COP3 Rationale

Stephanie Buck, 0UGD601, Rationale CoP3

Aim: Demonstrate a critical understanding of the synthesis between the theoretical and practical contexts of their own creative concerns.

Rationale: Does Graphic Design influence Consumerism?

To create a practical element that highlights the use of public space in terms of consumerism and psychogeorgraphy.

The aim of the consumer experiment was to highlight consumer routes and ‘visual pollution’ created by advertising and design, to persuade consumer opportunity within a defined area. (Leeds Hyde Park to Leeds City Centre) (2.2 Mile Radius)

From this documentation, the idea of using graphic design techniques and visuals such as maps and graphs, created a formative process allowing a visual adaptation of the results documented.

By creating a simple map of the route and highlighting the entire consumer aspects by sub-genres, allowed for a clear view of consumer patterns within the area, visualizing the amount of the public space being used by aspects of consumerism.  I chose to create this as a poster so it was clear and large enough you could see the detail and the position of the visual pollution. A graph summarizing the results was colour coded and works hand-in-hand with the mapping of consumerism.

The physcogeography aspect of the practical was used to highlight the Situationists perspective on how the public space should be viewed. The idea of using the same route as the consumer route can highlight differences with the methods and ideas. The idea of ‘real life’ within this map needed to be portrayed to highlight the Situationists view. The mapping was meant to differ a lot from the consumer map. The elements of real life such as saying, photography and comments are also placed on the map and other various techniques used by the Situationists have been put into action through. The map is folded in order for it to look like an ordnance survey map that you could take out and about. This was to allow the audience to see and embrace the city without the normal conventions a map portrays.

Through creating these maps, it was clear that the results showed that there was a heavy impact of visual pollution within the area. Because of this, a consumer cycle can be created. A poster showing this cycle and the brands contributing most to the cycle was crated to show this process.

A document containing the route is also present in order to clearly visualize the route undertaken. It applies to the consumer map more, and is created to introduce and relate elements of the map to the position of the visual pollution within the specified area.