INITAL IDEA THREE + CRIT

= Photography means viewers get a strong response to the imagery 

= Obvious who is depicted and what the theme is 

= Creates a universal recognised depiction 

= Lines = movement 

= Colours don't quite work well together 

= Experiment shows clash of bitmapping = makes it feel too complicated

= Solid colour forms suggest movement and allow bitmap layers on top to stand out 

= More refined 
= Colours not necessarily reflective of tennis but this works in creating a design that is interesting and different 
= Could be more appropriate for older audiences? Perhaps not as vibrant and playful as illustrations idea, which younger people may respond to better? 
= Feels somewhat sciencey in this aesthetic = Is this the right tone? 

Brief title / working title

Deconstructing Hegemonic Masculinity; The Role of Sport in its Perpetuation, How Sexism is Sustained Through Sport and a Look into the Solution for Making It a More Equal Playing Field.

Rationale: Project description and purpose. What is the problem? How are you proposing to engage with it?

Sport is unfairly dominated by men and it is reflected and exacerbated in the media. Sport can be made a more equal playing field through more publicity around women’s sports and fitness. Girls also need to be encouraged to engaged in sport. All of these work together to be a solution to the problem. AIM To encourage change in the general perspective towards sport being a ‘man’s’ thing, by creating designs that create more publicity around sport being for women as well as men.

What type of graphic design solution is being proposed? Outputs?

(1   Flag with additional products eg. Key rings/water bottles = Physical Designs which would be publicised on social media etc. = Items themselves would promote women’s sports and a more equal perspective on sport = Publicity around items would ensure this

References. What other real world examples exist? Industry / design context.

Kate Morross women’s football Nike Lionesses’ patches Alphabet Studio Eurovolley Rebrand

Target audience?

= Younger people = 11 – 27 years old = All backgrounds

Research activities?

= Interview range of women (from those who do sport to those who don’t) = Find out how they feel towards the sport climate between the different genders = Which different physical and digital options for this brief do they feel would be most effective?

Suggest 3 initial ideas / solutions

1. Create outcomes for girls in schools to encourage more confidence and positivity towards engaging in sports, package given to them. Encourages involvement in younger years.  2. Neutral Redesign of a sporting event for both genders, or more neutral packages given to both boys and girls in schools. Encourages more equal perspective in both boys and girls at young age.  3. Designs around an upcoming women's sporting event that promote women and sport

Format/Production Considerations. Techniques, processes, materials, events, campaigns etc.

- Laser cutting for keychains - Sticker printing for water bottles  - Lots of physical creations that won't be accessible during Covid situation  = Mock-ups of these  - Important that the outcome gets publicity as this is the central solution to the issue discussed in the essay  - Social Media set up, evaluation on how it could be applied in the physical real world eg. posters put up  eg. group meetings with young people at schools to give these packages to

CRIT:

i think it’s quite hard because I feel none of the flag designs so far really give a strong emotional response

like i love the illustration style of idea 1 and it really pops and is graphically interesting but it lacks an emotional response / it doesn’t say anything to the viewer

plus it kinda looks like you’ve directly copied the art style / approach from your research? so as a campaign of this it’d feel quite like done and not original

i imagine developing that style to suit your own more or potentially incorporating type too could work well and the type could bring in a response, like how u have used it with the second idea

maybe the tennis ball could instead be a word, or the pink background could be full bleed type - u could incoroporate type as pieces of imagery

i do like idea #3 a lot as well and i think as an approach it makes what you’re trying to say a lot clearer, it could just pop more and be a little more visually refined

i think u should decide on a specific message u want the flag to convey for the audience to receive cause atm 1 & 3 just convey..serena williams

also the one where u repurpose the tennis court / ball imagery I don’t like

a tennis racket is a similar shape to the female gender sign, maybe there’s a visual idea there?

