They Made Me Who I am Today

Inspiration can come from many shapes and forms from sources to our connection with others and their works. Our understanding and choices are frequently built upon those we are influenced by. For the past few years, I grew up surrounded by influencers, innovators and critical thinkers who made me who I am now. Using the decision-making process, a personal timeline is designed to highlight and summarise my influencers.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

INFLUENCERS/ HEROES

The assignment requires to look at our influencers, innovators and critical thinkers. All of them seem pretty straight forward but what is an influencer, a term frequently used by brands. An influencer is ”an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience” (Influencer MarketingHub, n.d.). Followers often operate in a particular niche in which they actively engage with an audience. Micro influencers are becoming more influential but also more common because they gained a sizeable social media following and have in-depth knowledge about a specific niche.

Campbell (1988) believed that we all undergo on a hero-like journey and that during our lives “we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.” In this above-mentioned brief, I decided to add ”heroes” after watching a TED Talk on ”inspiration”. “Our heroes show the path to our desire, our role models inspire us to be more like them and our mentors help us to uncover and unleash our true potential” explain Dyan deNapoli, Senior Penguin Aquarist at the New England Aquarium, in her TED Talk. She confesses she would never have achieved all of her amazing encounters without having influential role models and mentors. The urges to seek out heroes, role models and mentors who can help us become the person we aspire to be. These can help us to move one step closer to our dreams since we all have to potential to achieve them, but we need other people to help us realise our greatest potential.

We choose our influencers and heroes, which shape our hero-like journey. How do we make a decision? What are the decision-making parameters/ factors?

DECISION-MAKING

Decision-making is a cognitive process, where the result is a choice between two alternatives. Often decision occurs in a moment of uncertainty when the choice will lead to either benefit or harm. According to Plato, decisions can be rational or emotional and argued that emotions were naturally in opposition to reason. Recent studies proved that emotions are more than just a distraction within the decision-making process. Antonio Damasio was one of the first neuroscientists to include emotions in our understanding of decision-making. He explains emotions can lead to bias decision but the absence of emotion doesn’t mean better decision-making (Damasio, 1996). The absence of emotion would actually make decision-making impossible and arguably logical decisions are always based on emotions. So, emotions are necessary for decision-making (Barbey, Colom and Grafman, 2014; Damasio, 1996).

A recent study from Barbey, Colom, and Grafman (2014) showed evidence in the discovery of discovering the neural mechanisms of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence guides us in managing our emotions to achieve personal goals, to cope with the immediate situation, make decisions and solve problems of a personal and/or interpersonal nature (Barbey, Colom and Grafman, 2014). Thus, emotions play an important role in decision-making, thus influencing future decisions (Naqvi, Shiv and Bechara, 2006). From a customer experience perspective, decisions are based on emotions and self-interests, so brands can help consumers to discover what feels right and most advantageous to them (Camp, 2012).

Although emotions play a big role in decision-making, according to Dietrich (2010), there are also several factors which influence decision-making like past experience (Juliusson, Karlsson and Gӓrling, 2005), cognitive biases (Stanovich and West, 2008), age and individual differences (Bruin, Parker and Fischoff, 2007) and belief in personal relevance (Acevedo and Krueger, 2004).
In the context of the above-described brief, a personal influencer timeline, the article looks at the past experience and the belief in personal relevance.

Lead researcher, Dr Zoe Kourtzi tells in his research how past experiences help when we have to make complex decisions based on uncertain or confusing information (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, 2009). Decisions are weight according to experience, often without thinking about it. Kahneman describes how people make decisions are determined by the memories of experience by the remembering self. Kahneman explains decisions aren’t based on a product experience but on memories of a (brand) experience (Widmer, 2016). Thus, his findings highlight the impact of the memory of experience on decision-making, which has an effect on the consumer experience and the quest to build brand loyalty.

Personal relevance refers to “the extent [to which] consumers perceive the object/objective to be self-related [or in some way instrumental] in achieving their personal goals and values” (Celsi and Olson, 1988). Rothman and Salovey (1997) and several later studies concluded the framing effect [how our choices are influenced by the way they are framed through different wordings, settings, and situations (The Decision Lab, n.d.)] occurs when people are involved with the issue. In other words, when a person is highly involved by an issue, he/she is more likely to process the relevant message in details (Petty and Cacioppo, 1983). Several studies showed that the level of personal relevant (high or low) can define the influence of a message on a person, thus on the decision-making process (Ghuge, 2010). According to Acevedo and Krueger (2004), when people believe what matters to them, they are more likely to make a decision based on their motivating factor.

CONCEPT

Goal: To design and present a personal timeline that highlights influencers, innovators, shakers and heroes. These influencers and heroes are shaping our understandings and guide/shape our choices. The following master assignment can be used as a possible starting point for future work.

Message: A look into my last 20 years of influencers, critical thinkers and heroes.

Format: Digital illustration/ infographic.

Idea generation: Ideas are formed by associating unrelated concepts in an unexpected or unusual way (Collins, 2018). To increase the change of having greater ideas, the brainstorming tool is used. It is a great way to generate ideas in a short period of time (Collins, 2018). To be successful, you need to look for unusual/ wild ideas, go for quantity of ideas, defer judgement, and combine/ build on ideas to create a new one. A couple of sketches were also done as a visual reference for the final product.

Final visualisation

Feedback: From a visual aspect, it seemed to be pleasing for the audience eye, although they found it difficult to see a DNA shape in my timeline. When looking back, I understand that the DNA shape disappears within all these shapes and information. I am also not satisfied with the colour palette. There is nothing wrong because there are analogous colours but they don’t convey any message in this visual. From a content aspect, I received little questions on my presentation, so I assume the presentation was clear. I believe that the presentation could have been clearer if I included more visuals.

FINAL RESULT

Not satisfied with the previous outcome, for the final design, I decided to design a new visual. This new visual represents a more accurate representation of the main influencer in my life, Windows 98. Thanks to my parent’s purchase of a 1998-computer, I started to explore the endless possibilities from this new technology using its communication tools, design software, web-research browsers and creative/ entertainment (coding, gaming and video) platforms. It opened up a new and broader universe than I could have ever imagined. I was no longer just a French kid, but an all-around kid! As catalyst to my curiosity and creativity, the new visual is a representation of Windows 98’s interface symbolising my generation and the main tool that influenced my identity.

My timeline is integrated into the Windows 98 window as if I was able to look at the parameters/ set-ups of my DNA. I believe that these influencers and heroes shaped my DNA, obviously not on a physical level but on a mental level. To summarise these various influences, I decided to divide into three parts my timeline, which corresponded to the human growth: childhood, teenagehood, and young adulthood.

CHILDHOOD: FROM 6 TO 12 YEARS OLD

• Ministry of French National Education: The French Education shaped 18 years of my life. The education is rather authoritarian and vertical, where you have to listen to your teacher and not question his lesson. The school crashes a lot of children because of its system. I would often find myself bullied because I would often ask questions and did not follow student clans/ bossy leaders. I would find the school system and teachers not supportive and not inspiring. It only raised within me this idea of achieving justice and fairness.
  
• Walt Disney: Born in the 19990s in a Western country, it is unavoidable to be influenced by the Walt Disney Studio. I grew up with the movies Snow White, Bambi, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins. A colourful cartoon world, the Walt Disney portrays in a very black and white world ‘evil vs good’ and aesthetics/ attributes expected from women. Despite the negative connotation of these movies, I was greatly inspired by drawing these characters and imagining stories when playing with dolls with my sister.
  
• Les Minikeums: It is a French youth show portraying 1990s caricatural celebrities puppets. The show was hosted by three puppets who were sharing their passion for technology, fashion, sport, song, and dance. Each show was a parody of news show. The show also played humouristic scenes with songs leading to a CD called Les Minikeums, L’alboum that I own and love very dearly. I really enjoyed this show because it developed a more critical eye to the news and various trends in the 1990s.
  

TEENAGEHOOD: FROM 13 TO 19 YEARS OLD

• C’est Pas Sorcier: It is a French youth science show hosted by three journalists who travelled around the world, interview specialists and conducted experiences to cover difference sciences topics like space and astronomy, geology, geography, botany, sport, health and many more. This show developed my curiosity for sciences and hunger for more knowledge.  I really enjoyed the way the experiences were originally conducted using models.
  
• Japanese mangas: France was very influenced by the Japanese culture and more particularly its manga and animations. My favourite mangas at the time were Detective Conan, Bleach, D.Gray Man, Full Metal Alchemist and many more. I really started to draw more on a daily basis by re-drawing my favourite manga characters. It influenced my drawing style for a very long time. Until today, I am still very strongly influenced by them from a drawing and animation perspective.
  
• Hayao Miyazaki: A fantastic Japanese manga-artist, animator, and filmmaker. Co-founder of the Ghibli animation studio, he produced, with many talented artists, renowned movies like Princess Monokoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle and many more. Fascinated by the drawing, Miyazaki particularly captivated me for the themes explored in his stories more particularly the environmentalism theme with the movie  Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro. It inspired me to draw with the intention to surprise and question the viewer.
  
• Albert Uderzo & Renée Goscinny: My father owns a large collection of Astérix & Obélix comic strips. I have read them all and really enjoyed going through the adventure of these two characters. Again, I really enjoyed the caricature of the ‘gaulois’ in these strips. I also motivated me to draw small strips of my daily life during classes.
  

YOUNG ADULTHOOD: FROM 20 TO 26 YEARS OLD

• Kendo: Kendo is a Japanese martial art, a heritage of the art of the warrior/ samurai. I have been practising this art for 8 years and I have gained many values through it such as assertiveness, determination, calmness, and focus. My teacher was also a great inspiration to me and taught me a lot about the kendo philosophy and surprisingly some management skills thanks to his job experience as a crisis manager at Rijkswaterstaat in the Netherlands (Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management). He taught me about the Emotional Intelligence Circles and by setting small goals which would be reviewed every three months.
  
• The Netherlands (Groningen): I moved to the Netherlands 9 years ago and did my higher education in ”Dutch” schools. By opposition to the French education, the Dutch education encourages students to be curious by questioning and looking for clues to answer the explored topics within the curriculum. By following this education, it made more assertive and curious to find more information on the given topics. I also learned from the Dutch such as being straight-forward and getting your message clearly even if it is not positive because it is more time and resources efficient when conducting businesses.
  
• Pam Warhurst: Pam Warhurst, a British community leader, activist and environment worker, gave a TED Talk, which inspired me to create a change around me. In her talk, she shows her determination in growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community. After watching this talk, I started to look into the sustainable food (forgotten vegetables/ fruits and seasonable products) and the permaculture. Based on her talk, I started to think of a new way of consuming food by focusing on local production, check my ongoing project Season In. This project may be the base of my master final project.

