Protest Pack - The Impacts of Social Media on Body Image.

4/13/2021

The new semester brings a shift in the focus of our project briefs. We're moving from illustration in response to words, to illustrations in response to ideas. For this first project we're required to create a protest pack for an issue we are passionate about and feel needs more awareness.
The brief is a lot more open to interpretation than out past projects, so I have decided to break down the whole brief first so it's more digestible and easier to refer to.

The main points of the brief:

media, slogans, banners etc as a voice for the cause
- protest pack takes message with it wherever it's spread
find a cause that we feel needs more exposure
create resources to protest for our cause and inform on topic
resources should be easily available to all so anyone can join the fight
connecting themes in aesthetic and tone of voice throughout protest pack?
really think about the different applications of and for illustration e.g. posters, badges etc

Outcome Requirements:

protest pack that can be accessed online
all preliminary work presented on blog

Research.

Protests.

I wanted to start with some general research of the idea and imagery of protests so I had a better understanding of ways that people used protest resources effectively. This was important as for my own project, I needed to consider how all of the components of my protest pack would work in a real protest scenario.

Protest Art.

I also wanted to do some research on ways art has been used as a form of protest throughout history. I found this article exploring some of the most impactful pieces of protest art in America, which was extremely interesting and helped me a lot in putting together ideas for my own protest pack.

Protest Topic Research.

After quite a long time considering the topic I wanted to protest for, I decided on the impact of social media on body image. Social media portrays us in an idealistic light, we can present ourselves to look any way we want to, whether it be using filters or photoshop. However, this can have an extremely damaging effect on others, as we are lead to believe that unattainable beauty standards are the norm. Young women especially face this on a day to day basis, and are essentially told by the world and the media that they are not worthy or beautiful.

TEDx Talks.

This video explains the story of two twins who share their experiences with social media, and the way that it has impacted their mental health. It provided some very important and shocking figures that could be very good for my Campaign. They have also started a movement named 'Live Life Unfiltered', that focuses and encourages young women to present their authentic selves on social media, in order to inspire others, and help shift Instagram back to reality.

In this video, Mary discusses the damaging nature of perceiving your body solely as an image, that can be seen on social media and by others, instead of as an experience. She shares her own struggles with self-image, and eating disorders, and shares how she overcame them.

Social Media and Body Dysmorphia.

This video is particularly relevant at the moment as it focuses on body image and social media during the pandemic, explaining how the hyper focus on body image has only increased during the lockdowns. A very interesting point was the explanation of external validation, and the harmful nature of comparing yourself to others. The video was also very inclusive, and shared the experiences of people of different races, and how they can differ from one another.

Lili Reinhart on Body Image and the Media.

She discusses how the industry favours the 'ideal' body type, positively reinforcing diet culture and unrealistic body types . Also, the struggles of meeting the expectations and standards of other people, and feeling the need to apologise for the appearance of her body if it is not 'perfect'. She states when comparing to other people, 'Everyone wants to see the flaws of another person because we wanted to see glimpses of our own insecurities in them'. Reinhart also reflects on body image in tabloids and magazines, how the appearance of cellulite and acne was shamed, and open to judgement from the world, which mirrors modern social media. She also explains that we are raised through the media to have insecurities, and taught that we are not good enough from a very young age. 'We are all imperfectly beautiful'

The Kardashians - Khloe Kardashian photo erasure

In the recent weeks, a photograph surfaced of Khloe Kardashian without photoshop, face tuning or filters, and it is virtually unrecognisable. Her team attempted to totally erase the photograph from the internet, threatening to sue anyone who shared the photo on social media. Despite this, the photograph got around, and made quite a lot of women feel better about themselves and their bodies. We are so used to seeing total falsities through the eye of social media, which are heavily emphasised and promoted by the Kardashians, so it was interesting to see the lengths that Khloe was willing to go to erase her true self.

Body Reference.

Instagram Artists.

Since my project is based upon social media, I decided to take a lot of my artist research from Instagram. I wanted to find some of my favourite artists that use their platform for good and to empower people, and also that had a style that I thought would work for this project. I know that I'm wanting to use more feminine aesthetics, as femininity is another thing that is demonised by the media, so I want my art to subvert the idea of the 'perfect' woman.

Paloma Cordova.

Annie Nguyen.

@m_matu_

Florence Given.

