COP3 Practical

My written element to COP3 focuses heavily on misrepresentation in advertising, through the use of a stereotypically perfect male/female. In some cases, the reason for this can be justified given the target audience of the product, combined with the manner in which the public view themselves. Women may buy a certain brand of makeup to live up to the stereotype that's put forward with it, perhaps they buy a more expensive brand to appear as being able to afford it.

However, there are some instances in which using a stereotyped man or woman could decrease the size of their audience, one of these being the manner in which some companies brand food. Using a scantily clad woman may decrease the female percentage of buyers, and vice versa. Below are some examples of sexualised food in advertising:

It is a common joke against advertising that to sell a mediocre product, all you need to do is add an element of sex to it. However, with food adds run the risk of it appearing less appetising due to the nature of the image. I may say this as a woman, given that the majority use women, but the ads featuring close to naked men also give me no desire to eat the food covering his dignity.

COP3 Practical Ideas

I initially wanted to identify some subjects and routes I could go down that were relevant and applicable to my essay and found that there were three aspects to gender stereotyping that I potentially wanted to use:

• Housewives - I am keen to identify the tendency that ads have to stereotype women as the homemakers, targeting them for advertising products such as washing up liquid, laundry detergent, vacuuming and so on. There have been a couple of cases in which a man has been featured but this was seen as odd to an audience. While the man is doing the laundry it's still a female voiceover, which makes the chore appear more as a woman's task.

• Perfumes - In my essay and research I have frequently looked at the stereotypes of men and women that seem to accompany the advertising of fragrances. No other product seems to explicitly exhibit men and women in compromising positions in order to sell something, and so I could potentially create or rebrand a perfume brand using only illustrative  imagery over photographs.

• Food - The least necessary incorporation of gender stereotypes in advertising. Food is and should always be neutral, not one chocolate bar for a man and one for a woman. In some cases it can be harmless, in others, unnecessarily offensive, when a piece of food can be pinned to one gender.

COP3 Research: Agencies/Designers to Contact

When thinking about the designers that I need to contact to get the best views on my topic, one area that I wanted to look into is hand-rendered design. I plan to discuss how the digital age has changed the Graphic Design world, and designers that do not focus on working digitally are likely to have a strong opinion on this matter. On top of this, I would be very interested to visit the design studio of a person or agency that works in such a way.

1. Si Scott

Scott gave a talk in college last year that I was extremely excited about having followed his career for some time. It is some of his work that made me interested in pursuing graphic design, as before starting on this course all the design I did was hand-rendered.