Disclaimer: With more time, I would ideally create this final work as an interactive piece with clickable links and pop-up windows.

In the end, I do not have one hero or influencer, I want to become my own hero by pushing the boundaries that are in front of me. I may still have to meet the mentor or role model who will guide and inspire my hero-journey. For now, I mentioned a number of influences shaped my curiosity, drive, critical thinking and develop my personal taste. These are very important because they help us to understand where we come from and how to arrive where we are at this moment. Influences should not be neglected but embarrassed because they can help us to form new connections or spark new forgotten interest.

CRITICAL REFLECTION

Influencers and heroes shape who we are as a person and may influence our daily decisions and thoughts. The assignment was interesting to undertake because it pushed me to think back on what key moments (translated into influencers and heroes) that marked and shaped my journey as a young adult. It was not difficult to recall them but it was difficult to choose, which of these influences made a change or created a real impact on me.

Looking at influencers and heroes can help to see recurrent patterns, a thread of interest thanks to a repeated interest. These should not be forgotten because they can be a source of inspiration (Pam Warhust for my start-up idea) and spark creativity in future projects (drawing style of Miyazaki).

Through this design, I can see that themes like storytelling, illustration, education, marketing/communication, and social engagement, are pillars of my identity. Some of these themes could be explored further to deepen my knowledge or even could become the foundation for the master project preparations. Not only, the themes of influencers and consumer decision-making could also spark ideas for a good thesis topic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acevedo, M., and Krueger, J. (2004). Two egocentric sources of the decision to vote: The voter’s illusion and the belief in personal relevance. Political Psychology, 25(1), p.115-134.

Barbey, A. K., Colom, R., and Grafman, J. (2014). Distributed neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9 (3), p.265–272.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. (2009, May 15). Past Experience Is Invaluable For Complex Decision Making, Brain Research Shows. [Online]. Available at: https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130930.htm (Accessed: 19 November 2018)

Camp, J. (2012, June 11). Decisions are emotional, not logical: the neuroscience behind decision-making [Online]. Available at: https://bigthink.com/experts-corner/decisions-are-emotional-not-logical-the-neuroscience-behind-decision-making (Accessed: 19 November 2018)

Campbell, J.  (1988). The power of myth, with Bill Moyers. New York, USA: Doubleday.

Collins, H. (2018). Creative Research, The Theory And Practice Of Research For The Creative Industries. 2nd edn. Bloomsbury: London, the United-Kingdom.

Damasio, A. R. (1996). The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the pre-frontal cortex, Transactions of the Royal Society, 351(1346), p.1413-1420.

de Bruin, W. B., Parker, A. M., and Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), p.938-956.

Dietrich, C. (2010). Decision Making: Factors that Influence Decision Making, Heuristics Used, and Decision Outcomes. Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 2 (2).

Ghuge, S. (2010). The role of personal relevance and mood on the persuasive impact of gain and loss frames in advertising messages about a vaccine against alcohol addiction. Graduate Theses and Dissertations.

Influencer MarketingHub. (n.d.). What is an Influencer? [Online]. Available at: https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/ (Accessed: 15 November 2018)

Jullisson, E.A., Karlsson, N., and Garling, T. (2005). Weighing the past and the future in decision making. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17(4), p. 561-575.

Naqvi, N., Shiv, B. and Bechara, A. (2006). The Role of Emotion in Decision Making, A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective, Psychology Science, 15(5), p.260-264.

Petty, R. E., and Cacioppo, J.T. (1983). Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: Application to advertising, 10(2), p.135-146.

The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Framing Effect – Biases & Heuristics [Online]. Available at: https://thedecisionlab.com/bias/framing-effect/ (Accessed: 15 November 2018)

Widmer, B. (2016, August 30). Not Experiences, But Memories of Experience Influence Decision-Making [Online]. Available at: https://www.guided-selling.org/memories-of-experience-influence-decision-making/ (Accessed: 19 November 2018)

Manifest your Manifesto!

The following assignment is a common one among art & design academies. It was proposed to me during my foundation years in Graphic Design at Willem de Kooning in Rotterdam. Unfortunately, I was not able to find to find my old manifesto, which focused on creativity and inspiration when undertaking a design project. Although it is a standard assignment, I think it is interesting to revisit this assignment because it pushes you to interrogate where you stand (what are your believes, philosophy and values?) as a citizen and as a future brand manager.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

MANIFESTO

”A written statement declaring publicly intentions, motives, or views of its users” (Merriam Webster, n.d.). The statement piece aims to promote a new idea with perspective notions for carrying out changes, supported by the author’s believes. It is often found as a political or artistic written form/ text like the Communist Manifesto or the Dada Manifest. Used to pass down ideas and views on the world, the manifesto could lead in a change of reader’s thinking, perception and behaviour.

CHANGE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Companies spend time and money to segment their audiences based on the belief, values and habits to create a more effective and personalised marketing campaign to change their brand preference. ”Marketers should be asking how consumers are alike, not how they’re different. People are much more similar than we think” explains Forbes (2018) in one of its article. The article argues that all buyers have similar associations about brands, so marketing teams must use certain codes and cues (language, imagery, music etc.) to bypass the sceptical brain and create positive associations on a subconscious level, thus leading to change in behaviour towards a brand. 

Joe Boyd, CEO of Rebel Pilgrim a creative agency in Ohio (USA), Boyd explains, in one of his company’s video, how to initiate change. One of the effective ways to do it is to tell the story of your preferred future that everyone would benefit from (also known as vision casting). It starts by explaining what would be the future be like for all of us when we reach to this preferred future. So, Boyd believes that the most powerful and effective way to create impact and lead to consumer change is to tell a compelling story. By using storytelling, one can create emotion and empathy leading to behaviour change. In Forbes’ article (2018), the author explains that emotion is the outcome. ” The key is for consumers to feel a positive connection with a brand, not for brands to communicate emotions”, in other words, the feelings are the result of a consumer experience not from a message delivered by the brand. A positive emotional connection is created by tapping into positive, familiar ideas in the consumers’ memories.

In the context of the research, I am looking to create a green and sustainable consumer behaviour and change. Over the last decades, the consumption of products and services has increased exponentially and worldwide. This consumerism led to depletion of natural resources, loss of biodiversity and rapid environmental deterioration (Kostadinova, 2016). There is an urge to change this behaviour to tackle and resolve our sustainability challenges.

According to Kostadinova’s research (2016), there are two categories that influence pro-environmental behaviour:

• Individual (related to the attitudes, values, demographic characteristics and other variables that affect the consumer’s decision-making behaviour).
• Contextual/ situational factors (related to external forces which may influence sustainable consumption in a positive or negative way).

”Changing consumers’ habits is a major challenge before sustainable consumption”, concludes Kostadinova (2016). She also argues that the low-involvement everyday decision-making on a good or service contributes to the significant environmental impact and is at the heart of overconsumption (this topic is still under-researched).

The conglomerate, Unilever, claimed to have used marketing and market research to promote behaviour change through their own model called Five Levers for Change. It is a tool that the company hopes will help others to tackle big sustainability challenges. The model is based on the well-known ”trigger, behaviour, reward” explained by the psychiatrist Judson Brewer in one of the TED Talk. Unilever’s model works when looking and going through the five levers (Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, n.d.):

• Make it understood: This lever refers to raising awareness and encouraging acceptance (Do people know about the behaviour? Do they believe it is relevant to them?).
  
• Make it easy: This lever is about convenience and confidence (Do people know what to do and feel confident doing? Can they see it fitting into their lives?).
  
• Make it desirable: This lever look at ‘self and society’, because we tend to emulate the lifestyles and habits of people we respect (parents or even celebrities) and follow society’s norms (Will doing this new behaviour fit with their actual or aspirational self-image? Does it fit with how they relate to other or want to?).
  
• Make it rewarding: This lever refers to demonstrates the proof and payoff (Do people know when they’re doing the behaviour ‘right’? Do they get some sort of reward for doing it?).
  
• Make it a habit: This last lever is about reinforcing and reminding once people have made a change (What can we do to help them keep doing it?).
  

Photo credit: Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, (n.d.)

For the following assignment, it is important to trigger the audience by bringing knowledge and positive emotions (storytelling) into the manifesto to hope for a green and sustainable consumer behaviour change.

If we want to create a behavioural change, like our attitude and excessive petroleum consumption, many people would rely on brands to reduce its use. However, is it wise to tackle this problem by leaving it in the hands of brands and designers? If we want to raise the issue, open up a dialogue, and create change in our habits, I believe that it is better to initiate this change by targetting, what I think is the core of the problem, the (future) consumers. Consumers are creating the demand and brands/companies are responding to this demand (most of the time and cases). Of course, we shall not deny companies’ effort to reduce environmental impact, but the focus is put on consumers’ moral responsibility towards consumerism in relation to a desire for a greener and healthier environment.

PETROLEUM & SUSTAINABILITY

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, petroleum is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons that occur in Earth in a liquid, gaseous, or solid state but it is often referred to the liquid form (McLeroy, Atwater and Riva, 2018).

Out of petroleum, plastic was created and mass-produced in the 1940s and 1950s and was intensively promoted because of its transparency, lightweight, malleability, and toughness properties as well as low cost of production (Rodriguez, 2018; Thompson, Swan, Moore and vom Saal, 2009). Plastic is a polymer made of hydrocarbon chains, which is often derived from liquid petrol (Plastics Make It Possible, 2011).

Did you know that 10 tons of plastics are produced every second worldwide and 1 ton ends up in oceans every 2 seconds (Cash Investigation, 2018)? Plastic is everywhere and in everything like tap water, food (salt, beer etc.), clothing, utility tools and even within you in shape of microparticles (McDermott, 2017)!

Notes from the documentary, Cash Investigation: Plastique La Grande Intox, aired on France 2

Items that contain plastic are convenient and cheap. Many activists published photos of plastics in the oceans showing the damages caused to the environment. However, we do not simply need to understand that it is happening but we need to know why it has happened. Modernized economic countries have a high degree of environmental awareness and generally good waste management practices. Most of the plastics found in the oceans come from less modernized economic countries that didn’t establish environmental standards such as awareness among the population and setting up recycling infrastructures. We should also not forget about natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. which aggravated the plastic dispersion from lands to oceans.

CONCEPT

Goal: Changing human behaviour on a small scale. Nowadays, plastic prevails over traditional materials like wood, leather, metal, glass, and ceramic. How can change consumer behaviour towards a petroleum consumption-free attitude? The manifesto is an attempt to raise awareness and ”explain” how easy can it be to reduce this excessive consumption for a plastic-free world.

Message: Reduce petroleum consumption (from excessive to a petroleum-free life).

Format: Manifesto in the shape of a pin attached to the actual manifesto text.

