Topic:
How does media (ads, commercials) influence women's status on the society?
Reason why I choose this topic:
- Last year (11th grade) for English class, I choose to investigate women in media. Therefore I am very interested in topics concerns with women's rights and raising women's status in the society. I think this senior project allows me to start to actually go out and do something instead of just writing or discussing about this issue. Also, I want to incoorporate graphic design skills that I will learn in my internship experience with making posters to raise awareness of women's status.
I want to examine things such as:
- What is the current status of women in media?
- How women being portrayed as objects in media?
- What are people's thoughts about idealized beauty?
- Explore stereotypes or limitations being put on women in different culture (or at least in some Asian countries)
Methods I can go out and gather information:
- survey: How women/girls feel about themselves?
- survey: How men view women in media?
- interviews: models, fashion industries, advertising companies
- get in contact with DOVE - Campaign For Real Beauty: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/
My "actual production" will be creating ads to:
- raise women/girls self-confidence
- portray women in healthy, non-sexual, positive angle
These are just my very first outline of what I want to do. Feel free to give any suggestions! :)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
KUSO T-shirts : )
Here are a lot of creative T-shirt designs made by Taiwanese artists:
It's called " POPPOPPOP"
http://poppoppop.cc/en/
It's a website where anyone can upload his/her design, and the design will be open for other people to vote. If the artist's design get most votes, the sponsor will print your design on T-shirts and sell them on this website. The artist will also get $10,000 NT fee.
The artist's intent is to tease how fast food
It's just another T-shirt I find very cute and funny!
Perhaps, it's a nice t-shirt to make fun of yourself or others?
Image Reference
It's called " POPPOPPOP"
http://poppoppop.cc/en/
It's a website where anyone can upload his/her design, and the design will be open for other people to vote. If the artist's design get most votes, the sponsor will print your design on T-shirts and sell them on this website. The artist will also get $10,000 NT fee.
The artist's intent is to tease how fast food
It's just another T-shirt I find very cute and funny!Perhaps, it's a nice t-shirt to make fun of yourself or others?
Image Reference
Monday, September 15, 2008
Skype with Soule
Today, during our Social Sculpture class, we had an oversea skype with Ms. Sheila (our teacher)'s friend Soule. The purpose of connecting with different artists is that Ms. Sheila want us to get a sense of how community art is like. Soule works both as free-lance and with the community. She work voluntarily with the community , but at the same time, she can earn money by getting cases on her own. When working with as free-lance, she receives cases such as designing the costumes for actors and actresses. On the other part, she works with community opera, which allows her to get involved with improving and benefiting the whole community welfare based on good motivations.
Soule talked about how she was concerned with aesthetic when she started to learn art, but later, she found out that the most important thing is not necessarily the beauty but meaning or intention behind the art piece. I agree with what she said because I think an artist's intention is the inspiration of his/her art works. A piece of art does not necessarily need to be very beautiful or eye-catching, it can be as simple as a red dot on a piece of white cloth. Unfortunately, I'm still in a state that I concern with the beauty more than the intention when I am creating my art works...
Soule also showed us how she organizes her art portfolio; inside, she puts many resources that inspired her to design all the different costumes. For me, it is quite interesting to see what a portfolio looks like and see the actual design of the costumes. She also showed us some t-shirts that she made by stencils!
Just a random thought of my own, we can design our own t-shirts and sell it for charity purpose! :)
Soule talked about how she was concerned with aesthetic when she started to learn art, but later, she found out that the most important thing is not necessarily the beauty but meaning or intention behind the art piece. I agree with what she said because I think an artist's intention is the inspiration of his/her art works. A piece of art does not necessarily need to be very beautiful or eye-catching, it can be as simple as a red dot on a piece of white cloth. Unfortunately, I'm still in a state that I concern with the beauty more than the intention when I am creating my art works...
Soule also showed us how she organizes her art portfolio; inside, she puts many resources that inspired her to design all the different costumes. For me, it is quite interesting to see what a portfolio looks like and see the actual design of the costumes. She also showed us some t-shirts that she made by stencils!
Just a random thought of my own, we can design our own t-shirts and sell it for charity purpose! :)
Saturday, September 13, 2008
As a Hsinchu citizen...
As a Hsinchu citizen, I've not really heard any bad news about the Hsinchu Science Park polluting the environment. It is interesting to question what impacts the Science Park had bring to our daily life after I read the article "The Silence of Silicon Lambs", by Shenglin Chang and Wenling Tu .
I am not really surprised by any part of the article, but I would like to make few comments on the entire article:
It is mentioned in the article that media tend to show bias toward Science Park and the government ignored the opposition force. I think this article doesn't provide enough concrete statistics or evidence to prove this is true, but by observation, it seems true. I believe this is a problem because people have the mind set that expanding the science park is a positive thing to do. I also believe in this mind set because I've never heard any bad news criticizing the pollutions made by the Park. I found a parallel between Science Park development and China's dramatic industrialization: China is becoming industrialized in a rapid speed, but has ignored a great deal of environmental problems. Chinese government does not concern about building environmental friendly development; all they want is turn China into a civilized city. As result, China is becoming a top threat to issues like Global Warming and pollution. Both Science Park and China are trying to expand their technology further, but have ignored the environmental sustainable issues. Science Park, indeed, do seem like it is using the name of "high-tech" to make pollution.
