Ideas in a different space, problem swap, cultural and paradigm shift
My Reflection
This week was probably the challenges week so far, but dealing with the workload did take its toll with fitting everything else for deadline day. The case studies all showed similarities with adapting to technology, movement of culture, marketing, and connecting with people through a narrative influence. These all come to play by changing your perception and adapting new strategic thinking in your ways. In some ways, the design has adjusted itself to adapting to the culture environment, movement of technology, and economy. Society needs design to help break down communication for messages in either brand, publications, service, and also political agenda that can simplify the communication to the audience. This can clarify the information that is projected in the world today that can be dissected into simpler messages with ethnicity and empathy in its approach. We can really learn from the change in society today by keeping with the trends in our social culture. There are different ways of using technology and other creative outputs, such as print, for example, we can develop a better understanding through the user experience in the field of graphic design to revolutionise.
The interview with Maziar Raein really touches on the cross over of design and culture. Maziar really speaks volumes on how critical thinking to help with the changes in how we adapt our craft with technology and keeping with traditional ways to approach our conceptional process. He speaks about how designers care about the ongoing issues in the world today and use graphic design as a way to communicate the awareness they believe through design. This can be really highly regarding a powerful tool that can make a change in society using communication through digital and print media which is best to broadcast a creative output. Maziar also picks up that we need to critically think about our approach to design constantly to help us understand and better ourselves in our role as a graphic designer. With this in mind, we need to start to collect an achieve our own ideas and designs, which we can look back on and help with future project ideas. This can be a personal reference to help support intuition and decision making when answering to a project as long it fits in with a brief. This is why we need to reflect on our own practice to understand ourselves as a designer and be intuitive in our approach to a new path in our career or project selection.
Ryan Gander
Maziar Raein speaks briefly about Ryan Gander, Loose Associations which originally published in The Serving Library’s, ‘Dot Dot Dot’. I wanted to research more into his work and look at the lecture of Loose Associations. In somewhat this is a presentation of a series of loosely associated anecdotes on often overlooked or undercover aspects of art, design, and language. The lecture series has been delivered to countless audiences over the years.
Ryan Gander – The Art of Everything: The Culture Show
This episode on Ryan Gander was a great insight into the world of Art of Everything. His work amazes me as his art is based on storytelling and powerful ideas. The juxtapositioning really shows throughout a lot of his process, which brings this playful, cryptic, and challenging work of art. He shows the good things in the world through his art, which he does really well that can stay with you. He has a studio in Suffolk which he describes his space as idea diarrhea of things that he’s constantly developing projects big or small in his studio. This is then interpreted to his London studio where he has a team to help create his ideas. His team helps to create and progress his pieces for exhibitions in art galleries across the globe. Ryan speaks about that he not always creating the work, but has a collective of people that can craft the idea. He’s more about the idea and message that is perceived as a project that’s most important. Critics have described it’s hard to pin down what is Ryan’s work as much of the stuff is collectively created. You can see Ryan is passionate about his work, which he create these amazing art forms, which you can see the influence of classical art that brings to life his contemporary practice. He speaks about how learning history in art is a big impact on his creations otherwise it would be a stuttering case without the knowledge that he speaks of.
Workshop Challenge
This week’s workshop was a very broad exercise as there are many interesting topics that design can interpret through any application that can shift the idea in a positive light. My thinking began with watching an episode from Abstract on Netflix which was Cas Holman, Design for Play. This got me thinking about the idea of the topic around children’s toys on the environmental issue that is polluting the planet with plastic. Also how most toys are not designed to play for learning to help kids in developing countries and poverty areas to help with their learning. There were many thoughts around the subject but I drifted off and started looking into the fair trade standards in the banana trade on a global scale. It came to mind when I was shopping and started looking at labels on the shelf of the supermarkets with the fair trademark. Comparing to the loose bananas not knowing wither these are fair trade or not as there were not any stickers to signify this issue. So I started to research more and more into this subject and found the fascination with the way the fairtrade seems fine on our side of the world in many products, but really there is a bigger issue in the trade where it is not so great. Still today not enough is being done for small farmers and plantations to allow equal labor rights conditions in the trade, is causing bad welfare in countries that are trying to survive.
Bananas are the favourite fruit in our grocery basket and are grown by millions of small-scale farmers and plantation workers in tropical regions. They are the staple food for millions of people in developing countries and the favourite fruit in our grocery basket.
The banana industry provides employment for thousands of people in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. It generates vital foreign exchange earnings that governments depend on to improve health, education, infrastructure, and other social services.