Visuals: Ideas are formed by associating unrelated concepts in an unexpected or unusual way (Collins, 2018). To increase the change of having greater ideas, the mind mapping tool is used. A large and unclear problem generally benefit from this tool to lay out the elements. Mind mapping is useful to create hierarchy and categorisation in a visual and clear manner allowing an easier association between ideas (Collins, 2018). A couple of sketches were also done as a visual reference for the final product.

Reference: Label pins are iconic symbols that represent causes, brands, political parties or musical artists. Cristaux (n.d.) explains that the label pins’ history may date back to Egypt in 1800 B.C. who used wire to form decorative filigree pieces. Six hundred years later the Grecian artists began using powdered glass to fill in the spaces between wires in filigree designs (Cristaux, n.d.). Label pins come from the decorative enamelled objects from ancient times, where the process of enamelling is still used nowadays for colour inlay. From a functional purpose to a decorative object (accessory), the pin became a medium for making a political or social statement displaying an attitude/ membership of a movement (Malev, 2017). The pin is a very intimate act making the wearer part of something offering a way to express him/herself to a wide audience (Malev, 2017).

Reference: Pins Won’t Save the World is a project initiated by Sagmeister & Walsh, a NY design agency, and contributed by a cohort of artists like Adam J Kurtz, Mike Perry, Timothy Goodman and Jing Wei. It focused on raising funds for charities that support causes under the threat by Trump and his administration such as Planned Parenthood, the NAACP Legal Defence Fund, ACLU, International Refugee Assistance Project, the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund, and the Trevor Project (Pins Won’t Save the World, n.d.).

Photo credit: Sagmeister & Walsh (2018)

First sketches

Manifesto

Layout

The pin symbolises my manifesto and the act of wearing it proves that the owner acts accordingly to the manifesto. The pin would be attached on a recycled square brown paper card. The recto side would showcase the pin and the title of the manifesto. The verso side gives a general fact about the consumption of petroleum (a.k.a. plastic) followed by the manifesto helping the reader to change his/her consuming behaviour. At the bottom of the card, a small annotated text explains where the money is going for every pins purchase. The money could be raised for social initiatives or associations like The Plastic Bank.

Second sketches

The poppy is commonly used as an icon to remember people who lost their lives during WWI in Anglo-Saxon countries. Worn during Remembrance day, the poppy is based on a famous poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, a Canadian soldier previously known as a poet and physician (Hutchcroft, n.d.). Looking at this example, I decided to look at something, which can symbolise adversity through the abundance of plastics on our Earth. In the flower repertoire, dandelion is very easy to grow and do not need much attention, in fact, they are often considered like nuisances. Difficult to remove, dandelion can live on acidic soil, which makes them very resistant to harsh conditions. Microplastics can make the soil less fertile leading to a long-term negative effect on ecosystems (UN Environment, 2018). From its colour and properties, this flower inspired me to be one who prevails from this land pollution.

The yellow flower head is composed only of ray flowers (Jackson, 2015), so I imagined that a pin could be a ray and by collecting them, a dandelion could be created. Thus, a larger illustration would appear before the eyes of the viewer/owner of the pins.

FINAL RESULT

Master project?

CRITICAL REFLECTION

The concept was generally well accepted. The research and logic behind my manifesto appeared to be solid taking into account the time dedicated to the assignment. However, I was not able to show the final result because I waited too long to take a final decision about the manifesto’s content. Taking quick decision is important and I hope that I can be less indecisive in the future.

Based on the feedback, the first visual draft portrays a too negative image, which may refract people from wearing the pin. This is something that I have expected, but I found the visual representation of the manifesto rather difficult. I need to stop thinking too literally but think more metaphorically. This can be done by making a connection between the problem and something else, something unusual (Barrett, 2016). ”When you use a metaphor to link two ideas together, you are combining elements that have little or no logical connection” (Barrett, 2016). Thus, it interesting to look at the relationship between the ”tenor” (object or concept) and the ”vehicle” (what is compared to) of a metaphor (Relihan, n.d.).

After discussing with my classmates, I was pointed at looking from a positive nature perspective, meaning that nature always takes back its rights. This is something that I have future developed after the presentation. Visual thinking will also be an interesting way to stimulate my imagination, especially after reading an article on 5 Sketching Secrets of Leonardo Da Vinci: sketch your ideas out 4-5 times, use annotations in your sketches, collaborate with other when you sketch, engage your imagination, and look for combinations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, T. (2016, September 2,4). 9 Ways to Think More Obliquely and Develop Your Ideas [Online]. Available at: https://medium.com/startup-grind/9-ways-to-think-more-obliquely-and-develop-your-ideas-6c3abe30dd09 (Accessed: 12 November 2018)

Cash Investigation. (2018, September 11). Plastique: La Grand Intox [Online]. Available at: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-magazine/france-2/cash-investigation/cash-investigation-du-mardi-11-septembre-2018_2925427.html (Accessed: 06 November 2018)

Collins, H. (2018). Creative Research, The Theory And Practice Of Research For The Creative Industries (2nd ed.). London, UK: Bloomsbury.

Cristaux. (n.d.). A Brief History of Lapel Pins [Online]. Available at: https://www.cristaux.com/blog/history-of-lapel-pins/ (Accessed: 12 November 2018)

Dermott, A. (2017, October 11). Plastic is in Everything Now, Here are Seven Places It’s Turned Lately [Online]. Available at: https://oceana.org/blog/plastic-everything-now-here-are-seven-places-it%E2%80%99s-turned-lately (Accessed: 06 November 2018)

Forbes. (2018, September 06). How and Why Does Consumer Behavior change? [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/09/06/how-and-why-does-consumer-behavior-change/#7be8fdbe86dd (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

Hutchcroft, A. (n.d.). Biography of John McCrae Flanders Fields Author [Online]. Available at: http://www.flandersfieldsmusic.com/johnmccrae-bio.html (Accessed: 30 November 2018)

Jackson, B. S. (2015). Pissenlit [Online]. Available at:  https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/pissenlit (Accessed: 30 November 2018)

Kostadinova, E. (2016). Sustainable Consumer Behavior: Literature Overview. Economic Alternatives, 2, p. 224-234.

Malev, D. (2017). To The Point, Pins Mechanisms And Brooch Back Design. Leipzig, Germany: Winterwork.

McLeroy, P. G., Atwater, G. I., and Riva, J. P. (2018). Petroleum [Online]. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/science/petroleum (Accessed: 06 November 2018)

Merriam Webster. (n.d.). Manifesto [Online]. Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifesto (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

Plastics Make It Possible. (2011). What Are Plastics & How Are Plastics Made? [Online]. Available at: https://www.plasticsmakeitpossible.com/about-plastics/types-of-plastics/what-are-plastics/ (Accessed: 06 November 2018)

Pins Won’t Save the World. (n.d.). About [Online]. Available at: https://www.pinswontsavetheworld.com/pages/about-us/ (Accessed: 04 November 2018)

Relihan, B. (n.d.). Four Steps to Encourage Metaphorical Thinking [Online]. Available at: https://www.crresearch.com/blog/four-steps-to-a-metaphorical-connection (Accessed: 12 November 2018)

Rodriguez, F. (2018). Plastic [Online]. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic (Accessed: 06 November 2018)

Sailor Jerry. (n.d.). The History of Tattoos [Online]. Available at: https://sailorjerry.com/en/tattoos/overview/ (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

Shaw, J. (2015). Vintage, 100 Years of Traditional Tattoos – Tattoo from the Collection of Jonathan Shaw Flash. Brooklyn, NY: PowerHouse Books.

Sustainable Materials. (n.d.). Materials List [Online]. Available at:  http://www.sustainablematerials.org.uk/resource/ (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

TED Talk. (2016, February 26). A simple way to break a bad habit | Judson Brewer [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-moW9jvvMr4 (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

Thompson, R. C., Swan, S. H., Moore, C. J., and vom Saal, F. S. (2009). Our Plastic Age, The Royal Society, 364 (1526), p1973-1976.

UN Environment. (2018, April 03). Plastic Planet: How Tiney Plastic Particles Are Polluting Our Soil [Online]. Available at: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic-planet-how-tiny-plastic-particles-are-polluting-our-soil (Accessed: 30 November 2018)

Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. (n.d). Inspiring Sustainable Living: Expert insights into consumer behaviour & Unilever’s Five Levers for Change [Online]. Available at: https://www.unilever.com/Images/slp_5-levers-for-change_tcm244-414399_en.pdf (Accessed: 05 November 2018)

October Influences

Since I moved to the United-Kingdom, I decided to record my influences every month. I try to look at and attend events, talk and exhibition that are related to the field of illustration to grow my knowledge and network. Of course, these influences are not restricted to the illustration field but all aim to grow my knowledge in the art, design, entrepreneurship and brand fields.

Artist Talk Series

I became familiar with the event thanks to my classmate Rita who showed an interest in it on Facebook. I looked at what does this event have to offer. The Artist Talk Series is an event that is run once per month starting from October 2018 to March 2019, so a total of 6 months. Hosted at the Boileroom in Guilford, the money raised during these events are dedicated to the artist community of Guilford.

Guest Talk //01- Emmeline Pidgen

Photo credit: Emmeline Pidgen, 2018

Emmeline Pidgen was the artist to open up the event talk series. She is a freelance illustrator who focuses on narrative and sequential illustrations for both children and adults. She occasionally draws original characters.  She likes to combine traditional and digital drawing, but her first love remains ink and coral/teal colour palettes. I enjoy her work (drawing style) and I admire how she manages to keep this traditional look in her digital work.

Emmeline’s talk started with a presentation of her artist career supported by her work. She then moved on explaining her life as an entrepreneur/ freelancer. We were able to ask her questions and one of mine was concerned about her way to look for projects. She explained that it was coincidental, but most of them happened because of her proactive attitude on the internet with self-initiative projects like What Emmeline Wore In October, which led to a collaboration with brands like collaborations with brands like Oasis, Joules, Fat Face, White Stuff and People Tree. What I take from her talk is the importance to be active online and to keep producing on a daily basis.

Emmeline had a stand with her illustrations, books and booklets like Creative Tips For Your Fight Through The Freelance Jungle. I decided to purchase it to first support her work and get her insight as a freelancer. This is something that appeals to me, maybe not at this moment of my career but surely at a later stage.

Photo credit: Artist Talk Series, 2018

The talk was followed by a workshop organised by Emmeline. She proposed us to do a blind drawing, meaning looking at a photo or a person without looking at the paper. This is a great exercise to understand the coordination between what we see and what produce with our hands. This exercise produced some interesting results and is a great way to spark creativity.

[DRAWINGS coming soon]

MCM LONDON COMIC-CON 2018

MCM Comic-Con is a pop culture event celebrating the world popular culture. At this event, I could find gaming stands [(new) games, developers, talents showing their latest & upcoming releases], film exhibitors [DC Comics stand], Pop Asia stand [mangas, animes and cosplays], a special guests/ author corners, and a Comic Village.

