Rude.

For my research into the Elmwood brief I have been looking into typography and how you can change peoples views and in our tutorial we all got talking about this piece of work:


I get what shes trying to do but I really don't like this very much. Good for my research though.

Rationale

Surprisingly I have really enjoyed writing this blog, although sometimes I know there could have been other things I added which I just didn't have time to do; it's a really good way to almost log your knowledge and keep a record of it. It has also allowed me to get different points of view and added another side to my knowledge of certain things. I think this would be such an effective way of gathering information (although not always factual) for my dissertation.

I have to say although the blog started off with a few things I didn't really care about although some were just important issues, my blog then evolved into a personality of its own decided by the posts I wrote. Writing this blog has made me more focused on what I actually write, it made me rethink my dissertation subject, as I know doubt I would be able to write in depth about that subject.

Throughout this project I have been reading other blogs and have found them very interesting, it is great to see what other people are passionate about and what drives them. Although I think it could have been more effective if when reading someone else’s post we had put links to similar posts so we could discuss conflicting or similar views or opinions.

Unsurprisingly the post with the most comments was my post on advertising: is to blame for binge drinking? Although we can all see both sides of this argument, many came to the same conclusion that blaming binge drinking on advertising is farcical. Obviously to me and I believe many other people the issues like this and product placement posts are great for dissertations and the comments other people have left are also a great way of getting another point of view. Current views of important issues became apparent when you could see trends emerging between various blogs for example the number of posts on Michael Jackson’s death, Product Placement and Advertising Alcohol.

One of the most intriguing things that has happened to me whilst completing this blog, I have started to read again! I have been buying The Times most weeks and getting whichever recommended read of the week book that is £2.99 with it, I forgot how much I loved reading and it was interesting to write up a review of them, in some way this might help me with my dissertation review. I hope after this blog to continue my renewed love for reading.

From this blog I have taken time out to visit different places, to see a little bit more. When I was in Turkey I went to see Ephesus; one of seven wonders of the ancient world. I wouldn’t have normally gone to see this, but I’m really glad I went to see it as it was fascinating, it was almost overwhelming the size and the excavation they have done on it.

I had no specific format to my blog, each was slightly different, this depended on the time and day I was writing them up. My titles were occasionally well thought out, but sometimes just straight to the point, that meant people could choose to read if they deemed the title interesting enough. I chose my title Differences Challenge Assumptions from the beginning; it was a anonymous quote I found which I thought was quite interesting, as I set out to do different things and to challenge what I normally thought or was interested in. I took a bizarre photograph of a slug on the end of a stick and decided that this might be quite interesting. Bizarre and different was the image I wanted to convey.

Overall, despite this project being slightly time consuming (at times) I have thoroughly enjoyed it and reading other peoples. I hope to continue this blog over the coming year, to read other people’s and to collect my thoughts in an organised way, that I have stored until a later date in case I need them. I hope it will be able to help me collect my thoughts for my dissertation and my independent project. If I could redo this part of my blog I would definately visit more galleries and dedicate more time to writing up about the different artists I had seen and also go and see more films and review them. Hopefully I will be able to fulfill this is the coming year.

Lloyds Building London

I don't know if I have ever seen anything more ugly. It is sometimes refered to as the inside-out building, for obvious reasons. It was designed by Richard Rogers and built between 1978 - 1986 and Bovis were the contractors.

The building is innovative for having all its services on the outside; lifts, staircases, electrical power units and water pipes, to leave an uncluttered space on the inside. This also means that they never have to shut off any floor at any given time, if anything goes wrong; water, electric etc, the firm can get into the building and carry on while maintenance work continues on the outside.

Despite this it does have escalators on the inside, which look amazing!



Extraordinary building, beautiful? I don't think so.

Gold is desirable.

Gold is at its most valuable right now and don't I know it. My Gosh! How many ads have been put on each channel from several different companies asking people to trade gold in. Here are just a few logo's from the companies I have seen advertised on day time telly.



