Category: Integrative Studio 2

LS Studio_Final Concept Sketch

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Cosmetic industry is one of the biggest industry in the world and the advertisements that the companies expose through social media has an enormous effect especially on women. During Seminar, I focused on the negative impact that cosmetic advertisements play on women; the ads lowers one’s self-esteem and therefore makes one to have distorted self-perception. However, I found a advertising strategy called, “co-creation” that approaches on different angle. Co-creation is an advertising strategy that involves the consumers into the conversation and this empowers consumers by transferring their role from a listener into a participant. (Ex. Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign). Although there are various ads that impacts women in a negative way, these kind of ads influence women in a positive way.

The photographies that I’ve included shows different impact of viewing cosmetic advertisements (left: distorted view, right: expression). I wanted to concentrate on the express part because I believe cosmetic allows women to express themselves freely by using different colors and different mediums. The bottom image is my story board for the video I am planning to create. At first, there is a faceless and eyeless women who lost identity and therefore the world looks blurry. However, as she express herself through makeup, she gradually finds her identity, and therefore the world changes from black and white into vivid colors.

LS Studio2_Concept Board

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[Concept board 1]1.Marimar Quiroa: The Beauty Blogger

(http://tapoos.com/entertainment/cystic-hygroma-couldnt-keep-beauty-blogger-spreading-message-self-love/)

Marimar Quiroa has a facial tumor called the cystic hygroma and the blockage of her lymph system has created a fluid-filled sack in her throat. Quiroa cannot eat or speak and in the past she used to talk to herself in the mirror. From this process, she began to accept herself and started activities that brought self-love and self-acceptance.

My topic is about girls and women, especially 18-25, struggling for the set beauty standard. Marimar Quiroa have overcome this illusion and obsession of fixed beauty, therefore I think it has a great relation with my topic. However, her opinion is subjective and this might provide a limited perspective, but I think it could be improved by researching people like Quiroa and have more wider view.

2. Hui Yuen Man

(http://www.yanki-rosepinky.com/feminist-theme.html)

“This art work intends to manifest how greatly materialism can influence our perception to beauty and how powerful can the media be in distorting our ways of thinking.”

I thought Hui Yuen Man’s artwork is relevant to my research topic because she thinks that many women are influenced by media and that “endless brainwashing” have set the unrealistic beauty that distorts women’s perception of beauty. The limitation of this could be the possibility for getting off the topic. Hui Yuen Man thinks that those “standard of beauty” makes women to purchase more cosmetics and fashion items that leads to the materialistic world. The artwork could be even stronger if the artist digs more deeper into a specific area of materialism.

3. Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty

(https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/marilyn_minter_pretty_dirty)

“Marilyn Minter’s sensual paintings, photographs, and videos vividly explore complex and contradictory emotions around beauty and the feminine body in American culture…The exhibition culminates in Minter’s ongoing investigation of how the beauty industry expertly creates and manipulates desire through images.”

Marilyn Minter’s work is related to my topic as well because she is producing works thinking that beauty industry “creates and manipulates” desire.

4. Hannah Altman

(https://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/a-woman-has-shown-the-damaging-expectations-of-female-beauty?utm_term=.yrmjM1r7d#.tjLBgNzyO)

“The project is intended to be a pictorial representation of the unreasonable female standard of beauty. By creating set-ups that would normally be considered grotesque would it not be for the glitter, the sparkle stands out because it is the only facet of the photo that is abnormal. The women models do not seem to acknowledge the glitter as something any different than natural body fluid, which supplements the idea that women have been conditioned to go to any length in order keep up an attractive appearance. The project is meant to raise the awareness of such a ridiculous standard, and to question its morality.”

Although Hannah Altman and I have different approach to the topic, she has a similar point of view with me thinking that standard of the beauty makes women to keep up the attractive appearance. I think the limitation of the work might be the topic of beauty standard is too broad and she not mentioning the cause of such phenomenon.

5. Supervenus de Fréderic Doazan y Vandy Roc

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcGJWn2ihLE)

“Inspired by plastic surgery disasters, Frédéric Doazan’s Photoshop masterpiece Supervenus is a cutting (literally) portrayal of modern beauty standards and how they’ve evolved throughout the years.”

