled to get my point across and the reasoning behind certain posters, in which I have evidence in order to support, and therefore I felt my points were slightly dismissed.

Although in hind-sight, as the comments put forward where stated by a member of my target audience, I will most definately take them on board and consider implementing certain changes in which to capture the audience a little clearer.