Photo credit: Anime UK News, 2018

It was a great place to see the latest trend in the comic, gaming and animation industries. I had the chance to view a small exhibition of the latest movie from Mamoru Hosoda, Mirai, produced by the Studio Chizu (one of the oldest animation studios in the world). In this exhibit, I had the opportunity to see the storyboards and it evolved into one of the movie scenes. I look forward to watching this new animated movie.

Photo credit: Otaku Tale, 2014

Another booth/stand attracted my attention. It presented the electronic-pop music video ME!ME!ME! produced by Teddy Llyod with the lyrics from Daoko. The character designers of the video is a joined-effort between Shuichi Iseki and Hibiki Yoshizaki.

The animated video tells the story of an otaku (a person with obsessive tendencies like gaming, anime, manga and figurines), Shuu who lost his girlfriend, Anna, because of his addiction. Starting from Shuu’s room, he is thrust inside his fantasy world through his TV. It starts with the nice side otaku (bright and naive colours) and moves on to a darker side (bloody colours) representing the dark side with the degrading portrayal of the woman body from the otaku culture. The female character represents his girlfriend Anna. He wants to get back to the old Anna but the addiction is too strong, stuck into the otaku culture. To know more about the video content, check YouTube Explained‘s video. The video is a critique of the otaku culture, its negative side, and degrading the image of women portrayed in anime, gaming and all sorts of media.

Released in 2014, the video is intended for a mature audience, so to view the video, I had to show an ID. I am surprised that I haven’t heard of it before although it met with high acclaims from the viewers and critics for its high-quality animation and catchy-sounding composition. As I entered the viewing space, there was an opportunity to look at storyboards and character designs of the video clips. They were truly inspiring and disturbing at the same time, which makes Japan so special!

Photo credit: Otaku Tale, 2014

The Comic Village was a great place to meet publishers like Blue Fox Comics, illustrators to network and buy their merchandise. I would like to present you some of the following artists that I met and who particularly caught my attention.

Shanefaced

Photo credit: Shanefaced, 2018

Shanefaced is a comic artist based in North London, his drawings mix a dark and surreal twist to his everyday life. He is inspired by Gris Grimley, Jamie Hewlett, manga and various brands. I love the use of simple/ comic lines and the desaturated colour palette.

Sarah Tamat-Jones

Photo credit: Sarah Tamat-Jones, 2018

Sarah Tamat-Jones is an illustrator and illustrates based in London for editorial, publishing and advertising. She worked for The Guardian, ASOS, Unilever, Viacom,  Washington Post, Vanity Fair and many more. I really enjoy her hand-drawn lines and bold colour palettes.

Nathan Hillustration

Nathan Hill is an illustrator and comics creator. He particularly enjoys drawing monsters and creatures. I particularly enjoy going through his zines like Floaty Herbs Guide and Floaty Spice Guide that are showing a mixed approach, traditional (hand drawn strokes) and digital (colouring).

Sarah Jones

Photo credit: Girl in the Rain, 2018

AKA Girl in the Rain, Sarah is an illustrator and storyboard artist also based in London. She loves to tell stories, so she published several short comics like The Doll Maker. I love her use of watercolours and inks to create dramatical sceneries.

This ends the October influencers series. November influencers coming soon so, STAY TUNED!

Visualise Statistics Challenge

During one of our MA class, we accumulated a range of statistical information captured in photographic form. We were asked to analyse, present and conclude a range of information based on these data collated. It is a creative challenge that helps us understand data collection and teaches us how to translate these data into information for a broad audience.

My goal is to create an informative and, yet, entertaining visually. So, it is interesting to look at how storytelling can be used in an informative design. Furthermore, I decided to focus on (future) leaders within the defined sample. Before creating the informative design, information has been collecting regarding the following topics: (visual) storytelling and lead (leadership).

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

[VISUAL] STORYTELLING

Visual storytelling is being used in various media such as newspapers, magazines, websites, advertising, museums etc. According to Losowsky, visual storytelling is the combination of emotional reaction and narrative information. To approach visual storytelling, designers will either aim to maintain a sensation of continuity (through a colour scheme, typography and tone of the information) or invoke contradictory emotions using a piece of visual language and its content (Klanten et al., 2011). Studies showed that more than half of the brains is dedicated to the processing of visual input, so it is necessary to convey information in a memorable and/or digestible form using visual-based storytelling.

The book, Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language, provides a collection of inspiring visual ‘graphics’ examples, but the main idea behind the book is to explain how visual storytelling takes a familiar image context, photos and illustration, and use them in a new way.

Design storytelling is a book, which looks at narrative techniques to create satisfying graphics. Lupton (2017) explains the importance of a good story for good design because a good design connects an audience through shared experiences. Thus, it is important to narrative techniques to create powerful work. The book looks an action tool, emotion tools and sensation tools.

To create an informative design, I decided to use action tools like the storyboard tool to sketch ideas and to illustrate the final product. The Rule of Three tools was also explored because studies show that the audience is more likely to understand and absorb any type of information are grouped into threes (Lupton, 2017). A study showed that a visual present no more than 6 to 12 elements when representing a single concept or idea (IQ Doodle School, n.d.). So, 12 elements can be presented in a visual as long as they are grouped into threes. Finally, it is very important to visuals simple and straightforward to get the message across (KISS Principle).

LEADER[SHIP]

For a career perspective, I seek to be an inspirational art/ creative director, so I decided to focus my assignment on leadership. Thus, I will investigate leaders who are taking part in this visual statistics assignment.

Leader. To achieve organisational goals, a leader should possess a number of specialist qualities. According to Marcus and van Dam (2007), a true leader possesses the following qualities:

• Does not impose his/her leadership
• Attracts supporters without needing to be coerced
• Demonstrates an ability to fulfil the wishes of followers
• Is an expert

There are historical examples of strong leaders like Napoleon (French emperor), Winston Churchill (British prime minister), Mahatma Gandhi (Indian activist), Nelson Mandela (South African president), Richard Branson (Virgin Group CEO), and Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) just to name a few. The French general/ president, Charles de Gaulle, once said ‘’the effective leader has to be well informed about the details of specific circumstances, he should not think in abstract or vague general theories and should have more self-confidence than his rivals’’.

Nowadays, leaders need to challenge the status quo, create visions of the future, and inspire organizational members to want to achieve the organisational/leaders/their visions. A study looked at charismatic leaders and reported that the relationship between a leader and his/her employees would have the following qualities (Marcus and van Dam, 2007):

• A leader is considered by his employees (followers) in some ways to be superhuman
• Employees do not question the opinion of the leader
• Employees follow their leader unconditionally
• Employees will give a leader complete emotional support

From a leader to leadership style. Leadership refers to ‘’the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals’’ (Robbins and Judge, 2013). Leadership can also be the relationship through, which one person influence the behaviour or actions of other people, meaning on an interpersonal/behavioural context (Mullins and Christy, 2013). There are different styles of leadership style but there are 9 that are commonly known, check them out by clicking here.

What makes a ”good” art leader/ director? According to Niklas Dorn (n.d.), if you want to be a successful art director, you need to adopt the following 7 traits:

• Self-confidence in every project you work on, and every assignment you turn in.
• Keep on learning from your superiors and take all advice/ feedbacks (of course, with a grain of salt). Keep on asking questions, curiosity leads to new ideas.
• Stress-resistance because creative agencies deal with several projects at the same time, so you’ll have to stay on top of your work.
• Think out of the box, it is important to try and create unique, successful projects by using your colleagues and superiors to help foster your creative success.
• Communication skills because you’ll have to build relationships with clients, co-workers, and superiors.
• Strategic thinking because you’ll to have a tactical plan to achieve your objectives.
• Teamworking skills where you’ll inspire your team and strategically place your colleagues were their strengths lie for every project.

According to Artisan (2016), there are 10 qualities for becoming a successful art director:

• Resilience, to handle the bruised egos of others.
• Focus, to think of the big picture while thinking about every detail of this big picture.
• Imagination to invent a project from scratch.
• Diplomacy skills when discussing ideas with the team and client (be prepared to tell a graphic designer to throw away an idea).
• Courage and remember to not be afraid of failure.
• Good design sense, a passion for design is a prerequisite.
• Punctuality and efficiency as meeting the deadlines are crucial in this field.
• Market knowledge to pitch the ideas to the marketing department/ client.
• Experience/ productive career before obtaining this status.
• An outstanding portfolio is more important than a resume (important to document everything).

CONCEPT

Goal: Translating photos into visual statistics by selecting parameters to create digestible information for a broad audience.

Message: A closer look at future art leaders traits from MA Graphic Design and Design, Innovation & Brand Management courses at University for the Creative Arts in Epsom.

Format: Digital illustration/ infographic.

Content: Translating photos into visual statistics by selecting parameters.

The sample of this experiment is 42 MA students (n=42). The story focuses on the leaders in two MA courses at the University for the Creative Arts: Design, Innovation & Brand Management; and Graphic Design. Based on the question ”Are you a follower or a leader” a total of 15 students categorised themselves as a leader. Here are the following demographic characteristics of the observed group:

• Sample size: 15
• Age: Millenials (the mid-20s and early 30s)
• Gender: 5 (men); 10 (women)
• Ethnicity*: 4 (European); 10 (East Asian); 1 (Central Asian)
• Occupation: MA Graphic Design students at UCA (Epsom); MA Design, Innovation and Brand Management students at UCA (Epsom)

Disclaimer: The following observation fails to reach an equal number of respondents per ethnic groups, plus it does not represent all the world ethnic groups. So, the observation cannot draw a portrait of leaders and comparison between recorded ethnicity groups. Next, the observation looks at only at two MA course offered at UCA (Epsom). Due to the sample size and the above-mentioned restrictions, the gathered data cannot be generalised to the overall UCA (Epsom) population parameter.

To complete this challenge, I looked for patterns through the different categories set during the data collection. Based on the gathered data, I decided to look at the following traits of the 15 students (leaders), which would give us more information about the general profile:

• Introvert vs Extrovert
• Speaker vs Listener
• Organised vs Unorganised
• Giver vs Receiver
• Sketchbook vs Journal
• Pencil vs Pen
• Coloured clothes vs Black & white clothes

All the data are treated, reported and calculated using Microsoft Excel. The following tables give an overview of the selected parameters:

To represent the chosen traits, it is important to create an illustrated representation. To do so, I tried to sketch out symbols, which were drawn in my sketchbook.

Finally, I combined the different symbols with the observed traits of the leaders from the MA Graphic Design and MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management of 2018-2019. The idea was to create one strip, one story, which could be used in the future for a UCA brochure.

FINAL RESULT

CRITICAL REFLECTION

The assignment was slightly frustrating me because I knew that based on my infographic concept idea, the data would never be supportive (irrelevant due to the lack and limited data collection).

