Although the research question was focusing on editorial design, it seemed important to research further away from this in order to gain a real understanding of how other disciplines present women and whether or not this may actually inform the design decisions within editorial design as well.
Women in Graphic Design: Changing the Way We
Advertise
The role of women in
the design world has experienced a shift in the past few years. Women have always been involved in graphic
design to a degree, but have usually gone under the radar and the way we
advertise has often been skewed towards the male perspective. This accepted norm is currently
changing. The way we advertise and the
products and views we are advertising are not only depicting the male
perspective anymore. We are finally
hearing from women and seeing women portrayed in completely new ways. Companies like Nike (who has long been a champion
for female-friendly advertising) and Dove have taken a different approach to
selling their products. Companies are not
only trying to appeal to women but are hiring women to spearhead these
campaigns. With the new Internet age of
fourth-wave feminism, contemporary media is following the groundwork laid by
designers like Barbara Kruger in not only trying to sell a product, but trying
to sell an idea or a political message to spark change.
In
1987, athletic company Nike first tried their hand in the feminist arena. The ad was not well received and placed them
behind rival company Reebok in female popularity. The television commercial featured athlete
Joanne Ernst who told the women viewers to “stop eating like a pig.[1]” Of course, women found this advertising
strategy offensive. In 1995 the “If You
Let Me Play” ad campaign made an appearance.
The campaign features TV spots and accompanying print advertisements with
young girls pleading with the viewers to allow them to play sports. The ads feature statistics on improved
self-esteem and self-worth when girls are physically active. The ads came under fired when it was noted
that there was trouble with the way the statements were worded. The notion that the girl had to be “allowed”
to play by her male counterparts was a little counterproductive.
The most recent of
Nike’s campaigns was taken in a different direction. Janet Champ, who was also responsible for the
“If You Let Me Play” campaign, has created something altogether different for
Nike’s most recent foray into feminist advertising. The campaign does not feature photos of athletic
women at all. For example, one
advertisement has a black and white photo of Marilyn Monroe next to lines of
text. The photo of the beautiful actress
grabs attention and the text holds it.
Next to the Monroe photo simple, black, serif text states, “A woman is
often measured by the things she cannot control. She is measured by the way her body curves or
doesn’t curve. By where she is flat or
straight or round. She is measured by
36-24-36 and inches and ages and numbers.
By all the outside things that don’t ever add up to who she is on the
inside. And so if a woman is to be
measured, let her be measured by the things she can control. By who is and who
she is trying to become. Because as
every woman knows, measurements are only statistics and statistics lie.”
This
campaign is revolutionary for the advertising industry. Women are usually used only as props in
advertising. They are set dressing in
beer commercials and blow-up dolls in fast food commercials. But here in this advertisement, there is an
exchange going on. Monroe, who is a
woman most notably known for her looks and her figure, is the perfect companion
for this text. Monroe was not only a
face and a body, but a well-known bibliophile who was constantly reading on set
and loved to be photographed while reading.
One thing missing from these ads is the Nike product. This, of course, was not an accident. Champ herself states that it was intentional
because she wanted to start a dialog with women. She wanted to have the same kind of
“get-to-know-you” approach to advertising that Nike has continually had with
their male athlete spokesmen[2].
The design of these
ads mirrors that of Barbara Kruger.
Kruger is well known for her “Your Body is a Battleground” poster (among
others) that featured photos of women with words written in plain text across
them. While the Nike campaign is less
aggressive, the style is similar. Using
bold text and a single photograph is definitely reminiscent of Kruger and the
foundation she laid for feminist subjects in design. Though a little more subtle and
conversational than Kruger’s in-your-face technique, the message is still the
same. The theme of women being valued
for more than just their bodies or their looks is something that has been
present in the media since the turn of the new millennium and is gaining
momentum in the recent years.
The
company Dove also took a different approach than the masses in 2004[3]. Victoria’s Secret is well known for their
“Body by Victoria” line and their tagline “Something for Every ‘Body.’” This campaign has been criticized for not
actually including every “body.[4]” The Dove campaign features similarly designed
ads with a group of women standing together while leaning on each other in
their underwear. The most noticeable
difference is the variety of bodies depicted in each. The Victoria’s Secret ads feature the famous
Victoria’s Secret Angels with their identical measurements while the Dove
campaign features a wider variety of “real” women.
