Group Presentation

As I'm still feeling a bit all over the place about COP at the minute, I was quite under confident about my presenting my ideas so far. The group feedback was really helpful, but it confused me a lot. Just because I am stubborn in the fact that once I get an subject and a plan in my head I like to stick to it otherwise I get completely thrown off. 

So my initial idea/concept was to look into how illustration can be used as a tool to influence people's behaviour and decision making. This was driven towards raising awareness of health issues, specifically creating awareness of the dangers of overusing and abusing prescription drugs.

I also wanted to look at how the value of visual quality can have a significantly different impact on the audience as opposed to the use of clinical and uninteresting stock images, and poor design in general produced for the mass market.

Practical Response

The direction of my practical response seems to look promising in the fact that there are many potential solutions that could be successful in relation to the themes touched within my dissertation. Options that we discussed included:

• Proposal for an advertising campaign targeting a specific audience or health condition
• Concepts for packaging design that focus heavily on visual quality
• An interactive workshop or game designed for adults or children that highlight important factors in relation to health
• Proposal for an exhibition of informative prints relating to a specific condition/in order to raise awareness

Dissertation

The direction of my dissertation is pretty foggy at this stage, as I still need to distinguish WHAT the actual purpose of my research is; what I want to find out specifically and how I can aim to solve it. I fully understand that my efforts in terms of research aren't up to scratch because I have spent a lot of time worrying about where to start and what to start with, which is totally normal for me because this process is almost inevitable whenever I take on a new brief.

This is the kind of structure that I mentally planned out before the discussion:

Title: 'An investigation into how visual language can educate the public about prescription drug abuse'

• Introduction: facts and figures outlining the issue of prescription drug abuse
• Chapter One: What is currently being done to raise awareness of this issue?
• Chapter Two: Empathy, Shock and Fear; how are these techniques used within advertising?
• Chapter Three: Quality of aesthetic applied to target specific audiences
• Chapter Four: Consumerism; how Government funded organisations and private organisations differ in ethos in terms of communication with audiences
• Conclusion

Suggestions and feedback:

Analysing leaflets

I bought along all of the leaflets that I had collected last week from various health centres around Leeds, and as a group we critiqued (rather brutally) the effectiveness of each design. The main points that were raised included the use of type, stock images in relation to context and colour.

Fig.1

 Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig 1:

• Use of character; slightly more exciting than just using type
• Organ donation leaflet looks more like an advert for breast cancer with the pink colour scheme. This would more likely target a female audience specifically rather than both male and female
• Give blood leaflet is extremely plain and non-exciting

Fig.2

• South Asian organ transplant; the main target audience is obviously South Asian people, yet this doesn't immediately stand out within the text as being the most important deliverable.
• Use of disturbing stock image immediately draws attention, and creates an enquiry as to what the subject of the leaflet is actually about?

Fig.3

• Use of cruddy stock images again. Really poor quality, just any Asian family pulled from the internet.
• Would have been more effective as a real life case study?

Specifying Topics

• NHS vs Private health care advertising: comparison of advertising techniques that are used
• Look at the process of semiotics?
• Use of character in the media?
• Cost and packaging
• Consumerism
• Different values/ethos

It was suggested that I look specifically at the topic of prescription drug abuse within my practical, rather than as the main bulk of my essay due to the lack of research and awareness to do with the issue, which is fair enough. The tutorial has opened up a wider variety of avenues to research within my topic which will help to narrow it down to a specific argument.

Task for next week: Find a minimum of four scholars with theories that relate to my direction of study. Also analyse some more adverts, and keep reading on the essence of consumer behaviour.