To complete the assignment, Microsoft Excel was used to quantify the data and the informative design was created in Adobe Illustrator to improve my software silks. I decided to create a condensed design, which could be used by UCA in their information brochure regarding the courses and opportunities that the university offers. After being presented in front of the class, there was not any clear feedback given to me.

From a personal point of view, I believe that I was not able to create a good story through this infographic. This is probably due to the way of how the information is displayed. The characters should probably be repositioned and the item representing a data may also be separated from the characters. It would have been interesting to get feedback from a design point of view so I could have grown from this graphical experience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Artisan. (2016, May 25). 10 Qualities of Successful Creative Director [Online]. Available at: http://creative.artisantalent.com/10-qualities-of-successful-creative-directors (Accessed: 01 November 2018)

Dorn, N. (n.d.). 7 Powerful Traits of Successful Art Directors at Ad Agencies [Online]. Available at: https://blog.filestage.io/powerful-traits-of-successful-art-directors-at-ad-agencies/ (Accessed: 01 November 2018)

IQ Doodle School. (n.d.). The 6-12 KISS Principle of Visual Thinking [Online]. Available at: https://school.iqdoodle.com/framework/core-principles/the-6-12-kiss-principle-of-visual-thinking/ (Accessed: 01 November 2018)

Klanten, R. S. Ehmann, S. and F. Schulze, F. (2011). Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language. Berlin, Germany: Gestalten.

Lupton, E. (2017). Design is Storytelling. New York, USA: Cooper Hewitt.

Marcus, J. and van Dam, N. (2007). Organisation and Management, An International Approach. Groningen, the Netherlands: Noordhoff Uitgevers.

Mullins, L. J. and Christy, G. (2013). Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th edn. Harlow, England, UK: Pearson Education Limited.

Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T. A. (2013). Organizational Behaviour. 15^th edn. New Jersey, USA: Pearson Education.

Brand Who? Brand Yourself!

Today’s challenge was to look into at all the brands that we buy into and list them. The list is not exhaustive but should include brands within the following categories: food, clothing, cosmetics, entertainment, and service providers. The aim of this challenge is to think and observe how these brands define us as a human being and a consumer.

CONTEXT

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), a brand [noun] refers to giving an identity to a product or service made by a particular company. The American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand [noun] is a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.” (Keller, 2013). However, marketers in the field of marketing and communication look at a brand [noun] as a marketing tool to increase brand awareness > brand image > brand response > brand resonance, Keller’s Brand Equity Model (Keller, 2013). So, it appears that a brand can either be referred to as a marketing tool or elements creating the identity of a product or service.

From a marketing perspective, brand management refers to the development of a strategic plan to maintain brand equity (the value that a company creates through a product/ service) (Keller, 2013). To create brand equity, a company must make the product/service memorable, easily recognizable, reliable, and having a superior quality than its competitors (Amstrong and Kotler, 2012). In the end, brand management is a tool used to building a consumer strong loyalty, being unique and indispensable in the eyes of the consumer.

Looking at a brand as a verb, the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), it is to say that you think someone/ something is a sort of person/ something. Thus, to brand can be regarded as to label or mark someone with something. So, thinking about brands that we are buying into, can it really define who we are as a consumer and as a human individual? Can we label or mark someone after looking at the brands he/she is buying into?

CHALLENGE & REFLECTION

To fulfil this challenge, I listed on a piece of paper all the brands that came into my mind during my recent buying experiences. To sort all these brands, I chose five categories based on the brief which are known as followed: food brands, clothing brands, technology/ IT brands, cosmetic brands, and entertainment brands. These categories represent the best my daily/monthly/yearly product and service consumptions as a consumer. The following illustration provides a summary of my brand list.

For the past 6 years, I became a newly independent consumer, because my parents were no longer paying for my utilities as I started to live by myself. Thus, my journey as a consumer began influenced by my parent’s habit in buying more than we actually need for the sake of ”just in case we don’t have it any more at home”. However, I slowly became aware of my responsibility as a consumer in this society of consumerism. I realised the importance of reducing our consumption to preserve our environment and its eco-system.

Now, when I look for a (new) product or service, I want the brand to be socially responsible and if the brand is, I would be more loyal to this brand than a brand not questioning its moral intentions. In this illustration, these brands are:

• Food brands: Innocent, The Original Oatly, and Nos Régions Ont Du Talent from Leclerc.
• Clothing brands: Fjall Raven, Monki, Dr Martens, and I visit a lot of vintage stores.
• Technology brands: Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Ecosia, and Qwant.
• Cosmetic brands: Beauty Kitchen, Kat von D, Bambaw, Salt of the Earth, and Yves Rocher.

Not all the brands in the illustration have been mentioned because they aren’t showing social and/ or environmental engagement. I choose those brands because I think that they are respectful to my body from the inside to the outside but also the environment (recycled clothings, noble material, cruelty-free cosmetics). Again, this aligns with my conviction to reduce my carbon footprint by lowering my consumption of meat and fish (flexitarian), and looking for durable & natural products. In this illustration, these brands are:

• Food brands: Nakd Wholefood and Eat Natural. I visit food markets to buy vegetables & fruits in bulk. I also try to consume seasonable products to reduce my carbon footprint.
• Clothing brand: Thirdlove.
• Technology brands: Asus and Wacom.
• Cosmetic brands: BareMinerals, Bobbi Brown, and Sanex.

The last brands are either bringing back memories or for personal pleasure. This is particularly the case for food brands. Regarding the other brands for clothing, technology and cosmetics, they are a matter of preference and personal taste. Lastly, the entertainment brands can also be divided into different sub-categories like learning, amusement, informative, and social.

• Food brands: HandsOff My Chocolate (pleasure), Whittard (pleasure), Pringles (pleasure), Mister Kitchen (pleasure), Bonne Maman (memories), Kinder (memories), Lu (memories), and Maggi (memories).
• Clothing brands: Urban Outfitters, Clarks, Systemaction and KendoStar.
• Technology brand: Sennheiser.
• Cosmetic brand: Guerlain.
• Entertainment brands: Duolingo (learning), PlayStation (amusement), Netflix (amusement), Neko-san (amusement), Magic Gathering (amusement), France Inter (informative), and Facebook including Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube(social).

As a consumer, I attach a lot of importance on the brands showing and taking on social and environmental responsibilities. Thus, I would brand myself as someone conscious of its carbon footprint when consuming. However, after reflection, it appears that I am more inclined to close my eyes on these moral values, especially for brands in the food and entertainment sectors. Regarding some of the food brands, I grew up with them and they remind me of memories of my childhood (the madeleine of Proust). The other food brands are my little treat creating a moment of instant pleasure, but these brands could be replaced by alternatives if I looked for them. Regarding the listed entertainment brands, it becomes difficult to find substitutes because they often have a monopoly in the market. The real question is, do I really want to look for these alternatives?

This challenge made us think about our consumer behaviour and observe the brand we are buying into. The illustration shows a brief summary of all the brands that I am consuming. There are many and diverse brands, but it does not mean I am consuming them heavily. Like many other consumers, I am looking into living in a minimalistic lifestyle. A minimalistic lifestyle means living with fewer material possessions and focusing on what’s important, so according to the Minimalists (n.d.), we can find happiness, fulfilment, and freedom.

Looking at my behavioural consumption, I believe that brands will increasingly be called upon to take responsibility for resolving some of the world’s problems such as climate change, preservation of biodiversity, consumerism, human rights, health issues like obesity and malnutrition, food dumping, fake news and many more. More consumers are increasingly looking and wanting brands to be socially responsible (Hesse, 2012).  Brands must play a role in encouraging customers to live sustainably.

A tool for (personal) brand analysis

During one of the lectures at UCA, tools were shown, which could be used when conducting a (personal) brand analysis. The Personal Branding Canvas will help us understand and define our Personal Brand.

As mentioned before, a brand is referred to the concept, visuals and perceptions that distinguish one product from others in the same market. When looking at a personal brand analysis, we are looking at how you speak, work, communicate and write creating this identity/ personality that distinguishes you from others. The Personal Branding Canvas is a useful tool to start thinking on how you want to be perceived by others.

A personal brand is having your own voice, a voice that when people hear it, they know it is you! I believe it is important to cultivate our personal brand by determining: what do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? By asking this question, it pushes us to think about our expertise and general qualities. According to Hyde (2014), a strong personal brand is dependent on a strong narrative. In my quest of strengthening my personal brand, I am currently looking into storytelling and illustrative branding, check my Master Project Bibliography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amstrong, G. and Kotler, P. (2012). Principles Of Marketing. 14^th edn. New Jersey, USA: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Brand [Online]. Available at: Retrieved on October 27, 2018, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/brand (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Hesse, J. (2012, July 16). Consumers Are Defining Brands [Online]. Available at: https://www.raconteur.net/business-innovation/consumers-defining-brand-values (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Hyder, S. (2014, August 18). 7 Things You Can Do To Build An Awesome Personal Brand [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2014/08/18/7-things-you-can-do-to-build-an-awesome-personal-brand/#55d8e4763c3a (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Keller, K. L. (2013). Strategic Brand Management, Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity. 4^th edn. Harlow, England, UK: Pearson Education.

The Minimalists. (n.d.). What Is Minimalism? [Online]. Available at: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

First Cut, Group Work

Starting my master education in September 2018, the program offered an opportunity to work in a group and seize the opportunity to visit the London Design Week Festival. The main goal of the assignment was to get to know each other and collaborate towards a common goal, reporting our experience as a group in a design related event which needs to be translated into a visual product. The members of my group were Admir Kurman, Alessandra Bally, Rania Koukoumi and Rita Costa Pereira.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

Teamwork & Collaboration

Teamwork is an upcoming ‘trend’ nowadays, where organisations encourage group work for several reasons. The goal of teamwork is to generate and enhance ideas from members of an organisation, but also to work on the common ground, for example working towards the organisation’s goals (Youssefian, 2015).

Teamwork works on highly developed communication and interpersonal skills instead of competition and rivalry. According to the American Psychological Association (2006), a group perform better than the best individuals at solving complex problems. Through their research, they have found out that a group of at least three people is more effective than an individual or a group of two people in solving complex tasks. Not only, but the research also shows an increase in creative thinking, innovations and quantitative outputs.

So, teamwork gives power to a group of people to investigate a problem from different perspectives and help to generate new ideas through brainstorming or other creative thinking tools (check De Bono’s book – How To Have Creative Ideas). Working in a team can help in detecting flaws in a solution that could have been missed out if done individually (Latham, n.d.). Working in a team allows continual design feedback, thereby increasing output quality (Lau, 2013). Organisations favour teamwork so employees can meet each other’s, creating a better working atmosphere, thus increase work performance and intrinsic motivation (Youssefian, 2015).