This has a connection to my topic because it is a video that demonstrates modern beauty standard and people, especially women, trying to match themselves to the unattainable beauty. The limitation of this project would be a slight different direction than my research topic. My topic is about cosmetic advertisement, while this project is about plastic surgery therefore it might be off-topic.

 

[Concept board 2 (more towards advertisements)]

1. John Holcroft’s illustration

(http://www.johnholcroft.com/)

John Holcroft is a British illustrator who uses illustration for social commentary and I think his work has a deep relation to my topic because my research question is about social media effecting the perception of beauty. The limitation might be the opened or maybe vague interpretation of the effect of social media.

2. A Global Democracy Idea 9 – Disclaimers for airbrushing models

“This video Created by Global Democracy.com in 2011, the clip which
has re-surfaced all over social media this week, demonstrates the full
extent of airbrushing techniques used on models.

The purpose of the video is to encourage “mandatory disclaimers”
in advertising which state that a model has had her body digitally
manipulated in the hope of discouraging the practice of airbrushing.

The creators believe that the “perfect” body types depicted in mass
media, which are digitally enhanced, have a profound negative impact
on self-esteem of young girls and are extremely misleading”

Advertising companies create an image of perfect women that matches the standard of beauty targeting girls and women. However, in the backstage, the images are manipulated and I thought this could be a great example for my research question.

3. Dove Real Beauty Sketches

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk) 

“Do you see the beauty in yourself? If someone asked you to describe yourself, what would you say? Our body image takes such a battering that feeling beautiful can be hard – in fact, sometimes we just can’t see beauty in ourselves at all. We think our self-esteem is in serious need of a boost…And since we know that feeling beautiful is the first step to living happier, more confident lives, we decided to do something about it.

That something was a daring new beauty experiment: Real Beauty Sketches. We asked women 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. ”

Dove have created a series of film for finding “Real beauty” and is talking about women who were influenced by the media and/or society, which relates to my topic. They interviewed women about self-perception and opinion about the standard of beauty, but they do not actually ask what made them to feel such feeling.

4. SK-II Celebrity endorsement example

(http://trendinsight.biz/archives/1577)

Cosmetic brands often use the word “비밀 무기 or secret weapon” saying that the cosmetic could be one’s secret weapon and makes one attractive.  SK-II is one of the most typical brand that uses such method. They use celebrities who are admired by each age group and create an advertisement as if the actress is telling a secret of her beauty. I thought this is one of the manipulation and illusion that advertising companies uses and thought it is relative to my topic.

 

Q. Based on your findings so far, how can a designer make an impact on your area of research?

A.

LS Studio 2: Identifying Stakeholders

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1. Consumers in Sephora/ Friends who wear makeup

Since my topic has a deep relationship with cosmetics, I can interview consumers or my friends and ask questions such as why they purchase cosmetic products, their thoughts of watching cosmetic advertisements, their thoughts of the effect of social media, etc. I think this would be a good primary source for further research.

Location of Sephora that I am planning to visit:

45 E 17th St, New York, NY 10003

 

2. Beauty Blogger 

I think beauty bloggers are in the middle position between consumer and advertising companies because they use cosmetics as an individual as well as promoting some cosmetic products. From my Infomap, I found out that Youtube is one of the most popular social media site, I decided to contact beauty Youtubers (I’ve included several beauty Youtubers just in case I might not reach the person in time).

Contact Info:

Pony – ponymakeup@naver.com

Sunny – beautysunn@gmail.com

Liah Yoo – LIAHYOO.COM

Kandee Johnson – kandeejohnsonteam@gmail.com

 

3. Advertising Company

I thought it would be useful to have information from both customers and advertising companies because it will allow me to analyze the backstage ,while we as a customers could view only the part of the system. I could ask Parsons alumni who is currently working at an advertising company. I could contact them through Career Service in our school website.

