'How text aids Documentary Photography', and 'Adding text to change an image'

Documentary photography is a type of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events, to the more commonplace of current affairs. The shocking and tragic photographs are the ones that tend to get more noticed, such as photographs documenting the results of war and poverty. I suppose it’s because people don’t think about it too deeply. They hear the stories on the news, but they don’t put a face to the nameless casualties. Seeing the images brings the situation closer to home and actually makes people take notice. These kinds of images don’t need text to accompany them, it’s obvious what they say, but more modern documentary photography focuses on the lives of real ordinary people, it tells their story, and text can aid this by putting the image in context. Without knowing the context, the image would be a mystery. It enables understanding. I went to the Steve McCurry exhibition in Birmingham in September and was blown away by his work; he is probably most famous for his photograph of a girl from Afghanistan, used for National Geographic. His use of vivid colour, coupled with the textures of his surroundings. He utilises this mystery by only revealing the place and date where the photograph was taken. The rest is up to the viewer to decide, to create their own story of what the subject’s life is like. It evokes a response, it makes you question, but it doesn’t tell you how to view the image, that’s up to you.

Text as a visual tool can be quite expressive. It adds impact to an image, and can be especially arresting in advertising and campaigns. It is also necessary as it adds context to the whole image. Without it you would just have a picture, whereas with the text you could have so much more. Barbara Kruger uses text in her work which is often unexpected when you really look at the images. If the text wasn’t there, the images she uses wouldn’t be spectacular, they probably wouldn’t garner attention, but the fact that she then uses text to question the viewer about feminism or consumerism makes people take notice. I think that text can definitely change an image, many people have done it before, and many will continue to do so, but I think that it’s most effective when the text surprises you. When what it’s saying is almost going against the image, making you question it and showing you an alternative way to view it.

Development of Creative Thought and Structure in Illustration and Graphic Art

Overcoming Mindsets

When people used to talk about Illustration, I thought they meant drawing. Hand drawn images to accompany text to be precise. I used to think illustration was the creation of detailed images, mostly to go with a story, that Graphics was all done on the computer and mainly about making posters, and that Fine Art was all about installations. As I got more informed, I knew that what I thought wasn’t actually completely true, but it’s hard to change your mind about something once it’s already made up. I now know differently, but only because the boundaries between different artistic practices are changing, blurring. My idea of illustration now is just image making. Which is such a broad term, it can include anything. It took me a while to get over my mindset, and now I’m in a position where I can try and get people to overcome theirs about what they think illustration, or maybe art in general, is, by challenging preconceptions and conventions and questioning the rules. As I said earlier though, boundaries are changing, and I think this is enabling people to be more receptive to new ideas. With regards with work for clients I think that although on one hand people may want you to repeat yourself because they’ve seen work you’ve done for someone else and want the same, I also think with the ever expending crossovers and blurring between separate artistic practices, clients want something that will make them stand out, and so it’s up to you as the artist to create something new.

Managing a creative environment

It is important to surround yourself with things that inspire you when you’re working. If you get stuck then you can just look up find creative inspiration. It’s also comforting to be surrounded by the things you like. It all helps to keep the area as free of stress as possible. Someone else can’t create it for you though, it has to be personal as it’s YOUR environment. It undoubtedly becomes a reflection of what you are like, not just as an artist, but as a person. Mine for example contains numerous English editions of a Japanese magazine as well as some originals, piles of art books, soft toys, gig tickets, graphics novels and manga, films, Momiji dolls, and photos of my friends. I like being surrounded by things I find interesting and that make me happy, and that way it makes me happier about my work. In order to keep up that mentality though you have to keep the environment tidy, which isn’t my strongest point. Sometimes when I need to find things it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. That said, when I do eventually tidy and see my clean desk it just makes me want to work on it.

Production and Outcomes

Interpretation

Zeitgeist is ‘the spirit of the times’ and is the cultural, spiritual, ethical, intellectual and political ambience associated with an era. It is essentially the essence of a specific time and place. By comparing interpretations of something through time allows us to see the effect of the zeitgeist. Peter Pan, originally a play and then novel by J. M. Barrie, has been adapted many times, and in many forms, but the main one I want to look at is the 1953 Walt Disney animated film version in comparison with Barrie’s original novel Peter and Wendy, or now just generally known as Peter Pan, first published in 1911 and illustrated by F.D. Bedford. Disney translated it to a different medium, from stills to flat colour animation, along with the classic Disney look. Barrie doesn’t actually describe Peter in detail, leaving much of it to the imagination of the reader and the interpretation of anyone adapting the character. He does, however, describe him as “clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that flow from trees”, which is evident in Bedford’s illustrations. The Disney version however has Peter in a green tunic and tights, and a cap with a feather. This is probably as it made it much easier to animate, and I expect the feather in the cap is a nod to Peter’s original outfit. This character design could have been completely different though. The characters designs and story development were started in the early ‘40’s and included Nana going to Neverland, and a much darker ending, but World War 2 put production on hold. I’m assuming the ending was changed to a happier one as the film was released post-war, so naturally people would want to see more upbeat things. The novel itself is quite a bit darker throughout, compared to the Disney film. I think this itself shows the power or zeitgeist. If the war hadn’t happened, then the Walt Disney version could have been completely different, story-wise and design-wise.