The trade-in bananas is a cornerstone of many developing countries’ economies, but the social problems in the industry are many and complex. Reports about problems in the banana industry often highlight the woefully poor situation of workers: low wages, precarious employment, restrictions on the right to organise themselves, and the handling of unhealthy and environmentally hazardous chemicals without adequate protection, to name a few.
Not one of the supermarkets is doing enough to ensure basic human rights for the thousands of people who put food into our shops and onto our tables. Some go to work and produce food all day but go home hungry.
The supermarkets listened – but they all still have a long way to go. There needs to be more pressure on the stores to ensure workers’ rights are respected, small-scale farmers can thrive and women food producers are treated fairly.
Banana workers and small farmers in developing countries are exposed to toxic agro-chemicals, earn poverty-level wages, and work in a climate of fear. For decades a few multinational companies have dominated the banana market, negatively affecting the lives
of workers and farmers.
Since the summer of 2015, the Make Fruit Fair! the campaign has collected evidence of very serious violations of core labour standards at specific Fyffes’ subsidiaries; ANEXCO in Costa Rica and Suragroh and Melon Export SA in Honduras, where a largely female workforce, reliant on temporary seasonal work, is particularly vulnerable.
These violations include failure to pay minimum wages and social insurance (an estimated £2.5m in pay and social insurance has been withheld); exposure of workers to hazardous agrochemicals; failure to respect freedom of association including threats, harassment, and sacking of union members; and blocking collective bargaining processes.
Local communities are damaged by the subsequent poverty and the impact of large scale monoculture production on both human health and the environment. Supermarkets need to pay prices that cover the costs of sustainable production and that all industry stakeholders need to understand and address the hidden social and environmental costs of tropical fruit production (externalities).
Make Fruit Fair! Key messages and demands
Governments, supermarkets, and fruit companies shall ensure that female and male workers and small farmers in fruit export production have Decent Work and decent livelihoods.
There should be:
- a living wage/income for female and male workers/small farmers;
- equal pay and equal access for women to employment and training, and opportunities for women to be active at all levels of decision making;
- respect for labour rights including, non-discrimination, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining;
- effective health and safety practices implemented in all workplaces; and
- an end to gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the workplace.
Respect for human rights and the environment
Supermarkets and fruit companies shall respect and implement human and labour rights throughout their supply chains. In particular, they shall disclose their human rights impacts including that of their suppliers.
Protect the environment
Governments, supermarkets, and fruit companies shall implement policies that encourage ecologically sound fruit production. In particular, they shall ensure that:
- there is the sustainable use of resources, such as soil and water
- producers reduce their dependency on hazardous agrochemicals, in compliance with international conventions and national and regulations
- producers increase the use of ecological and sustainable alternatives to agrochemicals;
- there is respect for biodiversity
- all supply chain actors reduce their carbon footprint.
Fair supply chains
Governments, supermarkets, and fruit companies should stop the abuse of supermarket buyer power.
Supermarkets and fruit companies should:
- treat their suppliers fairly; and
- pay prices that cover the costs of sustainable production.
Governments should:
- include sustainability considerations into merger regulation and the definition of “Consumer welfare”
- introduce credible enforcement against unfair trading practices with access to redress for those suffering detriment
Research into Packaging
Packaging of Bananas is terribly awful with the times of reducing packaging. It is known that most fruits in packaging cost far less than loose items which are developing waste that can’t be removed from our environment. At the moment single-use plastic is uprising through the pandemic of Covid-19 as it clearly isn’t a priority to the ongoing issue.
This banana packaging was launched in a Korean supermarket and was being hailed as a genius idea through social media. The idea is to have a sequence of banana’s ripped for every day of the week. So you would eat the ripest first to the last through your week. This idea is not really considered well as there’s no need for the plastic packaging and the fruit already grows in a natural casing.
Other companies are working on other alternatives to plastic with a paper wrapping around a bunch of bananas. This is a great alternative to single-use plastic and can be easily recycled. There are also other ideas that using banana leaves as a packaging to hold together fruit in more climatised countries where they’re freshly grown.
As we know, when we see the Fairtrade logo on produce we assume this is a product that has the all clear on equal and fair standards to the trade. Rightfully so there are plantations and farms that apply to these standards, but the trade is still unfair in many places around the globe that Fairtrade is working on amending those problems.
Research Example
Fairtrade ‘Remove the shadow of doubt’ campaign
By Blaze Advertising for Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand
This campaign for Fairtrade in Australia is very well executed which is a promotional campaign each year called ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’. The campaign is provocative and alerts people in an unusual way to the issues underlying through each product. The shadows in the visuals show the hidden meanings associated with unfair trade practices.