REFLECTION:
= Incorporate more female players as representation if using more than one person in the design so it doesn't feel focussed on serena williams 

= specific message is just publicity for women's sport events in the Olympics. 
= A strong emotional response is not greatly necessary as this means the design could veer into strongly 'feminist territory' which could 'put off' male target audience 
= Keeping it gender neutral means the emotional response is somewhat haltered

= How can I make it emotional for both men and women? 
> Make it about the sport! 
= How do you connect to people about the sport through imagery and text? 
> The words should create a strong reaction from the audience 

= Most favoured designs are the use of photography and the illustrative pieces 
= Maybe I can combine these two styles or will that make it convuluted?
> The illustrations would have to be simple to be paired with the photography
> The illustrations are interesting because they depict the people

= Bold, strong font with slight italic nature suggesting movement to the letterforms and therefore reflecting sport 

= simply started off by adding this text in to try and work out where it could go within this already set up layout

= Did not want to lose the woman, her shadow and the tennis ball being placed in to the upper left hand corner as this animates the image and reflects the anticipation for the olympics to start (just like you feel anticipation that this ball is about to be hit by the tennis player) 

= Unless I deconstructed the image however and experimented the addition of text was never going to be as interested as it could 

= Wanted it to be integrated with the different visual elements and used to reinforce the tone or feeling eg. movement, excitement, anticipation etc. 

= Addition of bitmapped texture has subtle hint to olympics and has a texture from far away that almost feels like grass 

= with the background green this creates a more realistic representation of the tennis players situation

= Curved lines to reflect movement more appropriate 
= Colours where possible = not too much that it doesn't balance well in the design but enough to make it vivid and exciting 
= Pieces still feel like they are missing an element of something = Good designs but not wow factor 

PEER FEEDBACK 
= If this is gender neutral for a reason then perhaps take inspiration from the way men's sports are presented in adverts and design? 
= Doing this will reflect the visual language adopted in sport generally and will appeal to the male target audience who would normally overlook sport publicity concerning women 
= Olympians are put on a pedestal in the public eye of how impressive and amazing they are, which should be reflected in the design for these players 
= Serena isn't an Olympian player so this might take focus away from the Olympic theme 
> Not directly an image of serena > Diversity in the image as a black woman 
> She has also been a part of the olympics before and is likely to play in 2021 

= I wanted to change the colours because having it green makes it feel obvious and less interesting 
= Choosing to do off colours was a choice for the tone to feel different and therefore appeal to the younger audiences who like the look of something different 

= Maintained the use of curved lines with thin strokes throughout the designs as this was a successful decorative feature and reflected the notion of movement and the court lines simultaneously 
= Abandoned the use of the bitmapped image as it limited what I could do with text
= Decided that for there to be room for text to have a central focus, the tennis ball needed to be made smaller 
= The text was then placed at different heights within a box
= Box reflects the idea of the court, with the letter forms moving around like the ball or tennis player 
= Suggests breaking boundaries = strong player skilled in the sport 

=  the figure should be above the line but below the text (line creates unnecessary mess whilst the text is important), 

= Needed to  take into consideration where the text is being placed before spending lots of time creating it 

= 'OVER' with no misaligned letter forms reinforces the sense of the word and things coming to an end in a strong, structured manner 

= Placement of 'OVER' on the right side as the only text there near her racquet heightens the anticipation of her hitting the ball once you finish reading the text 

= Subtle curved lines in the background create balance in the design in more empty areas 

= More could be added as they feel slightly unnecessary at the moment

= Arrows added to reflect this scientific visual language approach many sport adverts have for men that I looked at in research for my essay 

= Simple yellow circles with increasingly changed opacity to reflect the movement of balls across the court 

= Also creates balance in the colours across the design with the yellow, purple and pink. 

= This pink orange is closer to the court colours and doesn't feel as feminine as the purple 
= Balance with arrows above and below as the yellow circles take up the space on the sides 
> But the actually the arrows are closer to the edge of the design that way which looks messier 

TO DO:  

= Create the flags for the two other sports 

> Having two as ball games with the same layout may be too repetitive but will feel inconsistent when ina group with the canoeing as well?