Contact info:

https://www.newschool.edu/student-success/

careerservices@newschool.edu

 

LS Studio 2: B1_Observation a Day

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 Back to Mac

“Low Power mode to Fully Charged Mode “

“Back to Mac” system is a system that accepts 6 empty containers and provides one free lipstick to customers. I’ve first thought of showing the before and after image of Mac’s lipstick by demonstrating a new lipstick and smudged lipstick. However, by looking at my IPhone, I was inspired and decided to compare”Back to Mac” system to battery percentage. Therefore, I illustrated a “Mac battery” that displays a the process from going from low battery to fully charged battery. 

Sephora

“Something, Nothing, and a Penny”

Sephora has a return system where one can get a refund or exchange even though they used the product, while South Korea has a policy that one cannot get a refund or exchange after using the product. I wanted to describe the return policy by connecting cosmetics and the idea of reverse procedure. Therefore, I put a receipt that gives information about Sephora’s return policy and at the another receipt I drew an eye that first has full eye makeup, but removes the makeup as it goes on. Also, I attached a penny at the last eye to illustrate that the cosmetic that one used would later come back as a money. Lastly I colored the background with eyeshadows to give the cosmetic feeling.

The Power of Patience

“When light went off suddenly, our eyes cannot see anything at first, but when we calm down and observe carefully, we could finally understand the objects and therefore are able to see even inside pitch-dark.”

By reading “The Power of Pateince” during Seminar, which claimed that “Just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Therefore, it takes time to see every details of an object.”, the text reminded me of the situation where light went off suddenly. Therefore, I colored the background with black marker, but not completely to describe the boarder between light and dark. Then I drew an image of eyes and random object to demonstrate the situation as I mentioned above.

Cleopatra

“Inspired by the Mediterranean seductress, Cleopatra captivates the senses.” 

This is the explanation that Tocca gives about the perfume, Cleopatra. However, I thought that the packaging as well as the scent did not matched the name, Cleopatra. The packaging had more naturalistic feeling and the scent was like a flower. Because of the image that I have toward Cleopatra, which is quite dark because I heard about her suicide from snake bite when I was an elementary student, I’ve created an image only using black and white. I drew a snake that is about to bite on the left and drew a flowing paint to represent poison and death. 

Glade

“It looked like an ember, but it was a representation of candle light”

I went to Barnes and Nobles and smelt a good scent and was wondering about the scent. The scent was coming from a section where, I first assumed, air freshener was located. I looked and there was a logo of the brand and it said, “Glade” Their logo was abstract with some flowing colors of yellow and orange. After a while I realized it was an ember and I acknowledge it was a representation of candle light. I thought this was a great logo because it is simple, yet clearly delivers the message. Inspired by the candle light I’ve created texture and mixed yellow, red, and white acrylics to give a sense of fire. 

By the People @ Cooper Hewitt

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Rebel Nell’s jewelry was the most outstanding piece that drawn my eye from By The People. The first impression of Rebel Nell’s piece is a fragment of an ore that is crafted as jewelry. Some of the jewelries are connected with the necklace chain, while some are presented without the chain. The surface of the jewelry have marblings and the shapes are not homogenous; each pieces are unique and have different shapes and size. Moreover, few pieces contains circular and rectangular holes that are randomly place around the jewelry.

The reason why I thought this piece was interesting was because of its choice of creative medium. Amazingly, the jewelry is not made from jewel, but it is made from graffiti, which is writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. Amy Peterson found a shard of graffiti on the way on the Dequindre Cut underpass, she explored graffiti, and revealed the layers of graffiti and therefore decided to use it for her enterprise. I first thought this was jewelries that I can easily find on jewelry shops, but I never imagined that this would be graffiti. Peterson is a designer who is truly aware of the surrounding and knows how to utilize the materials effectively. I thought using graffiti to create jewelry was a creative idea that no one would have thought. Furthermore, this pice contributed to make ‘A Better America’ by questioning and suggesting the existing challenges and by suggesting plausible solution addressing the problem.

The method of research that might have been necessary to create the Rebel Nell pieces would be first of all to understand the societal problems. For example, Peterson should have been aware of the problems of gap between the rich and poor and gender inequality. Secondly, primary and secondary research such as meeting jewelry experts and reading books might be essential to learn how to produce jewelry. Lastly, communicating and interviewing the people is critical to understand what their needs are and to come up with a systemic plan to effectively support the women.