Working well together means understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each member. Hence, it is important that a team leader is appointed and should at best determine which members can accomplish a task successfully by looking at his/her strengths (Root, 2010). This is called delegation!

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), a centre of entrepreneurial life, proposes its way to build an effective team:

• Build trust and respect: A team is based on trust and respect nourished by the team. It is important to create a positive atmosphere to create open communication, where members can cooperate and work together. This is can be done by trust and integrity foster a team leader (Young Entrepreneur Council, 2013).
• Be true to your word: It is important that the team leader and/or some members should keep their promises and make sure to fulfil them. By doing so, members will notice that the leader or another member is a reliable person and will emulate behaviours to other members (Young Entrepreneur Council, 2013).
• Organise a meeting for all employees: It is necessary that member get to know each other better, but also to know more about each other in a one-to-one meeting or a Friday-drink. Informal conversations bring members together and impact human relations positively. Casual events can be organised like playing a game or having dinner can enhance the relationship between team members (Young Entrepreneur Council, 2013).

Negotiation

It refers to a process where two or more parties are involved in deciding how to allocate resources into a project or process (Robbins and Judge, 2013). Thus, negotiation aims at reaching final agreement on price or other terms of trade (Keller, 2013). Depending on how many parties are interacting with one another, it is challenging to maintain a good social relationship and behaviour during the bargaining (Robbins and Judge, 2013). According to Robbins and Judge (2013), there are different approaches to negotiation, but there are at least two main approaches: distributive bargaining and integrative bargaining.

• Distributive bargaining: This approach aims at negotiating over who gets what share of a fixed pie, where the goal is to get as much as possible. The fixed pie refers to the set amount of goods/services to be divided up. In the end, the negotiation leads to a win-lose situation for one of the parties. Often the interests are confronted and there is a very little information shared (Robbins and Judge, 2013).
• Integrative bargaining: This approach operates under the assumption that there are possible settlements to be created to get a win-win solution. In fact, parties involved are bound to leave the bargaining with the feeling of achieving a victory. Negotiations occur when both parties are understanding and learning from the other side and are more interested to create a joint outcome (Robbins and Judge, 2013).

The negotiation style varies from the situation, the substance and on the personal preference. There is no universal negotiating style, but here is a summary of five styles presented by Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI).  Kilmann’s tool can be used to analyse negotiation styles.

Cross-cultural negotiation can be a challenge because of the differences in behaviour (punctuality), language, traditions and physical cues (eye contact, physical contact, the volume of speech). The language barrier is the most obvious problem in negotiations, which could be a result of a limited vocabulary, context, and the use of technical jargons. According to Richard D. Lewis, there are different communication patterns that influence communication and negotiation patterns (First Sun Consulting, 2015).

Colours & Psychology

According to theorists, there are primary colours (red, yellow and blue), secondary colours (green, orange and purple) and tertiary colours (pink, grey and brown) (Heller, 2009).  Black and white aren’t considered as colours. The theory of colours qualifies complementary colours as colours provoking a strong contrast (Heller, 2009). They can be found by looking at one colour and its contrast on the opposite side of the chromatic wheel.

Chromatic Wheel & Harmonies (Iguana Art Academy, 2017)

The chromatic wheel is composed of six parts and act as a visual aid for complementary colours (Heller, 2009). So, for the primary colours red, yellow and blue, the secondary colour contrast is green, purple and orange. A secondary colour is always located between two primary colours (1 primary colour +1 primary colour= 1 secondary colour) (Heller, 2009). So, between the yellow and the red, there is orange and between yellow and blue, there is green.

Colours can have effects on our emotions and mental state, but it is not obeying to the principles of the colour theory, for example, the colour contrast red/green does not appear to us as strong as the red/blue contrast (Heller, 2009). Colours always have a signification which is determined by the context in which they are perceived. The context is a very important criterion to determine whether a colour is perceived as appropriate and enjoyable or in contrary as bad taste and incongruous (Heller, 2009). Researches show that our perception of colours depends on personal preference, experiences, upbringing, cultural differences, context, etc. (Ciotti, 2016). So, a colour cannot evoke a single emotion such as yellow for optimism, blue for trust and red for power.

In the field of branding, there has been a numerous attempt to classify the customer’s response to a colour (Ciotti, 2016). Again, colour depends on personal experience, memories, and culture, so it cannot universally be translated into a specific meaning and emotion. Some argue that there are few generalities about how people respond to colour.

MyCoocoon‘s Interpretation of Colours

According to a study called Impact of Color in Marketing, a consumer takes 90 seconds or less to make a judgement and up to 90% of that judgement is made based on the colour only (disclaimer: depending on the product). The Radiological Society of North America (2006) reported that our brains prefer recognizable brands, thus making the use of colours crucial when creating a brand identity. Other researches show a real connection between the use of colours and customers’ perceptions of a brand’s personality (Ciotti, 2016). Ciotti (2016) highlights the importance of colours when work in a specific context, for example, setting-up a feeling, mood, an image of the desired brand personality (i.e. the use of white supports Appel’s desire to communicate its love of clean, simple design).

GROUP JOURNEY

First meeting. Alessandra and I visited the Albert & Victoria Museum in London and brochures about the London Design Festival 2018 where on display. So, we decided to take two so we could browse through the event during our first group meeting on Wednesday 19th September 2018 at the UCA canteen.

Going to a London Design Festival event was something that everyone had in mind, so the decision was not a subject for debate. Prior to this meeting, I hoped that my team members would have ideas or preferences for an event because the festival offered many of them. Thus, the negotiation process started, which event should we attend? Time-consuming as expected, we decided to look individually for our favourite events and present to one another why we would like to visit it. One of the important criteria for our final decision was the price and time. It was absurd to us to pay extra cost (on top of travelling) for an event when the festival offered many free exhibitions plus it was important that the event was located within the city centre of London (easier for us to use a Day-Travelling card).

After everyone’s pitch, it was clear that we all wanted to attend an interactive event. Taking into account the two criteria, the topics of colours and lights seemed to reach the majority in the group and created a big enthusiasm. Surprisingly enough, the group did not feel the need to negotiate maybe everyone seemed to share the same interest. Many questions arose: What is the impact of colour and light on us? Can it have an effect on our emotions? How can colour be used for a design and branding purpose?

Alessandra suggested a very interesting point ”let’s have a plan B in case one of the events is what we hoped for”. So, we decided to combine two events in one day to prevent disappointments.  Our day was scheduled as follow:

• Plan A: Darc Rom, between 12 AM – 03 PM (5min walk from London Shoreditch station)
• Plan B: Colour Energy, between 03 PM – 05 PM (5min away from Brick Lane Market)

During the meeting, we already started to think of the look of the final product. We thought of a video blog (vlog). Not certain of the final product, we decided to take photos and recorded some video. I study Media & Entertainment Management, so I suggested a couple of ideas for renting materials. I wanted us to use what’s available to us, so I suggested to take two photo/video cameras, a flash, a tripod (for the photos in the dark), a 360-degree camera, and a fisheye lens (guilty pleasure, I always wanted to try one). I took the responsibility for the materials by renting it. With the help of Alessandra, we stored the materials in our rooms to make it easier for our teammates. Before going on a trip to London, we decided to create a What’s App group, so we could easily communicate with one another.

The trip to the London Design Festival. On the next day, Thursday the 20 of September 2018, we all agreed to meet at 9:50 AM at the Epsom Train Station to take the train to London Waterloo. During the day, I and Rania were taking photos and Rita using the 360-degree camera. Obviously, the camera was not only dedicated to me and Rania, so Alessandra and Admir could also experiment with it. During the day, we took the time to know each other, we dine and drink together. I also wanted my group to have a stop-motion video or a little funny GIF. It was difficult to explain it to them, which led to funny and awkward moments (and a tone of photos). We shared our experience and feelings from the visited event. We had a lot of fun!

Second meeting. Not too long after our trip to London, the group met again, the 26th September 2014. It was first set on the 24th but because of the Brief 1 deadline, some people needed more time to finish this assignment first. Prior to the meeting, we created a Google Drive based on a group named discussed during the first meeting, PARAR, standing for Priscilla, Alessandra, Rania, Admir and Rita. With Admir, we made a joke that it sounds like Prada, but without the D.

Meeting at the UCA library, we first opened the brief and read it carefully one more time. Then, we brainstormed our impressions of the two events and made a summary. The main question was: what do we want to share with our class? We decided to share our trip and to take our class on the journey with us. We started to brainstorm idea to lay-out the presentation. When we talk about a journey, we thought of our train ride and Rita mentioned the map of the underground, check her visuals by clicking here (see my keynotes below).

I proposed that responsibilities/ work should be divide/ allocate to the group member who wanted to increase their skills in a particular ”field” such as photo editing, video editing, lay-outing and designing etc. I was interested in lay-outing/ designing, but I wanted to let my teammates choose first. Admir really wanted to do the video editing and Alessandra the photo editing. Rita enjoys designing so she took care of the designing elements in the presentation. Rania divided her time between photo editing with Alessandra and took the heavy responsibility to layout/ animate all presentation. Left out with no tasks and feeling useless, I decided to help Admir with the video editing.

Before moving to our individual task for the assignment, we divided the presentation into 5 sections so everyone could participate in the presentation. Alessandra and I were against the idea because we were taught in our previous educations that a presentation should have no more than 2 speakers otherwise the presentation looks ”drafty” and unprofessional. We are a democratical group 2 votes against and 3 pros, so we all draw a piece a paper in a hat which would indicate, which part of the presentation we would be responsible for. Lastly, we wanted to look professional during the presentation. Thus, we agreed on wearing a full black outfit. We also came up with the idea of where a coloured dots to connect the visual presentation with the speakers (disclaimer: the colours were picked at random because everyone wanted the blue of the red dot). To immortalise it, we set a small photoshoot to have a group photo to end our group journey.

FINAL RESULT

CRITICAL REFLECTION

London Design Week 2018 exhibitions. I did not enjoy the Darc Room for several reasons. First, we had to download an app to access it. I understand that by doing so, you can add information about the event, but I rather not drew my battery to get this information. Second, I did not expect the event to be product orientated, solely about LED. I only enjoyed the little general informational presentation about LED light but again, the speaker was selling his product. Third, we expected a lot of interactivity as they promoted in the brochure, but they barely were any, again just displays of company’s products, nothing artistic or just a few, which can be seen in the video. Last,  I didn’t like the way the exhibition was arranged, it was very confusing and easy to get lost. They called it the Darc Room, it was very bright and we still managed to get confused about the exhibition parkour… I enjoyed the Colour Energy exhibition. Some complained about its size, but I did not mind. Again, product orientated, but we could dig into their research behind their product by talking to the two researchers. I found it very interesting. We could take a test to check which colour would bring out creativity within us. Based on the colour, we could lay down into a cocoon light by with the test colour and a music headphone to match the vibe of the colour. I really like the interactivity and their passion for their project. Again, this comes into controversy based on my background research on colours, but I thought it would be a very nice idea to invite them to UCA to talk about their research.