Typically we are used
to seeing women used in a very specific way in design. Alphonse Mucha portrayed women as very
sensual and sexual in his designs. Earlier
graphic design and advertisement had a focus primarily on the lives on younger
women[5]. This was before photography was implemented
in design and therefore real women were not used. The designer was able to idealize women and
portray them in a way that suited their own sensibilities and push their own
agenda. Women were portrayed as
beautiful, nymph-like creatures often in various states of undress. While these women in the Dove designs are
also clad in little more than underwear, the posture is different and the
clothes don’t seem to be falling off as if by happy accident. Instead, this design shows women relaxed and
not posing for the male gaze.
This campaign calls to mind the “We Can Do It”
poster from 1942 by J. Howard Miller.
Though this poster was made to call women to the factories while the men
were away at war, both are depicting women in a new way that is contrary to
contemporary beauty standards. Women in
1942 were supposed to be “done” at all times with their hair fixed and makeup
on. This poster shows a woman with her
hair tied in a handkerchief and flexing her bicep toward the viewer[6]. The Dove poster is showing women in their
underwear, but not posing or showing off their assets. They are standing comfortably and are shown
in all shapes and sizes when normally the women you see in advertisements are
more like the aforementioned Victoria’s Secret models.
The UN has also taken a cue from the changing
climate of the portrayal of women in graphic design as well as the changes
women are facing in the world. With the
advent of the Internet a whole new set of problems arose. Pornography is one of the most widely
searched subjects on the Internet[7]
and while some argue that women can be empowered by pornography[8], the
Internet remains a strange place for women.
The UN Women autocomplete campaign uses real searches using the
autocomplete feature on Google. The ads
feature photos of women’s faces with the Google search bar over their
mouths. The initial searches typed in
are things like “women need” and “woman cannot.” What follows are actual Google search
suggestions, and they are horrifying.
Sentences are finished “women need to be put in their place” and “women
cannot be trusted[9].”
This campaign is also fairly reminiscent of
feminist graphic design pioneer Barbara Kruger.
The confrontation of a woman staring straight at the viewer as opposed
to seeming demure and understated makes the impact while the shocking (and
sometimes hard to read) words drive the point of a woman’s reality home. Using real Google autocomplete searches make
the posters more effective.
The posters were accompanied by a video called
“The Autocomplete Truth” and circulated virally on the social media. The Internet is a strange place for women,
but also a powerful tool in the fight for gender equality. The campaign was
voted the most shared ad in 2013 and sparked a worldwide debate over social
media and various Internet news sources[10].
While in the past posters were seen by pasting them up on the sides of
prominent buildings, now the Internet is being used to draw awareness to not
only products, but causes as well. Designs like the UN Women’s Autocomplete
Truth ads are this generation’s version of the political posters that were
prominent in the East Village in the 80s and 90s[11]. The way to reach people and spark debate is
no longer by stopping people on the street on their way to work, but instead
stopping people while they scroll down their Facebook feeds. The campaign also had it’s own accompanying
hastag #womenshould[12]. The UN Women campaign is utilizing the
Internet for more than just porn.
The ads
were made by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, a
Middle Eastern design firm, who also had a hand in a few Dove campaigns. A quick browse on the Memac Ogilvy &
Mather Dubai website and it’s clear that gender equality issues are something
they are passionate about. Though no
mention is made of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign on the website, but there is
mention of another Dove campaign called “Men+Care.” The company explains their strategy of
utilizing social media to further a cause by saying, “Through an integrated PR
strategy and impactful imagery, our message traveled far beyond the borders of
print, transcending through multiple channels which all worked together to
transform the world into one enormous UN forum for the people, with social
media at the center of it all[13].”
Design in this instance was not only just for a poster or a series of magazine
ads, but for an entire well-orchestrated multimedia campaign. Politically charged messages coupled with
tech savvy designers is the direction that graphic design is heading in. Though the company seems to be concerned with
gender equality in their advertising, there are only two women listed on the
“contact” section of the website as employees of the company.
