Socialist designers

Socialist designer is an article written by Fabrizio gilardino the whole article talks about socialist designers manifesto and the certain rules they follow. Most of the rules said is true like the photoshop filters which is overdone nowadays. It's interesting how he's working on it almost alone and although not payed that much still is enthusiastic.
Pople used to think that architecture and planning is what built the society on the contrary what has built is design. A lot of people lack the fact that design is most important and it is everything you see around you. It starts from the menu that you ordered your lunch from to that commercial that drove you to a shop. But when it comes to the designers mistake or lack is the uniqueness of style due to the internet and the access that every designer has to the same source of information and links. Not only that but know it is stock imagery you wouldn't find a lot of companies that deliver locally but everything is branded in one style and just distributed. A long time ago everyone had to build the style he will work with but now people are computer generated. In the article he talks about how a professionalism is a person that thinks he knows everything and a crafts person is an artistic person willing to learn till the last day in his career, its true most professional people think they are already in the top of the mountain and that they don't need any help.

Why is it that Saudi arabia doesn't have an identity in products?

Saudi Arabia doesn't change the product they way japan does because it is a multi-cultural society. It has a lot of identities with in and many nationalities not just one, if they were to change products and make it with special identities a huge percentage of people would not accept it and they would not satisfy their customers. So what they do is get international products and keep it the way it is so it would be accepted my majority of the community. They still make a slight twist and include arabic typography to make it a bit different.

Not for Profit

It's very interesting how their are still people that care about humane actions rather than about making a profit. What they truly believe in is making a change and helping others to achieve an important cause in the world.
Non profit organization go through collecting all the money so that they can make an event and raise awareness. An example of that is the breast cancer association founded by Dr.Samia Alamoudi who is a past patient of breast cancer. Her association helps breast cancer patient and it is totally non profitable and just for humanity causes. In conclusion not all organizations are profitable there are some who just want to help people.

Socially responsible advertising

Social responsible advertising is a very interesting article that talks about advertising and marketing and the different measure that the companies would go through to be known or make a profit and etc... Cause related marketing isa very interesting marketing strategy that they talk about. Cause related marketing is when you buy a product like cereals, juice boxes or even clothes and they have the logo for an association on it like the aids, cancer or special needs association. It does mean that the products have special ingredient what they do is give the associations a sum of money as charity so that they can preview their logo on their products. They do this so that they can catch consumers heart and increase their profits in avery well-twisted way. Then the article talks about three type of marketers; niche marketers, passion branders and image builders.

At first, niche marketers are the type of companies that create a strong position for themselves in the market. They care very much for the consumers thoughts thats why they participate in great humanity actions so they get high customer retention. A great example for this type of marketers are ben&jerry's ice cream. The second type of marketers are passion branders; they don't care only about how much their profit growth is they also care about humanity causes like breast cancer associations for example. An example of such a company is avon and also a local example is albaik. This is because albaik does great stuff to help common people lie also helping clean the streets with having young guys walk in the street at time of traffic with banners to encourage cleanliness. The third type of marketers are image builders, they hide any negative vibes and show the best for profit cause only, like Denny's.

Advertising is a very huge issues with a lot of diversities and followers for wrong and right reasons. On the bright side some of them have a very positive vibes but the companies that are inhumane and the drastic measures that they would go through just for the sake of making more money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF73_7Phj4

Reality Branding

Reality branding is almost the opposite of whats happening now. What is meant is honesty when we are advertising like for example shampoo commercial and how your hair is immediately transformed to blow dried hair we all know that is a lie. When looking at posters designers carry the product expectation a hundred miles extra. It's wrong and no one can tell them to stop, but people tend to get attracted to the product more and the company sales increase so what the cure for reality branding.

Being honest with designing and not promising something to the extreme is not wrong. When researching gaining customer retention is a very important thing to keep and when designers advertise for a product and lie about the result i don't think consumers will keep on using it like nothings wrong; if we promise what we can achieve we will gain customer trust. Personally i am against reality branding and the boundaries they go over just to get more profits. It is something that took over the world nowadays and brainwashed people. An example is dietary food and saying you will loose all the wight or the axe effect deodorant and how it gets all the chicks guys want; and because we are so used to listening to ads and believing it people still think its true. If using dietary medications to loose wight was possible don't you think Oprah would have used one.

