Ideas for Essay titles

I had an idea of comparing two big mobile phone brands; Apple Vs Blackberry and the social idenities that each one represents as currently both in the busicness and the social world there seems to be a huge divide between the two and I wanted to look in to the image it represents. However I feel that this is too borad and doesnt concentrate on the graphic design side enough.

I am more interested in corporate design and how it creates social impacts / groups / systems
I need to chose a brand. At the moment I am thinking of comparing two brands in the same business sector; one at each end of the social spectrum and examine how the graphic design represents that two end s of the spectrum.

Essay - List of Books

The new Guide to Identity: Corporate Identity, Retail Identity, Brand Identity, Organisational Identity, The Corporate Brand...How to create and sustain change through managing Identity 

- Wally Olins - 

Modernization and Ritual: Idenity and Change in Santal Society

- Sitakant Mahapatra - 

Design Corporate Idenity: Graphic Design as a Business Strategy

- Pat Matson Knapp - 

Consumer-Brand Relationships: Insights for Theory and Practice

- Susan Fournier, Michael Breazeale, Marc Fetscherin - 

Good; An introduction to ethics in Graphic Design 

- Lecienne Roberts - 

A thoery of Marketing; Outline of a Social System Perspecive

- Marius Ludicke -


Link to a book

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MsdKjzk-hn8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=articles+on+issues+of+corporate+identity&ots=boALyQ6qte&sig=SNuBA5S6c-7ZOs2nWe5_9z1Qw68#v=onepage&q=articles%20on%20issues%20of%20corporate%20identity&f=false


http://www.identityworks.com/

http://www.point-articles.com/categories/3.branding-and-corporate-identity.html


Marx K - Fetish of commodieites

Essay Ideas

I am still working on a title however I some of the area that I am want to write about are

• social changes / issues / identities that have been affected by branding 
• corporate identities - compare 2 brands / companies in the same area of business and how graphic design creates social differences
• Building on this idea of social identities and brands - chose a brand and show the social benefits it is promoting and the life style is represents
• Promotion / Advertising - how it makes you feel you NEED to update and upgrade your products, how we as a nation are never satisfied and never buying products for the long term - we are always waiting for the latest upgrade - and how graphic design is promoting this. 

TUTORIALS - BRANDING & IDENTITY

BRANDING ESSAY IDEAS

• Health issue - Social Issues - Branding / Packaging - the influences e.g. Innocent Smoothies
• Pick a company and look 
• Relationship between design and social change
• Design and politics
• Social Messages shown through design
• How an increase in concerns for health have influenced design and branding - look at both sides
• How society is shifting a brand and how the brand is influencing society
• What are the social issues out there
• Social messages -  how is branding / identity influencing society
• the power of branding - how it attracts different target audiences etc - brand theory
• Focus on 1 specific campaign
• How brands and design shapes the way we thing - different target audience groups. 

Areas I am interested in - brand / packaging - how it draws your attention - makes you want it - conform to what is expected of society - this is what you need to fit in. 

Primary Research

If the company you are talking about aren't UK based then you can get in contact with them and use that as primary research. 

Take a theory that you understand and then apply it to a theory of your own interest e.g.

Foucat / Panopticism 

Visibility

On display

Mental control

The need of buying items when you don't need them - how does design affect attitudes / behaviour / morals - how do the brands and identities manipulate graphic design tools....? Space - layout - visibility

Chose certain brands - 

750 words on the theory and explaining what it is

That will then extend to a broad theory of panopticism and shopping spaces

Then focus on 1 place / shopping environment and relate to. 

It doesn't all have to be philosophical theory - there are many other theories about advertising / social levels etc - Read around

Persuasion in Advertising

BRANDING

The developments of mass production - ability to produce on a large scale - the volume of commodities on the market is increased - things are made quicker, faster, more churned out = increasingly there is more and more choice in terms of quantity but there is no choice in terms of quality - the market is flooded with more of the same product. 

To make your product more special there is a need to brand it. 

They used to give it a persons name to make it seem that it was from an old family / secret

Gradually it becomes more sophisticated - people start attaching brands to types of lifestyles. 

