feminism project
remake 01
For this assignment we had to remake a previous project of our own choice. I chose to work with a zine about feminism that I made for my portfolio. I’d been given the design principle of “rythm” that I had to incorporate in some way. We also had to document our process, hence the really long post.
starting point
now, where to begin?...
i started out with doing some brainstorming.
I wanted to highlight different aspects of feminism, like I had done in the zine. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with which mediums I worked with.
I brainstormed on which mediums I could use as well as what immidiate thoughts popped into my head.
At this point I had a lot of vague ideas bouncing around in my head. I decided to spend some time looking into rythm as a design principle to get a feeling for what I could create. So, it was brainstorming time again.
That didn’t give me all that much to work with, so I looked for examples that inspired me. I found a lot of great examples in a powerpoint from one of our classes.
first idea
My intital idea was to make an animation using misogynistic comments that I found online opposite a shape made up of positive comments from women to women. The shapes were made up of comments and had to “battle” each other, with the positive one initially being the smaller, but eventually growing bigger and overpowering the negative one.
I though that this would be a good way of working with rythm and I also considered animating to a relevant soundbite.
I considered:
“Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill
“We should all be feminists” TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Donald Trump talking about “nasty women”
The problems
I spent a while bouncing this idea around in my head, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to work.
The problems:
- it was gonna take a lot of time to find the comments
- how was I gonna animate a lot of small objects in a way that didn’t take forever?
- it was boring
- I would probably need to color the comments in some way so you would be able to tell the positive and negative comments apart
Eventually I let that idea go. Then I figured that I could maybe use the comments to make a poster instead. Maybe I would make it a moving poster. Maybe incorporate some statistics in some way.
I was inspired by Mona Chalabi and the way she illustrates statistics.
at this point I was pretty frustrated and I had zero ideas, so I went for a walk.
I’d hoped that I’d have a eureka! moment while I was on my walk, but, sadly, that didn’t happen. So when I got home I put on a relevant playlist and started experimenting.
I spent way too long finding misogynistic comments online for my posters. It didn't exactly help me have faith in humanity and, for the first time ever, I was disappointed that so many comment sections are moderated and that the worst comments get reported.
By now it was tuesday afternoon and I was getting a bit stressed that I hadn't gotten "the idea" yet. Luckily I had some other plans and didn't get to work on it until wednesday.
experimentation is the key to succes?
My work on tuesday ended up in two bad poster drafts (seen below). I had initally planned to start off on wednesday with brainstorming some more, but ended up opening Photoshop and experimenting instead. I found some inspiration on Pinterest for a cool way to work with text.
Looking for comments online had made me think about how language shape our reality and that it can be really hard to speak up about anything as a person if you get dismissed by people every time. That your anger isn't taken seriously by either that it's "cute" or you're "hysterical" or that if you're assaulted the blame is directed at you "what were you wearing?".
I ended up deciding on three statements that I wanted to use in my posters. They were:
"Du er sød når du er sur"/"You're cute when you're angry"
"Hysteriske kvindemenneske"/"Hysterical woman"
"Hvad havde du på?"/"What were you wearing?"
I then found a color palette from a picture online and started experimenting in Photoshop.
To be honest I mainly worked with what I though was working in terms of color and composition. It's something I want to think more about in the future.
I then started working on poster 2. Again I chose a color palette from a picture I liked, but made a sketch for the composition (that I didn't end up using all elements from).
For poster 3 I spent some time considering what colors to use. I realized that I had used red + light blue in both posters without making a conscious choice about it, so I tried to find a color palette that used the same colors again.
For all the posters I wanted to steer away from making the color palette too stereotypically masculine or feminine, but use both warmer and colder hues. I also added an element of some very large text (giving Photoshop some trouble) in the background of each poster, to add some additional shape and some curves in contrast to the blocky, rectangular text.
Layering the text on top of each other and "dragging" the letters made a glitchy effect that I thought symbolized that something was wrong with this statement as well as symbolizing how many times someone's used that statement and how tired you get from hearing it. The red used in all posters tie a "red thread" (a connecting element) from one poster to the next as well as symbolizing anger and frustration.
The posters could be sold in order to spread awareness about misogynistic language, especially online, and the proceeds given to an organization working to improve equality.
final posters
reflections
It was really interesting to spend some time thinking about how I get ideas and what my creative process looks like. I've definitely been through a rollercoaster this week with both a lot of joy and some frustration. I've learned some new things and been reminded of others, mainly;
- you will get an idea at some point, just have faith in yourself. Your brain is working even while you're doing something else
- go outside and experience something. You won't necessarily get a great idea, but vitamin d og fresh air is supposedly really good for you
- not every idea is groundbreaking and it doesn't have to be at all
- it really pays off to spend some time generating ideas instead of jumping headfirst into the first idea you get. It saves you a lot of time in the end
- be careful about restricting yourself too much - you end up having no creative freedom if you've made too many creative "rules" about colors etc.
- spend some more time thinking about why you make the choices you do next time bud
thanks for looking!