In conclusion, consumers have most of the power of stopping these lies and making advertising agencies use reality branding because it is they who there targeting. So i think its time that they spoke and everything went to its grounds and not rising expectations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP_iCJosfxs

Mental Whiplash

      Did you ever hear of the word mental whiplash? Mental whiplash is a sudden change of direction, when new thoughts take over. Graphic designers deal with it every day. It's such aw wide field of options from photography to drawing; and from corporate to non profitable deigns. That happens to most designers when working one minute they do something and the next second is something else, which is very disturbing. To put that in complete rest we need to teach designers how to research and teach teachers how to teach proprerly.

       Research doesn't mean only collecting information and putting it together in any form it also emphasizes on it's content and form. Designers need to know how to point out whats important and also consider minor researches such as interviews. The problem is most designers don't know when they can say that they have enough research and start to work on their project most of the time they get carried away with research. Thats the problem when we look at the students in design or designer; but there is another point to it the professors who teach direct the teach in one way; which is a total mistake because everyone has a different way in which they can grab the information. They should narrow down the way they teach so people can get helpful information. This all comes in handy when we start business because we will know exactly where to start who to target and how to market the product.

       In conclusion, if you come to think about it no one can do something alone to try and fix a problem teachers and students need to unite to get the best of it. We need to teach them the importance of research at a very young age so they can implement it throughout their lives.

Who gets to say what to whom?

Who gets to say what to whom, that is a smart question to ask your consciousness. As a designer you may think about your design before publishing thinking if it's appropriate or not a million questions come to mind well you are not blamed this was from the affect of people just saying what they want and criticizing one's work without thinking if it should be said or not.

Like design critics for example, they should dig deeper into the design and shouldn't judge something with how it looks like or the colors or photo's in it. A lot of things have a major effect on us know not only design critics have limited the freedom of the design world but also rules and regulation made by people with high authorities. They have set that imaginary line for us and the point that we have to stop on and not cross is that fair should it do that to us or not. Nowadays every one can say their opinion but when someone approaches you should he get to say that to you is it acceptable, is it allowed; that is something you should think about. No one can say anything every person gets to give the freedom for people to alk to them and say what they want to say.

In conclusion, Who gets to say what is a matter of choice every person can make people will talk and say what they want not caring about anything but maybe the right choice is not to listen to what they say; because not everyone has the authority to speak certain people do.

Cultural influence of brands

        Cultural influence of brands is one of the greatest issues in this world that only a few think about so that they are not affected. Brands were present from early ages but the issues of influence has succeeded to its maximum, to a point where people have to take a stance and say that it’s enough.

        Culturally brands have effected us to a point where people think that it is their necessity to keep on track with brands; For example that if a group carried Chanel bags then they would have to get it even if they were going to be in debt to someone. Its effect is really bad that people sometimes measures a person success with the brands they own or if they are able to get what everyone has. Not only that but companies don't care about anything other than the fact that they are making a profit, they would actually advertise for their product and make you think that you desperately need it. Like the ipad if you come to think about it, it does what you already have access of in your laptop or mobile but they made such a big deal and went to the extremes when advertising for that they brainwashed you so that you think that its is one of your daily basis necessity; when it fact it's not. Even when it comes to advertising they get celebrities and famous people to influence on consumers more and more that they should get it.

       Brands affect us in great ways; quality is not a major issue now as long as they are selling then they do not care if their customer is satisfied because they have a huge number of replacements. A long time ago brands weren't international so they had to have customer retention but nowadays they sell everywhere; so if one country doesn't like other countries still buy from it.

        In conclusion consumerism has affected us so quick like the h1n1 virus. We should think about something when buying and not think that the advertisement and the whole world of brands is our life.

Ethical Design Education

Ethics of design are something most designers should learn as a basis of their study. It is important that their aim isn’t about getting to work with the highest consuming companies but to work with companies that have a priority of saving the environment from complete pollution.

Designers are so caught up to corporate, that they don’t think of environmental sustainability. Most companies do harm the environment and when a designer agrees to work with them they never think that they are helping in polluting the society. Too many things are harmed like alligator skin for bags or belts, I mean isn’t that so barbaric. Most people are worried about being the highly developed country well how can you be if you are ruining and killing stuff just to satisfy your greedy needs.

Designer should be ethically concerned of the environment and to their clients. They should help to recycle and try not waste materials in where they can replace with something else that wont harm this world. The mistake most or as I may say all educational institute of design teach is that designs have to be printed on manufactured stuff and personalized packaging and not only for finals but they waste all these stuff for mock ups to. We cant always put the blame on the youth or fresh designer but we should put it on the elders that know the basis of a healthy living. They should have put rules for this stuff but no one has.

In conclusion, if we wait for someone to teach us ethics in the way we design no one will and we will just keep harming the environment. So the trick is to learn by ourselves have a hand in helping our planet stay together with peace; since we have the tool of design in our hands to preach everyone.