Florence Given is probably the most relevant artist I am taking inspiration from as she is primarily an activist, and uses her art to convey her messages. Her work and style can be seen throughout her feminist book, 'Women Don't Owe You Pretty', in which she discusses and exposes the underlying issues of the world we live in now, and specifically how all systems are built to benefit the straight white man. It's a very empowering book, and informs reasons to protest in a way, through our expression as women.

Ideas List.

uplifting sticker sheet
mirror stickers
prints - pantone sheet of bodies
'This is Photoshopped' sticker for public use
likes do not equal worth tagline
normalise normal bodies
stencils for creating protest signs
printable large scale mural/protest piece

Stickers.

Sticker Research.

Before I started creating my stickers, I wanted to do some quick research on the general format of both sticker sheets, and individual stickers in order to get a better understanding of their layout and what generally works aesthetically.

Thumbnails.

In the past I have bought quite a few 'protest products', such as a set of stickers and a print, so I began thinking about what I wanted in my protest pack by coming up with things that I would want, and would make me feel more confident. The first product that I have focused on is stickers, as they can be placed anywhere as a reminder for someone to be kinder to their body.

I got down my initial ideas, and then developed some of them a little more until I was generally happy with the look of each sticker. Then I narrowed down my sticker sheet to the sticker ideas that I wanted to use and got them into a place that looked good on the page.

Colour development.

At this point, I really didn't know what colour scheme that I wanted to go with for my sticker sheet, so I spent quite a while playing around with colour variations of the sheet until I got to the point where I was happy with the way everything worked both individually, and all together.

After this, I spent a little while figuring out the background, and how I wanted the title to look. I also played with the page both with and without a border.

Final Sticker Sheet.

Enamel Pin.

When I created my sticker sheet, I get attached to the idea and symbolism of my 'I <3 me' sticker. I felt that it conveyed my overall message quickly, and directly, so I thought that I could make it my main tagline and logo for the protest campaign. Because of this, I decided to create an enamel pin version of the image.

Research.

As I had created enamel pins for a project before, I had a general idea of how they looked. However, I still thought doing a little bit of image research would be good, especially for looking at backing cards, as I was quite unsure f how to make my own.

This video below was particularly helpful as they displayed many different backing cards, varying in size, style and finish so I could see the different routes I could take in creating my own.

Illustrator.

As I knew that I wanted to create a pin of one of my stickers, I didn't really need to thumbnail beforehand. Therefore, I just went straight onto Illustrator with my design, as I knew that it would more than likely take me a little while to figure out as I'm still not super familiar with the programme.

While creating the design, I decided that it would be best to create my own font to use across any programmes I will be using, as all of the text on the sticker sheet was hand rendered. To do this, I used Calligraphr, and replicated the handwriting style that I had been using in order to make all of the work for the protest pack look consistent.

Once I had my font sorted, I went straight into illustrator and created my design in the form of a enamel pin design. I used the same colours as the sticker design for the main part of the pin, however, I wanted to try out different colours of enamel to decide what looked the best.

In the end, I decided that I liked the look of the black enamel the best, so I took that forward and moved onto creating my backing card.

Backing Card.

As my pin design is based upon a test message design, I knew that I wanted to make my backing card the imessage screen, so it looked like a message conversation. The main thing I needed to figure out was the text for the messages and the colours.

Once I was happy with the colour palette I was using, I decided that I could move straight onto creating my final backing card, as I had a clear design to follow with the imessage format.
I started by creating the background on procreate, and then I added the text to the message boxes using my font on photoshop. While on photoshop, I also adjusted the levels of the backing card as I felt that it had lost some vibrancy when transferring from my iPad.

Finals.

Posters.

I wanted to create a poster as a more aggressive form of protest, that could be easily accessible and printed off for free at home. The concept behind the poster I wanted to create was that it would be something that could be stuck up onto advertisements that involves false, photoshopped images.

Thumbnails.

I started off by getting my initial ideas down, and developing them as I went so by the end of the process I was pretty much happy with the basic design.

Colour Studies.

I then worked on colour studies for the poster, and at the same time, used the process to figure out the background a bit more. The main thing I wanted to focus on during this stage was maintaining contrast between the background and the text, as I wanted it to be something that would be eye-catching to the public when used.

In the end, I decided to focus more on a greyscale design as I thought that it would be more accessible, and not use too much ink when people are printing it off.