It was discussed in the tutorial the ways in which certain sections would flow better in terms of content ordering and expansion on points so that they always refer back to the research question. I was then able from this point to start with the first drafts of the essay and start to send over small chunks to my tutor to make sure it was reading well and going into enough detail.
Intro
What area of editorial design - magazines
Editorial design purpose +
women in design
‘Graphic
design is the communications framework through which these messages about what
the world is and what we should aspire to.’ (Hustwit, 2007, 2:3, Helvetica)
Editorial design decisions are made based in what is thought to
communicate appropriately and effectively to the target audience, influencing
them in the desired way; content dependent.
‘The UK design profession remains
distinctively white and male-dominated’ (Design Council 2005, 2010; Allen 2013)
‘Anyone who wanders through the classes of
our art academies is surprised by the high percentage of women among the
students’ – Spondé
This is a contrast to the well-known gender gap within the
creative industry, where have they all gone and how editorial design evolved to
communicate this issue and potentially begin to overcome this.
Outline theories
Gender gap development, editorial progress
Until just a few decades ago it was
considered inappropriate for a woman to pursue a career, especially if married.
Apprehensive about projecting a public image of a creative and self-assured
working woman.
There are perceptions relating to the behaviour of people that
distinguish what are expected and what is not expected from people of a given
gender. E.g. sensitivity, dependence and expression of emotions are considered
feminine in nature. Men are expected to exhibit traits such as bravery,
independence and assertiveness.
Violation of these stereotypes allows for
change in society – gender roles have changed over the last decades,
particularly women’s roles, so that today’s women possess more of the traits
traditionally considered as masculine. According to findings, instrumental
traits have become more socially desirable for women and expressive traits have
become more socially desirable for men. (Swazina et al. 2004)
Bring back to design – although there is a gender gap there are
more creative female directors.
Women as the face of graphic design 100 years ago – protest art
Feminism acknowledges that past inequality of women and doesn’t
want it to continue into the future. Feminist design – Graphic strategies that
will enable us to listen to people who have not been heard from before.
Feminism enables those voices to be heard.
Before Graphic Design was formalised as a
profession, related fields such as decorative arts, fashion design and art were
still heavily dominated by men. At the turn of the 20th century,
women were starting to cause ripples socially, and early forms of graphic design
played a part in making these ripples expand. The suffragettes realised that they could use
design as a powerful form of communicating their protest ideas on trying to
gain voting equality. Although there was much more social equality during the
first half of the 20th century, the design industry remained a
male-dominated world for many decades.
In graphic design, modernist forms have been defined by such
elements as grids, basic forms, primary colours, and grotesque typefaces. Modernism
was also the era where a slew of rules and norms for graphic design and
typography became codified. But as we will see below, a number of designers
today view these modernist elements as conveying and representing patriarchal
values. This mid-century conviction that designers should be societally
responsible emerged concurrently with the idea that design could play a role in
changing society. Designers were the objective guardians of the message, even
as they had a responsibility for bringing about social change. This also
incorporated the notion that there existed a correct type of design, a
universal form. It is worth mentioning here that is was largely white men who
provided such “correct” answers to the questions of design.
1960s and 70s at the end of the Modernist period saw the second
wave of Feminism. Women were able to express their dissatisfaction about gender
roles, leading to the postmodernist design style. (sceptical interpretations of
culture)
Early editorial design decisions
During the 1990s there was a surge in the
publications debating the lack of flexible working in jobs in general and
specifically in the creative industries. Publications such as ‘Communications
Arts’ brought the issue to the light;
‘This is not a women’s issue. It is a design
issue. The need for flexible work schedules, family leave and feasible
childcare, affects both male and female designers but are particularly critical
to women who have traditionally been the caregivers.’ (Moira Cullen, 1993,
p.27)
In the early stages of the realisation that there was an
inequality within the creative industry, editorial design addressed the issue
by giving the issue a voice and printed publications could be distributed to a
large audience of people.
Deconstruction was gradually used more and
more to react and test the very uniformed and consistent ‘masculine’ design
style of Graphic Design.
(No more rules: Graphic Design and
Postmodernism)
By ‘reshuffling and reinhabiting’ the
normative structures of mass media, design could be used as a critical tool to
‘expose and revise’ the mechanics of representation.
Neville Brody’s magazine FUSE is a postmodern
platform for experimental typefaces. The magazine allows for breaking of
boundaries to portray strong and clear messages.
Pussy Galore typeface by WD + RU was
published in the magazine looking at stereotypes.
“This was an opportunity to raise awareness
about women working in the profession whilst also critically engaging through
an experimental typeface with the language used by, for, and against women.” –
Triggs + Cook
The colour pink/purple holds the gender association of
femininity and the phrases explore ‘empowerment, stereotypes, choices and bad
language associated with women. The contrast between the message and the design
decisions used to present the typeface show an aggression that would not be
expected from females of this time period.