Methodology

My design process often starts with a personal interest, which I suppose is needed otherwise what would interest you in a project. As an example I’m going to use my A level coursework. I chose to do a study into surreal fashion influenced by different cultures and time periods. I’m a big fan of Japanese culture, particular their pop culture, and so I started with this. I looked into Lolita fashion and various subgenres of this street fashion, most notably Gothic Lolita, Sweet Lolita, and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat, and realised that most genres were individually influenced by the zeitgeist of other eras or places, yet then adapted. I then moved on to looking at designers, and Vivienne Westwood in particular, using this as an opportunity to visit the Fashion Museum in Bath. I think visiting galleries, exhibitions, anywhere really, is important to the research process. It allows you to really get into research, rather than just using books all the time. From there I moved back into researching another area of Japanese pop culture, Cosplay. I looked at several cosplayers, focusing on a group called ‘Tuxedo Team’ from the Philippines. I then started the practical aspect of the project. I settled on creating a fusion between lolita fashio and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as lolita fashion has roots in the Victorian periods, which was when ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; was written. After numerous designs and sewing experimentation, I finally settled on a design and made the costume. As I’d never done textile work before I evaluated each stage, which lead to more efficiency as I progressed.

Development of ideas and structure in Moving Image

Digital storytelling

With the advancement of technology and the ever increasing netizen culture, it’s become inevitable that multiple platforms are now being used to bring films and TV shows to a wider audience. Social network websites such as Facebook and Twitter have become worldwide names, with Facebook alone having more than 500 million active users. One of the uses of Facebook is that you can make pages and groups for anything, and make them visible for the entire website community. In recent years television and production companies have been creating groups for their own shows as a way to make them more accessible for the younger generation and gather a wider audience, and it’s not just Facebook their using. As an example I’m going to use E4’s television show ‘Misfits’, whose premise is basically that five outsiders on community service get struck by a flash storm and attain special powers. It has its own official Facebook fan group, a Facebook character profile, an official Twitter page, and Twitter accounts for each of the main characters, along with its own website. All of these were created by E4 as a way to promote the show to a much larger audience and allow people to actually interact with it. The official website even has online games based on episodes of the show. It seems to be becoming increasingly more popular now for tv/film companies to give their characters profiles on social networking sites so that people can see what their doing, befriend them, and talk to them. Yes, this makes the characters more accessible, this adding an extra dimension to how the viewer experiences the show, but sometimes people seem to forget that they are only characters and that the person they’re talking to probably isn’t even the actor that plays them on screen, but I guess that doesn’t really matter as it’s a way to immerse yourself more fully into the story.

Story development: The hero’s journey

Joseph Campbell’s 17 stage ‘Monomyth’ refers to a basic pattern found in many narratives. The example that I’m going to use is Disney’s Mulan. She starts off running late for an appointment with a matchmaker, and after numerous mishaps, many due to a supposedly lucky cricket, the matchmaker ejects her from the premises exclaiming that she will only bring her family shame and dishonour. Her crippled father then gets told that he has to serve in the army, but Mulan asks the messenger to find someone else as he already served with the army, her father says she has dishonoured him and he would be glad to serve the emperor once more, and goes back inside. Mulan decides to go in her fathers place, steals his armour and sword and rides out to the army camp in the middle of the night. The family guardians send the great dragon guardian to watch over her, but demoted guardian Mushu ends up going instead, this is her supernatural aid. The next morning after they meet she has to go into the camp and start training, but first she has to pass as a man, this is crossing the first threshold. The belly of the whale is her having to keep up the charade. The training is vigorous, and it’s clear Mulan can’t keep up, this is her road of trials, she gets better though, and eventually is one of the best. They go off to fight the huns, Mulan gets revealed as a woman and left behind. She goes to the victory ceremony to warn her friends that the huns are still alive, but isn’t believed. The huns kidnap the emperor, and Mulan and her friends save him. She is honoured by the emperor bowing to her and showing all of China that she is a hero.

ITAP #4

Draw. Work by hand

A reflective visual journal is in essence a safe place to nurture and develop ideas. It’s a tool to enable the user to engage with the creative process as a learning journey. Perfection doesn’t matter in an RVJ, it’s about thinking visually, thinking by drawing, thinking out loud. Take designer Stefan Sagmeister for example, just from this one page you can tell that he’s exploring ideas, using images to speculate over design. Aside from traditional image making, I like Ken Carbone’s journal because it’s visually answering questions he’s asking, but also showing that RVJ’s really don’t have to be purely hand-drawn in. They’re a visual tool, so any form of image making can be included as a way to help you progress mentally and practically with your ideas.