Good citizenship

Citizenship, its a word over heard in our life; that role model set for us to follow. In this article, good citizenship talks about the things in life that makes you a good citizen knowing what to do and when it should be done. Some people need something like this article to read so that they will be self-aware of the possibilities for the neglecting of morals and values in life. people shouldn't go around acting the way they want and not thinking about everything they do in their life and its negative and positive sides. This is exactly a lesson that should be taught to us at youth so we would learn how to react to the chemical reactions of life. Values and morals the important elements of life are exactly what was discussion in the article of good citizenship.

As designers, we have a very useful and powerful tool in between our hand the tool that will help us influence life of many other visually oriented people. Most designer in college were taught something wrong in their freshmen year; that design is a tool or talent that will help raise our economical status. They have been taught that corporate work is the road to success in this world. This is a big mistake to be taught to us because this the road to be an emotionless robot. It teaches you to ignore every concept of living you were raised upon and just do what you were told by the corporate companies. I believe in order to succeed you should have a strong believe that what you are doing is exactly what you want, and that it doesn't go into conflict with what you strongly belief in. You can not to do corporate work and still end up successful by doing what you love and showing your emotions in the piece of artwork, because people tend to like the human beings that have a strong stance in what they want, and not a machine in which the just do what they were asked. This is a huge issue because as a designer i would wish to go into a class and the professor would say as your project do what you want, what you wish and what you really believe would be a success. This is a huge inspiration to students for the professor to give them complete confidence that they have the ability to choose what they want and to work on it; this will make the create and invent outstanding ideas. Thats why values and morals are what you should never let go of because this is your finger print to the world to help identify you and what you really want forever.

In conclusion, good citizenship teaches a designer that he should defend what he truly believes in. The writer doesn't mean defend it having no respect to whom ever but defend it with respect to peoples emotion who believe opposite of what you do and thats a lesson for every deigned. Its not all about consumerism and materialism but it's about using the tool of art to get your message to the people you want but in a twisted way.

Timing is everything!!

Time is made of gold, or at least that’s what most people tend to say. Is it true or not, well personally I would say it is. Timing is the one thing that plays a major role in everyone’s life. Time is but a great weapon handed us in this world; its either we use it for our advantage or we let it destroy us.

The article discusses the importance of time, not by the meaning that it only for how you schedule your daily life; but its importance. It matters if you propose an idea at a certain time, than any time. For example like the issue of sphere magazine raised a huger issue because it was issued after the incidence of September 11. If it were issued before it would have probably not made the big fuss that it did, here the essence if time were of a great importance.  So it is something that everyone should keep in mind, that time does affect the issue, design or articles raised during a certain period of time.            

Also most designer prefer their agitation to be raised in historical books. I think it is because it is safer and would leave a huge trademark in the world and would give a stronger stance of the idea.

Third, I learned that if I ever did something and it didn’t get the popularity that I expect it doesn’t mean that its wrong or the way I did it was a mistake it just means its unpopular. You might do something and it might be the only right thing discussed in the same issue but it didn’t get the popularity you expected because of the time or place or maybe its not interesting to the people, so for that reason it didn’t get popular.

In conclusion, I learned that time is but of a great importance to everything you do in life and that it shouldn’t matter if something you did got the popularity or not. Personally, when I do something, I don’t do it so that someone would notice I just do it so that so that when I sleep at night I would be satisfied that I did something in this world; i.e. self satisfaction.

milton glaser bullet points

Have you asked yourself as a graphic designer, what's the limit? Every occupation has it's limit, like every sentence has a dot to end it. As humans we should define what it is that we want from the world, the message that we send and the things that will be said about us after we're gone. As a graphic designer I have put the dots on the line and know exactly the way and style that i want to portray myself to the world. Reading the questionnaire I would totally stop in the third point. To me if I designed a crest to show that the vineyard business has been there for a long time, it wont effect anyone. What it will do is make consumers trust the business more and increase their profit. So i don't think I'm going to effect my reputation by doing it. But when it comes to the fourth point I would not design a cover for a book where it's sexual content I would find repellent, because that means that I agree with it. I have attached an example of such a book. It would effect what type of designer I am and the environment that I was raised in. This something that wouldn't allow myself to do. The problem with it is that a book might effect not only effect one person; since it is printed in huge numbers hundreds and millions of people all around the world might get effected. I would feel really guilt if a book like this effects someone life and ruins it, because that is something I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for. That is why I stopped at the third point and show to the world of design that, thats the line ill will draw for myself.