It's All The Same!

As the title suggests really, it's all the same! Or at least that was the idea that I was trying to drive forward within this new and exciting 'Message and Delivery - Mail Shot' brief. No real restrictions this time except for a few minor things regarding colour and dimension. Two colours plus stock and I quote 'You can remake, modify or reproduce the envelope in any other media but the dimensions must remain the same'. Not bad, not badddd.




Again, as with the last brief I decided to illustrate a key figure within the relevant field of subject matter. This time it was media conglomerates and the lucky lad to be reproduced by my pen was Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation for any of you that don't know who he is and why he exists within this world. The idea was simple really, illustrate him and all of the leading brands that he owns via their logos. I think many people would be quite shocked if they realised just how much of the world's media is owned by a very select handful of people.

On the down side however, I did break the rules a little and decided to use only one colour; black. I did think about trying to include some red within the composition but none of my arrangements seemed to work as well as the simple one colour approach. Perhaps I could develop this next time I have chance to breathe... Might happen?

Either way, simple and to the point. The way I like it, not that you'd notice given the size of my previous post...

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p.s to find out just how much News Corporation infiltrates your life visit www.newscorp.com

Advert I Sing

To get this brief off to a flying start it was at our discretion to select an engaging article from the September 15th edition of The Guardian and to develop a well structured body of research over what was suitably entitled 'Reading Week'. Relating to my Critical Studies inquiry regarding the text 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein and many other issues surrounding branding and advertising, I naturally selected an article that dealt with advertising head on and boldly stated that 'Adverts are terrible things'. What a swine. With this in mind my research ranged from television advertising to more conventional advertising you'd expect to see within the environment such as billboards and posters and subsequently visited the contrasting notions between capitalist views and communist views from the likes of Karl Marx.

In terms of deliverables it was required that we explored and developed a range of ideas in order to produce a series of three high impact posters at 2:1 scale; A3 format (one text, one image, one text and image combined). As a result, we were given a few warm up exercises that allowed for thoughts to be sprawled out onto paper in a quick-fire fashion. This helpfully prevented many people from having any sort of mind block which can often occur when gazing out of a window in deep thought whilst trying to muster some sort of ground breaking concept!



As you can see from the second picture above, many of my initial ideas surrounded the notion of money and how much of it is actually spent by media conglomerates to promote their brands and products. Getting into a bit of a struggle however, I reviewed my choice of direction and began to work upon the idea that the worlds media and advertising is often quite biased in terms of what sort of message it portrays in any given brand or world event; thus 'advertising can dictate', at least to some extent.

From here my immediate thoughts led to illustrative experimentation that portrayed well known dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. This in my opinion was the most effective and direct way in which I could convey the themes of dictatorship and link it towards advertising in a visual engaging manner. In juxtaposition with this, I also felt that to adhere to the restrictions outlined by the brief the inclusion of text could be made through some of the most popular slogans that are recognised throughout the world such as Nike's 'Just Do It' and Coca Cola's 'Always Coca Cola'. After a few experimentations though I settled upon using the captions 'I'm lovin' it' from McDonald's and 'I'd rather have a bowl of Coco Pops' from Coco Pops as I felt they suitably contrasted given the context of Hitler's fascist background and Stalin's communist background. One poster concept down.

In approaching a concept for the other two posters I deemed it relevant to try and house the theme of spoken jingles in relation to my selected slogans from McDonald's and Coco Pops. For my text only composition this was achieved by arranging the word advertising into sections to read as 'Advert I Sing' which in itself was accompanied by a small scaled swastika that mimicked the positioning of a trademark or copyright symbol.


Finally for a frame that was only allowed to carry its message through imagery, I began to draft up a list of popular songs that were about money; Abba being the one that sprang to mind first. With this I chose to illustrate a range of monetary icons such as coins, notes and gold bullion bars and selected a way in which I could try and get across to the audience the theme of the song title - 'Money, Money, Money'.


Within my final compositions I decided to use repetition via three cold coins as I felt it reiterated the relevant topic in question. Furthermore, my chosen colour resulted in red and yellow with both colours being directly selected from the packaging for both McDonald's and Coco Pops products. That's when I thought I was home and dry...

Given the final crit, it was suggested that I could perhaps lose the concept of money within the central composition as it didn't directly relate to the corresponding dictatorship idea that I decided to work with further and therefore this is something I would like to develop further should time allow for it.

But as I said before, always room for improvement dammit!

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Visual Metaphor

A visual metaphor is used to transfer the meaning from one image to another. Although the images may have no close relationship, a metaphor conveys an impression about something relatively unfamiliar by drawing a comparison between it and something familiar.


In similar fashion to an apple representing New York, love represents Paris despite the fact that there is no direct relationship between the two.

"Does that make sense?" - Fred Bates.

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Visual Metonym

A visual metonym is a symbolic image that is used to make reference to something with a more literal meaning. For example, a cross might be used to signify the church. By way of association the viewer makes a connection between the image and the intended subject. Unlike a visual synecdoche , the two images bear a close relationship, but are not intrinsically linked. And unlike visual metaphors, metonyms do not transfer the characteristics of one image to the other.


Much like the Eiffel Tower, mime artists often represent Paris but differ in the way that they can be found everywhere around that world. As a result, this means that mimed themselves are not something that Paris literally owns exclusively; thus they are not a visual synecdoche.

"Does that seem fair?" - Fred Bates.

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Visual Synecdoche

This term is applied when a part is used to represent the whole, or visa versa. Quite simply, the main subject is substituted for something that is inherently connected to it. This substitution only works if what the synecdoche represents is universally recognised and understood, rather than taken at face value for its literal meaning. The ability to refer to a group or class of objects through a visual device enables a designer to convey an idea in a clean and unfettered manner.


In this instance the Eiffel Tower is commonly acknowledged to represent Paris as a whole, but is in fact only a small part within the city itself.

"Does that seem clear enough?" - Fred Bates.

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Blue Is Objectified

Well... here we are again. Another day another dollar and as a result of slipping beneath the radar for a while now it has in fact been a few weeks since the completion of this brief. This time I was required to complete a series of ten A5 square (150mm x 150mm) format resolutions that represented my given colour and over in this corner (as you may have guessed from previous briefs) my winning ticket landed me with the colour Blue; a joyful colour that is in no way shape or form related to sadness or misery. Honest.

With the stipulation of not being allowed to use type and image within the same composition (not that I broke the rules or anything) I ended up deciding to tackle my chosen theme through the means of collage; which to be honest is something I am quite comfortable with and enjoy doing rather a lot!






With the crit looming at the end of the week I was pretty nervous, mainly because it was a case of 'your work will be removed from the wall in the nicest possible manner' and put into a pile of shame if it is not worthy of staying up. Luckily for me however, my work managed to remain on the wall along with Ed's (Go TEAM:REP) and received some positive feedback which I was obviously very pleased about.

On the flip side however, one or two people commented upon some of the compositions having slight ambiguity or unclear meanings in regards with what they were supposed to represent.

Always room for improvement dammit!

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