Group work.  Overall the teamwork went very smoothly. We’ve got the opportunity to bond and deliver a final product that we are all proud to show. It may not be perfect but it is in our eyes! We used each other’s strength to build, create and help others to strengthen their strength. Of course, things can be improved for some of us like time management, but nothing that hinders the quality of the final delivery. Presenting our project to the other classmates was a success, with some time management issue again in keeping the time short between each speaker, a team-rehearsal would have been appropriate, but overall everyone enjoyed the originality of our presentation and presentation outfits. I have really enjoyed working in this group, everyone could work on something they like, although I wished that I could have work on some design elements letting go was also a good experience for me. I, too often, tend to want a perfect final result and by letting other people going it, like the video editing, was for me a big challenge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Psychological Association. (2006, April 23). Groups Perform Better than the Best Individuals At Solving Complex Problems [Online]. Available at: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2006/04/group.aspx (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Butterfield, J. (2010). Illustrated Course Guides: Teamwork & Team Building. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Course Technology Cengage Learning.

Ciotti, G. (2016, April 13). The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding [Online]. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233843 (Accessed:  14 October 2018)

First Sun Consulting. (2015, August 14). #Strategy : 23 Fascinating Diagrams Reveal How to #Negotiate with People Around the World…You Can’t Expect Negotiations with the French to be Like Negotiations with Americans, & the Same Holds True for Every Culture Around the World [Online]. Available at: http://www.firstsun.com/2015/08/14/strategy-23-fascinating-diagrams-reveal-how-to-negotiate-with-people-around-the-world-you-cant-expect-negotiations-with-the-french-to-be-like-negotiations-with-americans-the-same-holds-true/ (Accessed: 14 October 2018)

Heller, E. (2009). Psychologie De La Couleurs, Effects Et Symbolique. Munchen, Germany: Pyramyd Editions.

Iguana Art Academy. (2017, October 01). Color Wheel Definitions [Online]. Available at: https://www.iguanaacademy.com/faq/color-wheel-definitions/ (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Keller, K. L. (2013). Strategic Brand Management, Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity (4^th edn). Harlow, England, UK: Pearson Education.

Latham, A. (n.d.). Teamwork vs. Individualism [Online]. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/teamwork-vs-individualism-25597.html (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Lau, E. (2013, January 23). Why And Where Is Teamwork Important? [Online]. Available at:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/01/23/why-and-where-is-teamwork-important/ (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Radiological Society of North America. (2006). MRI Shows Brains Respond Better To Name Brands [Online]. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083022.htm (Accessed:  14 October 2018)

Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T.A. (2013). Organizational Behaviour (15^th edn). New Jersey, USA: Pearson Education.

Young Entrepreneur Council. (2013, June 7). Five Ways To Build An Effective Team [Online]. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/06/07/five-ways-to-build-an-effective-team/ (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Youssefian, N. (2015, July 30). 5 Reasons Teamwork is More Important Than You Think [Online]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-reasons-why-teamwork-more-important-than-you-think-navid-youssefian (Accessed: 13 October 2018)

Love Challenge

Today’s challenge started with the following sentence: ”Sometimes things are not all they seem – and there is often an underlying message behind the main theme of the problem to be solved.”

CONTEXT

In small groups, the challenge was to help the social services division of Epsom and Ewell Council to find ways to save money while creating a positive impact on the community. The social services division of Epsom and Ewell Council want to ‘spread the love’, so the ultimate challenge is to think of ways make people happy to give their time without financial reward and without creating extra cost for the town (bonus point if the group could help the council to save money on services that they would normally pay). Each group had thirty minutes to come up with an idea and to present its best idea in front of the class.

CHALLENGE & REFLECTION

This brief demanded the collaboration between two MA classes, MA Graphic Design and MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management students. The first barrier was to get to know each other, but due to the time constraint of the assignment, it was difficult to see where everyone’s strengths lied. Nevertheless, everyone seemed up for the challenge.

To start off the challenge, I suggested to the group that we should think of two-three ideas individually and then present it to the rest of our group. Due to the short time, I believe that this method would help to create a number of ideas (first quantity over quality). Once, every member of the group presented his/her ideas, we brainstormed, which idea seemed the more appealing based on the challenge’s context (I do not have visuals of our brainstorming session). The topics of ‘food waste’, ‘difficulties to access healthy products” and ‘unhealthy food habits’ were mentioned a lot. As a group, it took us a long time before agreeing on a unique concept, because there were divergent thinking. Nevertheless, compromises were made, because we were running out of time.

Concept: Based on our knowledge as a group, we knew that supermarkets and other food stores throw away leftover food at the end of the day because they cannot be sold because of sanitary regulations. We also know that municipalities have to take care of this huge amount of food waste by disposing and destroying them. This costs a lot of money! A second life could be given to this food waste. So, as a group, we would encourage the social services division of Epsom and Ewell Council to seek partnerships with the food stores by buying its unsold food. We would suggest buying the unsold food per kilo. This new social initiative would be supported by a group of volunteers/job seekers maybe call W.EAT from ”We Eat” referring to food for everyone.

I felt like a moderator in this group, so I decided to lay out our concept on paper by structuring it under different categories, which would help us to present it to the class and later on, to describe it to our future client. The final paper was not as structured as I hoped it to be, but for a 30 minutes-challenge, I believe it included a lot of important elements (see the photo below).

W.EAT-Concept Presentation Poster (Bally, 2018)

So, the final concept focuses on reducing food waste, fighting poverty and reducing obesity in the United-Kingdom. The primary target audience is university students because one the largest population of Epsom are students. We can easily connect our themes to the student population because as students we are aware of the financial restraints, thus making it difficult for this community to reach a better quality of life. It is a LOVE-challenge, so we wanted to be inclusive and not discriminating the other populations of Epsom. I have learned from my previous education that when developing a concept, it is important to be specific when targetting our audience. This was our first compromise.

This social project should not cost extra money for the town, so it must be run by volunteers. However, as a group, we could clarify whether students or job seekers should run this project because often people are motivated when they can earn a reward (extrinsic motivation). So, we would need to think of a way to intrinsically motivate people for this project. As this social project aims to fight obesity, subventions from the NHS could be sought but as far as we discussed the concept, I do not think that the NHS would give any money from this raw concept. The intrinsic motivation and the financial support from external partners are our main problem in this concept.

Moving on to the resources needed for this project, we first discussed the need for a location/ storage. To rent a small office in the middle of Epsom or to own a food truck? It seemed more plausible to negotiate a small office to the Epsom council. However, the group decided to have both (second compromise on my side by letting my group have both options). Thus, a food truck would be used to sell the food and an office to control the food quality and to store it. The food truck would visit the university and some areas of Epsom. However, I would have asked the following two questions to my group if we had more time: How would you pay for a food truck? How would you pay for the gas in the food truck? The promotion of this social initiative was also discussed. Epsom UCA university holds a business school, so we thought that this initiative could become a student project supported and guided by university teachers. Another idea was to create a student contest. The last idea was to create a social student club, where students would be intrinsically motivated to create, together, a brand/marketing plan.

Finally, our presentation offered future expansion ideas. These ideas were first discussed during our brainstorming but later on put on the side. These options came as follow: learning how to cook healthy (cooking classes), and a ‘Cake & Tea event’ where old and young can meet (parents could leave their children for a short time- creche?).

After reflection, the concept was based on my idea but I wonder if it is the best idea to demonstrate love. Alessandra was very attached to her idea of ‘Cake & Tea’ event. I wondered if I should have been less stubborn about my idea and instead look at opportunity behind her idea, which I believe would have shown more love than the final presented idea.

FEEDBACKS

The underlying message behind our concept’s main themes (reducing food waste, fighting poverty and reducing obesity) is love. Through the W.EAT-concept, we hope to create social interactions between citizens. For centuries, food has been a strong social facilitator between populations, so we believe that by sharing food and knowledge, we could recreate a bond that seemed to disappear over time.

Overall, the concept was well-received amongst the class and teachers. The presented concept offers various ideas, which could lead to beautiful social projects. At last, we were encouraged to fine-tune some details and to re-think the way to present W.EAT-concept because the Epsom council might be invited to listen to our concept.

INSPIRATION

(TED Talk, 2012)

Tristram Stuart is a British author, activist and founder of Feedback who talks about food waste. In his TED Talk and BBC podcast, he explores creative solutions to reduce our waste and call us to change the system for using more responsibly the global resources.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bally, A. (2018, November 07). Love Challenge 12. October 2018 [Online]. Available at: https://mauteora.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/love-challenge-12-october-2018/ (Accessed: 07 November 2018)

TED Talk. (2012, May). The Global Food Waste Scandal [Online]. Available at https://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal#t-836607 (Accessed: 07 November 2018)

Master Project Bibliography

BOOK 1

A book that shows how illustrations can tell stories and explain abstract concepts. Illustrations had layers that enrich brand identities offering brand the ability to be memorable and desirable. The book displays how illustrator’s work complements a brand’s philosophy and objectives through different media from business cards, fashion labels, packaging, posters to restaurant’s ventures.

The book is a collection of case studies where illustrations were involved in creating a unique and memorable consumer experience. Ultimately, the consumer will first judge a brand from its look and feel. By creating a recognisable brand through strong visual language, the consumer will feel engaged in the narrative of what it means to buy into a brand.

Thus, this book is a great started to start thinking about the use of illustration to build a (personal) brand through original and narrative visuals. I am excited to read through these different case studies to inspire me to create my own personal brand identity and possibly to create a brand identity for my master project.

Victionary. (2014, November). Illustrative Branding, Smashing illustrations for brands. Hong Kong, China:  Victionary Workshop.

BOOK 2

photo coming soon

Business Model You is the book is based on the Business Model Canvas methodology, which guides the reader on how to define a personal business model.  It provides several tools which aim to help the reader to reinvent himself/herself or redefine a brand. The book is divided into 4 sections covering the following topics:

Section 1: Canvas including chapters on Business Model Thinking: Adapting to a Changing World, Business Model Canvas and Personal Business Model Canvas

Section 2: Reflect including chapters on Who Are You?, and Identify Your Career purpose.

Section 3: Revise including chapters on Getting Ready to Reinvent Yourself, and Re-Draw Your Personal Business Model.

Section 4: Act including chapters on Calculate Your Business Value, Test Your Model in the Market, and What’s Next.

This book is particularly useful because I am considering to develop and strengthen my personal brand. I believe that this book can be a great tool to sharpen my understanding of a personal brand but also act as a guide into defining it. This book may be useful for my master project if not to develop my own identity in order to set myself apart on the market.