 

This is such a good example of advertising that meets the demand of this economic climate, especially as one of the photos used a stock photo as its logo. They have been generated quickly and have not had that much money thrown at them as you could tell if you had seen them. The day time television viewers, the stereotypical; no job, no money, would love these advertised asking you to send in your gold to make a quick buck, although they don't state what type of money they will make on YOUR gold.

I am getting a bit bored of them now and unfortunately I have no gold to send in so I could make a bit of money!

So Rio Got the 2016 olympics..

This is the candidate logo that is currently being used for the RIO Olympic Games until an official logo is announced. I can't seem to understand why all recent olympic logos are lacklustre; we won't discuss the England fiasco, but Rio's logo should be fun and vibrant to convey the personality of its city!

This logo uses bright colours that are neither here nor there and the actual design seems washed out. From what I can gather about Rio its an exciting and bright city, with a fantastic culture, this should be shown in their logo for the world to see.

I wanted to see what their website was looking like in comparison to this logo, but unfortunately the site isn't working, let's hope that is not a sign of what the Rio Olympics has in store!
http://www.rio2016.org.br/en/Rio2016/

WE ARE ENGLAND

Corporate Edge has designed a new brand image for the England Squad for the commonwealth games. I really like this logo, its fresh and clean yet has a powerful and strong impact which is obviously something England as a Country want to convey when competing in the Commonwealth Games.

This looks very rugby-esque, similar to the type of branding you see for English Rugby.

Ratings..

After reading up on certain films that have been banned, its got me thinking about the similarities and differences between films and advertising.

The argument is that a film could "promote" something e.g. "Clockwork Orange" promotes "Ultra-violence" yet when it was banned this just encouraged people to want to see it. Therefore banning a film has an opposite effect.

Advertising on the other hand, we all argue cannot physically force someone to do something, for example if we were advertising a new chainsaw that was strong enough to cut through a skull, this does NOT mean that people would automatically go out and buy a chainsaw and start hacking people's heads off. Yet it would mean we were "promoting" violence, hence the ad would get banned. Similar to films, this technique is often used in advertising e.g. Benetton Ads, we all know about although they have been banned! Weird.

So as we would not want to be advertising rape or murder, do we as designers have an upper hand on the directors and writers of films who do in some ways "promote" these things. Should these people be more responsible about the power of persuasion and promotion that they have on a large audience?

Clockwork Orange, Worth Watching?

Since I have only watched half this film I can only comment on the half I have watched. I have heard people harping on about this film for years and one day off from work I decided to watch it; despite it being half 11 in the morning. I'm not sure why but I never really want to watch a horror/sick film in the morning they are more evening/night films!


I had previously read up about the film and the story is actually quite interesting and the in theory I do believe something like the techinques used in Clockwork Orange could work, but obviously as the story tells they do not!

Unfortunately this film lacks something and I think its mainly due to this generation X we talk about, The British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) originally released the film uncut with an X rating, but later received many complaints that "the film would damage society by inspiring teenagers to violence." Throughout 1973/74 police linked cases of teenage violence to "Clockwork Orange."

In response Kubrick had the film withdrawn from the country even though it had already been running for 61 weeks. This was not due to BBFC, it was because Kubrick and his family had been recieving death threats. It was not until 1999, the year of Kubrick's death that the film was legally permitted to be shown in Britain again.

Despite all this I do not find this film all that horrendous in terms of types of horror and gore we see in films now-a-days, Clockwork Orange doesn't come very high. Although I do see the horrific side of it, It didn't shock me as much as it may have shocked my mum 30 years ago at my age!

A film would have to go so far over the line these days to be banned,  I don't know if I would want to see a film that had to be officially banned in noughties!

Other films I didn't find that horrific or scary that were also banned in Britain: Texas Chainsaw Masscre, The Exorcist (also nominated for 10 Oscars, won 2) and The Last House on the Left which I have heard is bad but not all THAT bad.

This surely is why advertising these days misses certain target markets, as we cannot offend the other generations. Generation X are not affected or upset by most things which is why sometimes the very hard-hitting advertising is most effective when it is not banned, e.g. Road Safety Advertising.

A Japanese film Grotesque had been banned in 2009 due to a high level of sexual torture. This is one of this first films to be banned since 1989. So it must be bad.