OUGD505 - Ideas

What are you interested in?

• travel
• nutrition and sport
• human interaction
• the power of trends

What do you want to research?

• thought provoking topics
• something new
• something that is potentially and influence in my life

What kind of graphic designer do you want to be?

• a designer that people consider to have thought about things in a new and interesting way

Topic brainstorm
I took some time to think about things that I am interested in and things that I want to learn about so that I could then finalise a topic that I want to focus on for this project. 

• why do we dream?
• what do our dreams mean?
• do dreams reflect what will happen in the future?
• the power of superstition
• crystal healing
• why do we travel?
• benefits of being a nomadic designer
• the best places to be a nomadic designer
• polaroid photography
• what can a holistic lifestyle do for us?
• is the gym as healthy as outdoor exercise?
• vegetarian is the way forward
• vegetarian for health or ethics
• is a raw diet healthier?
• what would happen to the animals if we didn't eat meat?
• the impact of takeaway coffee cups on the environment
• the power of trends within society
• is university too expensive?
• does university lead to a better life in the future?
• the increased price of Apple products
• the new idea about female boss'
• feminism's impact on the modern women and men
• is feminism a trend?
• how feminism could change relationships and family structures
• psychology of colour
• relationship between music and art
• synesthesia 
• synesthesia and the impact on creative people 

Is feminism dangerous to the UK society?

• hate crimes
• gender inequality
• gender stereotyping
• cause issues with modern day gender identification
• lack of equality
• modern women and feminism, still relevant?
• modern man and feminism
• why feminist movement began
• is it a trend? people part of it for the wrong reasons
• violence and crime in relation to it
• change in job roles
• gender neutral language and colours
• religion
• family relationships
• faking it in sex for male gratification
• connotations of a feminist within society

Feminist artists

Cécile Dormeau – Illustrator and Gif Animator

Cécile Dormeau has worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in design agencies in Hamburg and Berlin, and as a junior art director in an ad agency at Ogilvy One in Frankfurt. She was interviewed by Cosmopolitan Magazine last year highlighting her clever and pointed illustrations that challenge women’s body image issues.

Guerrilla Girls
Anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. Motto: Reinventing the “F” word: feminism! 

Lauren Ebeling

Visual identity and exhibition catalogue for fictional exhibition Her, She and I. The focus of this exhibition is on the shifting portrayal of femininity in contemporary art and would ideally take place at the MOCA Geffen Museum in Downtown Los Angeles. The artists of this fictional exhibition explore aesthetics, gender roles, and societal conventions of femininity in their work.

SNASK

Monkifesto: Campaign created for Swedish fashion brand Monki’s 10th anniversary celebrating & empowering women through 10 statements. This is a bold and important campaign containing 10 statements delivered by 10 brilliant and edgy women. It’s OK to masturbate (we all do it). It should be ok to be gay or transgender. It´s NORMAL (painful and messy) to have your period. Etc.

Jess Yanzio

Exploring themes of activism and feminism, my project investigates the use of the female body as a weapon of protest. The techniques of demonstration used by four protest movements – Slutwalk, Missile Dick Chicks, Femen and Pink & Silver Bloc – are critiqued in a Risograph-printed zine, employing a ‘norm-critical’ visual language.

Men put me down as the best woman painter…

…I think I’m one of the best painters.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Link between synesthesia and creativity

• do people with synesthesia do better within the creative industry in comparison to those without?
• is artwork more powerful to those with synesthesia 
• sparking creativity
• visual representations of music
• less creative without?
• how do you know you have it?
• is it genetic?
• training synesthesia for better memory (association for memorising music etc.)
• visualisations of what those with synesthesia see when they hear something
• artists that visually represent what they see

Lots of experiments could take place to see the different reactions each individual, looking for:

• random selection of colour and what they associate with
• colour and then textbook to put associations in - food, numbers, sounds
• look for correlations 

The two topics that interested me the most from this list is feminism and synesthesia. In the creative field I have noticed the increase of feminism and how much it is now part of a lot of artists' identities. I think this something that I would find interesting to research into extensively and look at the different implications this new feminism wave is having on society. Synesthesia is also a new concept that I have discovered and instantly found very intriguing. I enjoyed A Level psychology, so some of the principles that I learned may be relatable to this idea. This is also a rarer topic in comparison to feminism so it could lead to a more interesting body of creative developments and final outcome.