Cultivate reflective practice

A reflective visual journal is a place to think. The user can use it to engage, question, evaluate, challenge, compare, contrast…etc. Brief notes should be made to record their critical reflection at all stages of the process. Although text can be visual as well, the critical reflection shouldn’t be an essay. Accompanying text to a paragraph at the most, as more can take away from the ideas and images that you are writing about. Visual and textual languages have specific advantages and disadvantages, but they work together extremely well. Visual language represents the visual world, so is good at grabbing attention and provoking an emotional response, whereas textual language is good at providing specifics and detail. Though saying this, you can create a visual language from textual language as well. Nobody has the time to read through enormous amounts of text, so if it has to be in there make the key points known, make them obvious. Our brains aren’t very good at distinguishing how to feel about seeing a picture of something real and actually seeing the real thing as the emotions illicited are similar for both. Words can actually help us distinguish better. When reflecting on work it’s important to ask yourself questions, such as ‘what if?’, ‘what is useful?’ and ‘why?’. This can help you work out problems and allow you to move forward with certain ideas, as well as making the ideas stronger.

ITAP #3

Researching the content

Within the world of visual communication researching the content for new briefs is a very important part as without it, the produced outcome will be of a poor standard compared to its contemporaries and it will not have any relevance. The whole point of research is to understand your ideas more thoroughly and then be able to take the best one(s) further. Only by doing this can you reach a well thought out final outcome that showcases your skill and meets most of, if not all the criteria of the brief.

The first thing you need to look into when researching the content is the subject of the brief. You need to know what it is and what’s it’s for, and then you can start researching it more thoroughly. Next would come the audience. If the brief was to design a poster for a children’s film, you wouldn’t create a poster featuring adult content that was obviously specifically aimed at adults as that goes against the brief and is for the wrong audience. You need to think about the people who will be seeing the film, which in this case would be young children. Research aspects of design that are known to appeal to that specific demographic. Without researching the audience properly, the entire outcome can fail as it wouldn’t be relevant and wouldn’t hold any appeal.

Finally, the message. This is the most important stage as it’s the main point of the brief. It needs to be easily communicated. In this case as it would be for a children’s film it would need to be quite simple, but also eye catching, playful and amusing. This is the area that should draw the intended audience in.

Researching the practice

When researching any practice you need to start by asking questions. With regards to visual communication one of the first questions you might ask could be ‘How do visual communicators think?’ and this can start the whole research process by exploring how they think and get those thoughts onto paper, by looking into the different ways people do this and their respective styles. More questions can arise from this such as ‘Who’s style do I admire? Who inspires me?’ and this can lead into exploring artists’ backgrounds and how they work, finding out how decide what style/colour/typeface/media to use in different projects. This all helps to understand the differing ways visual communicators work and how broad the possibilities of the practice are, showing you what has already been designed, and how. Observation, experimentation, reading, listening, exploring, all are key to researching and learning.

ITAP #2

Through the ‘visual practice’ of observation, collecting, studying and exploring, illustration can contribute to a deeper understanding of the subject.

Observation is an important part of the research process. Whether it’s everyday observation, or observing another practitioners work, it is a key process to enable you to progress with a project. Observational drawing provides insight into a specific subject, time or place, and it doesn’t just have to be drawing, but any form of image making. It is a form of primary research, and therefore allows you to get a firsthand look into your chosen subject. This can be said for collecting items too. An object can mean many different things for different people, and by documenting these results you can get a better understanding of the subject you’re researching. Studying and exploring are a mixture of primary and secondary research. You can study your subject further by referencing books or websites, but also by experimenting with different media and doing visual studies. This is continued by exploring different mediums and techniques. All of these visual practices enable you to get a deeper understanding of the subject you’re researching because you’re constantly investigating and exploring each area in detail, and therefore learning more about that specific subject as you go along.

An understanding and knowledge of ‘an audience’ can enhance and focus the communication

When communicating any message the intended audience has to be pre-determined and researched otherwise the communication will not have any focus. An understanding and knowledge of this audience is essential, otherwise the message will fail to come across. This is especially relevant in advertising, for example, if you’re trying to advertise a car to a 20 to 40 year old male demographic, you wouldn’t create an advertisement that appeals more to 6 year old girls because then the advert would have failed to communicate its message properly. If you’re trying to convey a message then you must first work out who you want to convey it to, and then research that particular audience to find out the best way to get that message across. Understanding the audience can radically change the outcome of a piece of work as it starts to have more of a purpose. By understanding how that particular audience thinks, acts, and lives you can communicate more successfully than if you hadn’t thought about the audience at all. People prefer to be able to relate to things, if they can’t relate to it then chances are they’ll ignore it. I do believe that the communication of a piece of work can be enhanced and focused by relating to a target audience.