It is interesting to know that 1 out of 4 household works in the Science Park. Many of my friends' parents or relatives also work in Science Park.
My parents worked in the Science Park thirty years ago; it was when the Park had just began its expansion. They told me stories about working as a assembly worker. They have to sit there for hours and hours, the only time they can get up is going to the restroom. The rapid change of production process is indeed scary. Everyday, my parents have to change the manufacturing process (eg: a component of the computer) in order to suit the need of down stream companies.
On the whole, the local and Taiwan government should really be concerned about environmental and labor issues in the Science Park. As environmental-sustainability problems are mainstream issue around the world now, the government should think of plans that are flexible to suit quick changes. Development of high-techs is for sure beneficial, but without proper planning, Science Park will create more and more negative side-effects to the community and the economy of Taiwan in the future.
I am not really surprised by any part of the article, but I would like to make few comments on the entire article:
It is mentioned in the article that media tend to show bias toward Science Park and the government ignored the opposition force. I think this article doesn't provide enough concrete statistics or evidence to prove this is true, but by observation, it seems true. I believe this is a problem because people have the mind set that expanding the science park is a positive thing to do. I also believe in this mind set because I've never heard any bad news criticizing the pollutions made by the Park. I found a parallel between Science Park development and China's dramatic industrialization: China is becoming industrialized in a rapid speed, but has ignored a great deal of environmental problems. Chinese government does not concern about building environmental friendly development; all they want is turn China into a civilized city. As result, China is becoming a top threat to issues like Global Warming and pollution. Both Science Park and China are trying to expand their technology further, but have ignored the environmental sustainable issues. Science Park, indeed, do seem like it is using the name of "high-tech" to make pollution.
It is interesting to know that 1 out of 4 household works in the Science Park. Many of my friends' parents or relatives also work in Science Park.
My parents worked in the Science Park thirty years ago; it was when the Park had just began its expansion. They told me stories about working as a assembly worker. They have to sit there for hours and hours, the only time they can get up is going to the restroom. The rapid change of production process is indeed scary. Everyday, my parents have to change the manufacturing process (eg: a component of the computer) in order to suit the need of down stream companies.
On the whole, the local and Taiwan government should really be concerned about environmental and labor issues in the Science Park. As environmental-sustainability problems are mainstream issue around the world now, the government should think of plans that are flexible to suit quick changes. Development of high-techs is for sure beneficial, but without proper planning, Science Park will create more and more negative side-effects to the community and the economy of Taiwan in the future.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
My proudest works of this school year
*Click to see larger picture*
This is an advertisement created for my first semester Non-Fiction (English) class. The computer program I use is Photoshop CS3.
This is a shoe’s ad that shows women’s empowerment. The content of the image and the written materials are the two main techniques I used in this advertisement.
The content of this image shows confidence. I chose rainbow colors for the background to demonstrate different atmospheres. Each color represents certain meanings, emotions, feelings, and thoughts; therefore I call these representations as atmospheres. If the audiences look carefully enough, there are small, thin arrow lines pointing everywhere, which is another representation of choosing paths they love. In this ad, I try to include women from different ethnicity, body shape, occupation, and age. This means that every woman should be happy with herself. They should live the path they’ve chosen with confidence and smile!
The written material includes a quote by Geraldine Ferrano and a slogan I created. The idea I am trying to convey to the audience is the empowerment of women. Women have the right to choose the path they want, especially the road of equality. The slogan seem normal but the meaning behind it is not only “Wear what you love and walk with confidence”, but also “choose what you love to do and do it with confidence.”
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Another piece of work is the design for Yearbook "news" pages:
*Click to see larger picture*
I've been a Yearbook staff member for two years. I didn’t have a chance to create my own design for the first year in the Yearbook club. Fortunately, the second year (2007-08), I get to design my own design! I am responsible for the World News page and Taiwan News page in the Yearbook club. I had to summarize and gather important events that happened during the year and come up with a design for these pages. I made the design with a program called Photoshop CS3. I enjoyed making the design because I love graphic arts and digital creations.
For the World News page, I’m trying to create a feeling of old, yellowish paper like texture for the background. The composing of the whole content is like a real news paper where you would find blocks of news passages.
Although, my design is not on the finished product, which is the Yearbook, I still had fun creating this piece of work!
Summer vacation #1
* don't steal my master piece!! >:-[ *It's summer time again!!!!
Unfortunately, I am not going anywhere this summer, not even anywhere in Taiwan. :(
Anyways, I signed up for the Dale Carnegie course for teenagers. I've attended two lessons already. The first lesson was quite "scary". There is about 45 students in a class and the first interaction you have to make with others is to shake hands with them. It was quite strange and embarrassing to shake hands with someone you doesn't know. Overall, the first lesson was very nerve-wracking for me....
The second lesson was much better. We have to set up goals for four categories: family, personal leisure, friends, and school academic. One of my goals is to get over 1600 even up to 1700 on my SATs!!!!! :D
Oh, btw, Green Day, The Click Five, and Muse are good bands!!!!!!
Lastly, to everyone who read this entry: Have a great summer!!
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