Weather you have or haven't got a brand - defines who you are as a designer

ESSAY POSSIBILITIES;

Technical analysis of brands and how they work

Bodrialar - Philosopher

The effects that brands have on products - the name - Coke Tap water, 'Vitamin water' - do people need things spelled out

The manipulation of branding and how it shapes our society

How do you brand the unbrandable - charities, NHS, schools - where the roll of the organisation isn't dominated by desire of the customers money

GENERAL TIPS - look at the sheet.

• Focus on something - 1 theory or 1 example - charity / company etc
• You could do an essay about consumer culture but it would be too abstract if it wasn't connected to 1 specific brand / company
• Branding - consumers - commodity fetish raised by Marx - we don't understand these as the products of human labour - that it is a product of worth (don't understand that they were made in a sweatshop for 5p, instead we have a connection to an abstract images of a brand = greater distance between the people in society)
• Adjusters - articles that are relevant
• Anything that is portrayed as a factor / evil is a good point to use and work with or against it in essay
• Social changes - 
• Cities and spaces are brands

Design activitsm - designers who try and change the world for the better

General SOCIOLIGY books - it will tell you about consumer society

The consumption reader

The sheets given out

Rather than doing things we judge people on how we look

Social lives are mediated through image - shoes, hair, cars, brands they have - mediated the fabri of every single piece of their lives. 

The model - aims to describe the processes of communication, this model was described for telephone communications

This could be your theory - take an advert campagne / brand and explain how it goes through the various stages

YOu could work out what stage went wrong if they didn't communicate effectively

Information source = mouth

Mouth piece - encodes it

Channel - 

decoded by ear piece

At any single part noise cann effest the communication

If there is noise where you are communication then the mesage wont be transmitted effectively

How could you apply this to graphic design. 

information source = designer who wants to convey a message thought a 

encoder - software / technique / print method

Channel - however teh design gets out in world - screen, magazine, billboard etc

reciever - peoples eyes / technology

destination - the audience

Lecture 6 - Cities & Film

LECTURE 5 - The gaze in the media

• People think of themselves in certain ways 
• he examins the ideas by klooking at nude images of women - women carry around the idea that they are being looked at. not about vanity thought

The mirror - device that distracts. It works in harmoney with vanity and places a moral judgement on vanity. There is an idea that there is a sinful regard. The reflected face is on an angle and slightly distorted.

She is lost in thought - lost in a moment of revory. this allows us to look at her without the challenge of her looking back at us. Her body is arranged in a way that is slightly unflattery and there is a low view point and her legs are apart so that is where the eye is directed to. We don't really see the eyes properly so we dont get a return gaze. 

Female figure in a reclining position. She partly covers her eyes and the other arm is stretched behind her. We can look at her body without the challenge of her looking back at us. 2/3 of the painting is taken up by the image of her naked body.

Advert that was initially withdrawn because of its overt nudity and sexual nature. Similar spacing to the birth of venus - her body is the focus of where we rest our gaze. When the advert wasn't approved they brought back another version of it - verticle. 

This version of the advert was passed. The key change is the vertical format - the emphasis is on the face whereas the horizontal, the emphasis is on the body.

wealthy woman who knows we are there and is happy for us to regard her naked. 

Contrasts with Titians work - this is painted in the modernism period - Manet represents the modern nuge. Olyimpia sits slightly elevated on the cusions and looks us directed in the eye - her pose is more provocative. She wares the adornments that you would associate with a wealthy woman - although a prostitue she is not poor and on the streets. She is a symbol of asserted femanine presance. She disregartds the flowers and looks directly at the viewer.

Showcased 169 artists and only 17 were selected. 

Less than 5% of the women in the art section are women. THey were asked to design a billboard for New York - comparing the number of nude males to nude females in the artwork on display. THis was rejected as it wasn't clear enough and was shown on busses instead - this was then stopped as they felt the images were too provocative / suggestive. 

Type of self portrait - could be Manet himself (not known - Calne had a different opinion). We are in his place - directly infront. No way a realistic mirror reflection. 

male featured in underwear advert - in reclining position, one arm out stretched and the other arm curved around head - like the birth of venus. He is positioned so that you look at his nude body. Male objectiviation - men are now equally objectified 

Every male is looking us directly in the eye - still a sense that they r returning our gaze

The framing of the camera chops up the body and makes us focus on the areas that we should be intersrested in - the body becomes an object.