Cipe Pineles – editorial breakthrough
Her editorial career began when she was taken
on by Condé Nast publications, learned the editorial art direction from one of
the masters of the era, and became the first autonomous woman art director of a
mass-market American publication. In 1950 the first issue of Charm was
released, with a well-groomed model on the front cover and the design style
acting as personification of the women professionals the magazine sought to
reach. The serif, high contrast typeface contrasted to the common use of Futura
with editorial design of this time period. This editorial piece began to
address the fact that women should be seen to be smart, capable of high powered
jobs and that the once dominated editorial studio hired a woman art director
and she has been very successful.
In Charm, surrounded by the advertisements that reflected
society’s limits on girls and women, the editorial pages showed something
different: ways for American females to see themselves involved in the wider
world and in possession and control of knowledge, money and their destinies.
“She didn't teach style—she taught content.
She taught you to start with the content of the magazine and then work from
there, rather than just think about what design was going to look nice on the
page.” Melissa Tardiff
Current editorial influences – cross
comparison
“I definitely believe graphic design inhabits
possibilities to intervene, change or create larger nuance in questions of
inequality” Nicole Killian
The exploration of past design movements and conscious design
decisions and challenging of norms really has shown that graphic design has the
power to intervene and change the issues with inequality. The design decisions
now can continue to intervene with the expectation that the design industry is
male dominated and really portray creative women in a new light. The design
decisions explored seem to celebrate the intelligence of creative women and
portray them to be more than capable of the stereotypical feminine design
outcomes.
Past movements making a difference – suffragette and dada as
example and this is how editorial can do this
Imposter syndrome is a factor to consider
when looking at the gender gap within the work place, but especially a creative
one. Confidence in what you are producing is important for the piece to be
recognised and this may be something that is holding women in design back.
Professor Sir Cooper, psychologist says that “quite a lot of women don’t think
they are as good as other people think they are … They often make an
unrealistic assessment of their competences and listen only to the negative
feedback.”
Editorial design decisions with content surrounding this issue
will need to be promoting confidence more than before if the gender gap is to
be narrowed within the design industry.
Design
decisions for confidence
- columns
- bold typeface
- block colours
- design focused
Magazine
examples
Having a career as a woman until recently was
seen to be against the norms, let alone a successful one in design. It is these
stigmas that are still slightly present within society and the creative
industry. Magazines such as Riposte address this issue by valuing the
intelligence of the woman that they choose to be part of the magazine. The magazine
is dedicated to spotlighting issues and women across the disciplines. The
founder Danielle Pender’s opinion that “girls shouldn’t think that what they do
is lame, or what they want to do is lame” is supported by the decision to use
minimal, typographic covers to reinstate that it is the content as a focus and
not the desirability of the woman. The design decisions such as the bold splash
of colour on the cover successfully shows confidence in regards to the content
and certainty that the designers chosen are of positive influence to society.
This is a huge contrast to the editorial design decisions in the past that have
relied on the sexual attraction of the woman on the cover to appeal to the
target audience.
Editorial design has changed in the way that it represents women
to be smart, creative and respected all in the design decisions and the deeper
portrayal that these can have on the audience of the content.
(So you want to publish a magazine? – Angharad Lewis)
The anatomy of a magazine
The cover:
Riposte has been admired for its bold
approach to cover deign, turning the conventions of women’s magazines on their
head by relegating the ‘cover photo’ to the outside back page and putting
typographic design on the front. Danielle Pender (magazine’s founder +
editor-in-chief), defines a great cover as ‘something that perfectly and
succinctly sums up the ethos of your magazine. Something that is bold and brave
and doesn’t follow trends.’
Similar to The Riveter, a magazine focused with the aim to change
the way women are portrayed in print. A serif typeface = classy, official,
intelligent, legitimacy. The column approach inside presents the intelligence
of the women in a senior manner. Showing legitimacy and value of women within
the creative industry.
Moving further on with this
‘Don’t design for women or men – design for people’
– Sophie Thomas
Editorial design decisions will be most effective at tackling
the gender inequality issue when the outputs become neutral and do not
emphasise the gender of those being spoke about. Editorial should not need to
emphasise the fact that it is women creatives it is focussing on.
Printed Pages is a good example of a fairly
gender neutral design approach. The content focuses on the interesting
designers and adopts their design styles to present the different articles.
-
Gender neutral
-
Illustrative
-
Number of colours
-
Focuses more on the style of the
designer rather than their gender
‘My hope is that we won’t need special
editions for female designers of today’s generation in tomorrow’s press.’
Grafik, 2008
“It’s important that these women get the
recognition, because they were and are part of the history that’s shaping
graphic design. Everyone needs to learn about them and their work, especially
young designers. If not, then there’s just this big gap that doesn’t tell the
entire story of graphic design.” Antonio Carusone
Feedback
The feedback below states the parts that I need to consider, need to develop and also the start of the practical discussion on how the essay could end and then transfer into a research project.
females design
female designers
not actually working – neutral
formulate questions based on essay structure and what I need to
know
relevant to editorial
conduct primary research
practical – neutral and explore before the essay is only
touching on it 50/50
don’t need to go into too much detail about the neutral because
this research will come into practical
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