It is interesting to note that the only
campaign of the three created by a woman is the Nike campaign. It is fascinating to see how women depict
their own issues differently than men show the same issues. It is worth noting also that the Nike
campaign was selling a product, whereas the UN Women’s campaign was not.
It was almost unheard of to have a woman in the
field of graphic design in the field’s earliest years. The Glasgow School in the late 1800s was
notably female-friendly as was the Bauhaus movement in Germany some time
after. Though these early examples were
a great place to start, we have come a long way and as the UN Women’s campaign
shows we still have a long way to go. In
the past 20 years we have learned what women want from a company who is selling
them a product, what they don’t want, who they want to hear it from, and how
they want to be seen outside of the consumerist marketplace and we have also
learned that not all women want the same things. Gender equality is a struggle that is not
over yet, but seeing how the portrayal of women in design as well as their role
in the design process is evolving there seems to be a bit of hope after
all. The Internet is changing how we
advertise and how we design and it’s exciting to see what’s going to happen
next.
Works Cited
Breuer, Gerda and Julia Meer. Women in Graphic Design. Ministerim für Innovation, nd
Chadwick, Whitney. Women,
Art and Society. Thames and Hudson, 1990
Eskilson, Stephen J. Graphic Design: A New History. 2nd
Edition, Yale University Press. 2007, 2012
Lupton, Ellen. How
Posters Work. Cooper Hewitt, 2015
The Autocomplete Truth. Memac Ogilvy Website. 2015. Web. http://www.memacogilvy.com/casestudy/un-women-the-autocomplete-truth/
UN Women Ad Series Reveals Widespread
Sexism. UNWomen.org. October 2013.
Web. http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads
Ruvolo, Julie, How Much of the
Internet is Actually for Porn, Forbes.com.
Web http://www.forbes.com/sites/julieruvolo/2011/09/07/how-much-of-the-internet-is-actually-for-porn/
Miller-Young,
Mireille, Pornography Can Be Empowering to Women on Screen, NYTimes.com 2014
Andersen, Charlotte Hilton,
#IAmPerfect Backlash is Perfect Answer to Victoria’s Secret “Perfect Body
Campaign. Shape Magazine, http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/iamperfect-backlash-perfect-answer-victorias-secret-perfect-body-campaign
Huval, Rebecca, Selling
Sneakers with Feminist Poetry: An Interview with Janet Champ, The Toast, April 2015, Web. http://the-toast.net/2015/04/27/interview-with-janet-champ/3/
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, 2015 Dove.com, Web. http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx
How Nike’s Neoliberal Feminism Came to
Rule the Global South The Feminist Wire 2015,
Web. http://www.thefeministwire.com/2015/09/nike-neoliberal-feminism/
[1] How Nike’s
Neoliberal Feminism Came to Rule the Global South The Feminist Wire 2015
[2] Huval,
Rebecca, Selling Sneakers with Feminist Poetry: An Interview with Janet Champ, The Toast, April 2015
[3] The Dove
Campaign for Real Beauty, 2015 Dove.com
[4] Andersen,
Charlotte Hilton, #IAmPerfect Backlash is Perfect Answer to Victoria’s Secret
“Perfect Body Campaign. Shape Magazine
[5] Eskilson,
Stephen J. Graphic Design: A New History.
2nd Edition, Yale University Press. 2007, 2012
[6]
Eskilson, Stephen J. Graphic Design: A
New History. 2nd Edition, Yale University Press. 2007, 2012
[7] Ruvolo,
Julie, How Much of the Internet is Actually for Porn, Forbes.com.
[8] Miller-Young,
Mireille, Pornography Can Be Empowering to Women on Screen, NYTimes.com 2014
[9] UN Women Ad
Series Reveals Widespread Sexism. UNWomen.org.
October 2013.
[10] The
Autocomplete Truth. Memac Ogilvy Website.
2015.
[11] Lupton,
Ellen. How Posters Work. Cooper
Hewitt, 2015
[12] UN Women Ad
Series Reveals Widespread Sexism. UNWomen.org.
October 2013.
[13] The
Autocomplete Truth. Memac Ogilvy Website.
2015.
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