Clark, T., Osterwalder, A. and Pigneur, Y. (2012). Business Model You. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

BOOK 3

Photo credit: Bis Publishers (n.d.)

The book explains the branding process step by step supported by a dozen examples of successful brands/ study cases. It also includes 23 tools and exercises to build your own brand. Miltenburg explains how branding can be a powerful tool to help ‘sell’ ideas for change and make a real impact.

This book is a great resource to understand how to build and develop a strong, successful brand using different exercises in the book. I used her book, Branding Toolkit For Change Makers, during my internship when creating a client’s blog identity. Thanks to her exercises, I could focus on important elements when creating a new brand identity. I am looking forward to combining Miltenburg’s books to develop my own personal brand identity and maybe use it as a tool for my master project.

Miltenburg, A. (2018). Brand the Change. 3rd edn. Den Bosch, the Netherlands: BIS Publishers.

Photo credit: Anje Jager (n.d.)

Similar to her latest book, Branding Toolkit For Change Makers, helps to understand what needs to be communicated clearly, who is your audience, what do they do, why does it matter to them. The book focuses on the anatomy of a brand and the branding process. Again, this is illustrated through the use of various case studies of successful change-making brands.

Miltenburg, A. (2016). Branding Toolkit For Change Makers. Den Bosch, the Netherlands: The Brandling.

BOOK 4

photo coming soon

Storytelling became an effective tool for creating an entire brand concept and can be used for both on a product and corporate level. Brands have increasingly used this tool to create a bond with the consumers and the brand itself.

Storytelling: Branding in Practice looks at how brands can use storytelling to strengthen the bond with consumers and employees. Structured in two parts: 1) Toolbox and 2) Storytelling applied, the first part might be interesting particularly chapters 2 ( Four Elements of Storytelling), 3 (Storytelling in Business), and 4 (Company Cor Story). This book good foundation on how to build and develop a strong, successful brand story by showcasing different case studies.

Fog, K., Budtz, C., Munch, P., and Blanchette, S. (2010). Storytelling: Branding in Practice. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.

BOOK 5

 photo coming soon

According to Lupton (2017), a good design is bringing an idea to life, thus through good storytelling. The book gives an overview of how to use narrative techniques to create graphics, products, services and experiences by looking at the psychology of visual perception, again from a narrative point of view.

I particularly like this book because a couple of chapters cover the topic of emotions by looking at models like the emotional journey, the use of persona, and colours & emotions. It also gives a brief introduction to behavioural economics, the study of human decision-making.

Lupton, E. (2017). Design is Storytelling. New-York, the USA: Cooper Hewitt.

BOOK 6

 photo coming soon

Designing For Social Change was written by Andre Shea a graphic designer that aimed to use problem-solving skills to help others. He wrote a book, which presents 10 proven strategies for working with community organisations. The book should be seen as a toolkit of strategies covering the following strategies: Immersing yourself, building trust, promising only what you can deliver, prioritising the process, confronting controversy, identifying the community’s strength, utilising local sources, designing with the community’s voice, giving communities ownership and sustaining engagement with communities.

The book gives a kick start for another interest of mine, social design/ concept. Keywords related to this theme can be ”design for social impact”, ”human-centered design” and ”design for social change”. However, this book may be too orientated on the design process of working with social enterprises, NGOs, foundations, corporations and governments.

Shea, A. (2012). Designing for Social Change, Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design. New-York, the USA: Princeton Architectural Press.

Good vs Poor Design Branded Campaigns

Today’s challenge is to defend what’s good and poor design using six examples. For this challenge, I decided to focus on my interest in branding. I chose three viral brand campaigns, where I looked at their good and poor design conception.

To base the critics, I looked at the most known core design principles guideline by Sullivan, used by many designers from around the world, to define whether the brand campaign is good or poor. The focus is principally put on the analysis of the use of ”feelings” to generate a positive and adequate emotional response amongst the targeted audience. Please view the presentation and read the rest of the article to gain a better understanding of my reasoning.

https://prezi.com/view/0v0sRUso5lBlEkqQYW3H/

CONTEXT

The core design principles started from Louis Sullivan (1895-1924) who popularized “Form follows function” in the 20^th century. Form and function is a starting point considered by every designer when developing new work, rather than focusing on aesthetics. According to Sullivan, a great design follows these principles (Craven, 2017):

• Form
  
• Function

FORM looks to the visual appeal using harmonic colours and a well-chosen typeface. FUNCTION refers to the work’s purpose, its easiness to read, understand, and to execute in a given media.

• Feeling

There is a third subtler factor that plays in design principles, which is FEELING (Elaver, 2012; Pence, 2004). FEELING refers to the message, the mood-evoking an emotional response to the audience. Many designers think about it subconsciously but it is rarely expressed as a priority in their design thinking. Storytelling is a common tool to convey emotions through the use of a narrative. Using a narrative approach helps to build emotional connections between customers, brands and its product/ service (Huang, 2010).

Thus, in my opinion, a good design is able to tell a story without words creating an emotional response to its audience.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD/POOR BRAND CAMPAIGNS

1. Volvo FM Truck Campaign

In 2013, Volvo launched a new campaign that portrays Jean-Claude Van Damme performing a split between two reversing trucks. The video was created by Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors, one of Sweden’s leading creative agencies.

Goal: To demonstrate the stability and precision of the dynamic steering making Volvo FM easy to drive. The goal was to make a number of different Live Test films to break with the traditional-looking advertising.

Aim: To create awareness and ”pave the way for further marketing in Volvo Trucks’ 140 local markets” explained Lars Terling, Volvo vice president marketing communications, “(…) we were looking for a strategic partner that could help us out-smart our competitors with an unconventional take” (Carter, 2014).

In the end, Volvo’s marting communications department and Forsman & Bodenfors tried to create multi-level storytelling to appeal on an emotional level to both the general public and to truck experts. It received a Bronze Lion at Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2014.

2. Benetton UnHate Campaign

The marketing campaign was created in 2011 by FABRICA, an Italian communication research centre as a part of Benetton Group, for the UnHate foundation (founded by Benetton Group) using controversial billboard posters.

Goal: To break the barriers of racial, ethnic, religious backgrounds, educating and enlightening people on political and social agendas (though one-sided beliefs) across diverse socio-cultural demographics.

Aim: To increase brand awareness and equity to help revitalize and reinvigorate the United Colors of Benetton brand. Raise awareness and equity of foundation by promoting peace and dialogue. The billboard campaign pictures the following:

• Nicolas Sarkozy, ex-French President of the 5^th Republic, kissing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel
• Pope Benedict XVI kissing the Egyptian Imam, Ahmed el Tayeb
• Barack Obama, American president kissing Hu Jintao, the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China
• Kim Jong-il, Supreme Leader of North Korea kissing Lee Myung-bak, President of South Korea

Focused on the theme of the kiss, a universal symbol of love, the series of these symbolic images portray reconciliation, and a profound reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, even if they are opposed, must lead to dialogue and un-hate (UnHate Foundation, 2012).

According to Alessandro Benetton, the UnHate campaign wanted to send a “message about the need to overcome the culture of hate, through dialogue and the understanding of differences (…)” (UnHate Foundation, 2012). It received a Press Grand Prix at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2012.

3. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Real Beauty Sketches was created in 2013 by agency partner Ogilvy & Mather for Dove owned by Unilever. It is the perfect example of a good design campaign showing how emotions and personal story to drive social engagement and shares around the brand. It became a viral marketing success and the 4^th most shared advertising ever on YouTube (Stampler, 2013).

Goal: The advertising was part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. The goal is to improve women self-esteem by showing that the only barrier to beauty is their own self-perception. To do so, the campaign to underline the contrast between how women view themselves and what others see.

Aim: To find a way to convince the other 96% they are also beautiful, thus showing how the brand cares about its female audience.

Women were asked to describe themselves to FBI trained forensic artist Gil Zamora (from behind a mysterious curtain), who drew a portrait of them based on their description. 

Most advertising campaigns don’t evoke clear emotion but only communicate about a product or service benefits. The campaign became very successful because it taps into deep-seated emotions. Furthermore, the commercial elements are barely present.

Ogilvy & Mather received a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Asset Ogilvy Public Relations, n.d.).

BONUS. One Dollar Shave Club Campaign

In 2012, the start-up Dollar Shave Club became successful thanks to its ‘’Our Blades Are F***ing Great’’ in its promotional video. To steal market share from razor powerhouses like Gillette and Philips. The CEO, Michael Dubin, promised a better price point: for $1 a month, you will receive a high-quality razor (AAE Speakers, n.d.).

Goal: To create a crude and goofy viral video to support the launch of his new and disruptive business model. ‘’ I think what we wanted to do is not take ourselves too seriously, and deliver an irreverent smart tone”, explained Michael Dubin, thus trying to put yourself from a consumer’s perspective

Aim: To increase brand awareness and equity to rivalries with competitors on the market by showing a young and transparent image of the brand. The video shows the CEO who wrote the advertising to stand out from brands that take themselves too seriously.

Any company can study and design a clever marketing campaign regardless of brand awareness or marketing budget. Beyond the FORM and FUNCTION, a good design must be able to convey FEELING or EMOTION to drives an audience’s response.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AAE Speakers. (n.d.). Michael Dubin, Founder Dollar Shave Club [Online]. Available at: https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/speakers/420501/Michael-Dubin (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Asset Ogilvy Public Relations. (n.d.). 13 awards for Ogilvy Public Relations at Cannes PR Lions 2013! [Online]. Available at: http://www.ogilvy.gr/en/asset-ogilvy/13-awards-ogilvy-public-relations-cannes-pr-lions-2013 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Carter, M. (2014, June 18). How Volvo Trucks Pulled Off An Epic Split And A Game-Changing Campaign [Online]. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/3031654/how-volvo-trucks-pulled-off-an-epic-split-and-a-game-changing-campaign (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Craven, J. (2017, October 23). The Meaning of ” Form Follows Function” [Online]. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/form-follows-function-177237 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Elaver, R. A. (2012). Form, Function, Emotion: Designing for the Human Experience, International Conference On Engineering And Product Design Education, p267-272.

Huang, W., Y. (2010). Brand story and perceived brand image: Evidence from Taiwan, Journal of Family and Economic issues 2010, 31(3), p307-317.

Pence, J. (2004). Narrative Emotion: Feeling, Form and Function, Journal of Narrative Theory, 34 (3), p273-276.

Stampler, L. (2013, May 22). How Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ Became The Most Viral Video Ad Of All Time [Online]. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-doves-real-beauty-sketches-became-the-most-viral-ad-video-of-all-time-2013-5 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

UnHate Foundation. (2012). Press Grand Prix for the UNHate Campaign [Online]. Available at: http://unhate.benetton.com/unhate-campaign-2011-press-gran-prix-winner-at-cannes-2012/ (Accessed: 28 September 2018)