A task starting from Gary

I will being looking at Gary's reflection on the first lecture, surveillance and Foucault.  He mentions that "graphic design helps in the formation of social and cultural identities, it is reasonable to suggest that class, racial/ethnic age and gender groups etc. are often represented by stereotypes within the graphic design industry".  I couldnt't agree more.  I recently submitted a book of posters as a fulfillment for an image module brief and the books were on sale to the public at the 2011 book fair (fig1).  By the public we really mean artists and designers on the prowl for competition and sources of inspiration.  As a student, I wanted to make a bit of money from this, who wouldnt when one hundred pounds was up for grabs as a maximum.  So, like many designers alike, I produced a design that was stereotypically likely to attract artists and designers at that time in the taste and trends of Graphic Design,  You can see that I used Futura and made a colour spectrum of binding threads to make the books more of a one off/special edition style. 


By doing this I have both thickened the stereotypical identity of current Graphic Design and stereotyped the audience in which I designed for in their interests and taste.  This happens on such wider fields in Graphic Design and has done ever since it arrived.  That is to say as an example that adverts for washing up liquid are gender aimed consistent since the start of it's advertisement (fig2 fig3).  As there is no change the competition and evolution remains in these stereotypes and its changing in the future is a mystery.

fig1

fig 2


fig3