My Campaign on the
Banana Trade
My approach to this campaign is to make awareness of the ongoing issues in the banana trade were businesses like Fyffes subsidiaries’ smaller fruit and fresh produce companies are not following the guidelines of fairtrade international. My idea is about peeling the truth behind what issues are happening in small farms and plantations in countries like Costa Rica and Honduras. Many labor rights are not met to a level of the welfare of the workers and their lives. There are things like minimum wage is not met, violence and sexual harassment, equal access and pay for women, and effects of health and safety in the environment. These are major issues for these countries as trade is a huge export for the trade and there should be fairer workers’ rights in this industry.
So working with the idea of peeling the truth behind an individual story that’s being affected. I wanted to work with a slogan that can relate to that, which I came up with ‘A Peel’ as this would be used in place for ‘appealing ‘. So we end up with the slogan ‘A Peel for Fairtrade’ and this would lead to a series of advert that appeals to the individual story behind the truth. Billboard adverts would have this graphic device, were over a time a layer of the advert starts peeling the truth behind the campaign. This can be done at bus shelters and London underground advertisement boards.
This can also be applied to the packaging on banana boxes that can be exported globally and on bananas as stickers on the products that can reveal the info by peeling the sticker away.
Development
These are artboards of my findings to my idea and developing a graphic device that can work for my creation. I experiment with a typestyle, the colour of imagery that works most effectively with the graphics, and also how it can be applied to different applications to work with the message.
Ideas Wall
Weekly Reflection
This week, we looked upon the idea of new steps in different space, problem swap, cultural and paradigm shift through graphic design. The lectures discussed the shift of how design may change in itself and potential future definitions of design practice. Design is a constant change that is always moving and developing with culture, environment, social, and economic that’s evolving in the world today. There’s always a challenge in making a difference through design, as it is one of the most powerful tools that need to exist for communication and fundamental creativity for the good of our environment and culture. Design every day is becoming broader and thrives on adapting to new surroundings either its technical or in a social setting. We as designers need to keep adapting and changing our craft, thinking, experimenting, and experiencing to challenge ourselves to do better for the good. It is more about questioning our role in what we want to persevere in our careers. We can keep ourselves motivated to help others to achieve great things in something you and the client believe in. There’s no point in doing something that’s not motivated towards you to develop a product or service that you truly don’t show any belief that drives you to work on. I research Ryan Gander’s work after listening to the lecture by Maziar Raein speaking about his project on Loose Associations, which was a fantastic piece. His work is very interesting as all his project really relates to one or another in this playful, witty, and simple approach as to how looks into his subject with consideration to his narrative style. It is his kinda work that he’s always critically reflecting himself and his work which allows him to develop as a great artist that really makes a statement of who and what he is. Is constantly adapting himself to the way he’s learning from his environment to the studio that makes him contemporary to his art. Ryan is a great inspiration and the way collects an achievement of ideas that he can use either now or later date allows him to catalog many subject areas of interest to him.
So for this workshop challenge, I decided to look at the banana trade on how fairtrade in the industry. We see fruit on our shelves with marks of the fairtrade logo or sticker that gives us the authentication that the product comes with a great standard and belief in a good product that helps the lives for others. In doing my research I came to find that there are still some gaps in the loophole where companies such as Fyffes fruit and fresh produce company has a few subsidiaries’ farms and plantation in the region of Central America that have poor quality in labor rights. These are underlining issues that get swept under the carpet as you wouldn’t clearly know are link to a big company like Fyffes, that uses the Fairtrade icon on their fruit and fresh produce. So there are still issues out there today that are affecting thousands of workers’ livelihood and human rights to live a normal and stable life. I really enjoyed the research into this and made me motivated in looking into the wider issue of this subject. It was a great exercise in moving my understanding of researching and thinking of ideas that can bring to life a campaign that can work. My research allowed me to get a great understanding to apply my thoughts and ideas to create a campaign that might work in the real world. I feel my work is far from complete and has legs to be pushed further, but I feel this is a great start in my thinking process to work towards either this idea or others that can evolve. I do want to develop the idea further to create something more clever that’s physically engaging with the audience than just a billboard that peels the truth behind the issue. My idea was a brief thought as my time was sparingly but if I had more time I would approach the research phase more thoroughly to look into more detail on the issue. this would allow me to look in a different perspective of thinking more ideas that can really impact on the campaign if this was a live project.