Poster Designs

Looking at possible ways to turn my images into actual campaign images. This style is influenced by Barbara Kruger and it is hard to get away from that aesthetic although I am using colour images rather than black and white. The red text over the images seems very like her style but doesnt work so well in any other colour as red has strong connotations with propaganda and this style of communication.

I think the images and text are beginning to work together in a way that could work for the Body Shop campaign slightly more,.. however I think I really need to push the idea a bit more so the message is clearer.

I am thinking of trying some black and white film images using my Holga camera to see how that style of image suits the idea. Also thinking of photographing diff people/ bodyshapes... Could use old people/ disabled etc?? Maybe needs a stronger tag line? Could look at statistics for Body Dismorphic disorder etc??

Mask images

The idea of using a mask was one I considered earlier but determined to explore after seeing how effective the use of masks were in Diane Arbus's images. I like the idea of using a mask to represent the idea that peoples image of beauty is distorted and that a large percentage of women consider themselves to be ugly or not to live up to female steriotypes set by the media.

I tried combining my various ideas, using the mask and the glass together to create greater distortion,.. and also using longer shutter speeds and motion to blur the mask like in some of the research images I looked at. I think this works well as it begins to mould the mask into the face so the distinction between the two becomes blurred.

First images

Inspired by Jenny Saville I took a series of images about body and body shape using glass and a model. I love the milky effect caused by the glass and the small reflections of light and condensation.

These images relate to the Body Shop ideas around "body image" and the idea that the beauty industry has distorted our image of beauty. However although I like the images they do not really yet give any definite message.

http://www.ambientmediauk.com/

Need to consider other media / advertising techniques for the campaign. One idea could be using ambient media like these. Good for attracting public attention. Good ideas involved getting the public involved,.. on the screen or sending in photos to win in the case of the PSP game.

Other possible ideas:

Campaign support items - car stickers.. wrist band?

Promotional item -

Gift - Book of Brand values for sale/ send to clients/ investors

Calendar? images of alternative body images?

Set of cards / photos for collection/ wall

Events / street installations - distortion mirrors? people as part of art/ advertising eg in boxes/ in front of posters... like Damien Hirst's Twins>??? Mirrors/ windows/ interactive eg put head through? "real" woman box?

Antoine D'Agata

Distortion - through long shutter speeds.. faces begin to look almost mask like.

Skin close ups could be interesting.

http://www.gryrinaldo.com/

Images of the body - quite distorted and fleshy

Research image

http://streetanatomy.com/page/4/

Randomly came across this in my research,.. could be an interesting way to link the biological models images I was looking at with the idea of health and natural ingredients.

Diane Arbus

DIANE ARBUS

Arbus is another artist whose work has strong ideas about self image.

“Everybody has this thing where they need to look one way but come out looking another way and that’s what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw…. Our whole guise is like giving a sign to the world to think of us in one way, but there’s a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can’t help people knowing about you. And that has to do with what I’ve always called the gap between intention and effect.”

DIANE ARBUS

Linked to her interest in this gap between intention and effect is her interest in self invention. Her subjects are often self invented – presenting themselves as something other than they are, for example “ - man being a woman” It’s about how people see themselves; how others see them; and the gap in-between.

It seems from Arbus’s own words that she simply sought to photograph the truth; to show her subjects as they were; as we would see them; without gloss.

“It was Arbus’s great gift that she did not romanticise her subjects.”

She addresses the relationship between the subject and the photographer and how people perceive themselves and want to be perceived.

WEBSITES:

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/01/theory-where-diane-arbus-went.html

"almost all the principals in Arbus's finest portraits are also masked. This is obvious where they cover their faces--with a veil, a concoction of feathers, sunglasses fashioned after swans, the plastic visage of a warty witch--but it is equally true of her posturing transvestites, her gracefully made-up young women of the later '50s, her nudists (whose nudity is not nakedness but a special kind of clothing), and even the Girl with a cigar in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. (1965), who has fled behind the austerity of her own face. Sometimes the mask is nutty (Two ladies at the automat, N.Y.C., 1966); sometimes it is appalling (Transvestite at a drag ball, 1970); occasionally it is exquisite (A flower girl at a wedding, Connecticut, 1964). Sometimes it is easy to guess why a person dresses as he does, at other times not. Sometimes the mask slips ominously; sometimes, as with her commanding, inquisitorial Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. (1967), its hold is tight. (11)

What impressed Arbus the most powerfully, though, was less the mask per se than the discrepancy between mask and face. She seems to have been able to tell from a block away ("You see someone on the street and ... what you notice ... is the flaw" (12)) who would be unable to keep from showing what he hoped to protect, and she found an elegant name for this--"the gap between intention and effect," between "what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing." (13) The idea of the gap offers not just a guide to the route Arbus's intuition took; it is also a principle that sets her world apart from the ordinary one."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_42/ai_113389506/

"One thing that stands out for me in Arbus's work is the use of masks and artificial faces. But there is also a more general sense of the secret, of something withheld, so that faces look masklike because they hold back as much as they reveal, especially when the face is not animated--when it is just staring, or without that engagement you're familiar with in photographs. It's interesting how she used the mask in the untitled 1970-71 series of mentally handicapped people, in which the subjects have young minds trapped in mature bodies. There's the idea of role-playing but they're adults."

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/10/theory-untitled-by-diane-arbus-review.html

"Even the ordinary half-masks that cover the eyes and the nose meld into the women's faces. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the mask ends and the real face begins. In one image, it's hard to tell whether the woman is wearing a mask or if it's her real face. Another woman wears her mask upside-down and it hardly appears to matter. It seems natural. There is a sense that wearing a mask is important to these people who because of their impairment look different from many of us. Are they wearing the masks to hide from us? Are they wearing them to pretend they are like us?"

"We can stare at these portraits in a way that we couldn't stare at these women and girls if we met them on the street. We can be fearful and curious and safe all at once. They are Other."

Kertesz

Thinking about artists who addressed body image and distortion reminded me of the work of Andre Kertesz. He uses fun fair mirrors to create his distorted nudes.

Jenny Saville

Paintings of Jenny Saville. Very fleshy, colourful,.. reminds me a bit of Francis Bacon. Confronts conceptions of feminine beauty in a way I think could link to the ideals of the Body Shop. The human body is distorted and appears grotesque yet beautiful. Certainly makes the veiwer confront their ideas of body image.

http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/beverly-hills-2002-01-jenny-saville-and-glen-luchford/#

Photos with Glen Luchford

BODY SHOP WEBSITE AND MANIFESTO

BODY SHOP WEBSITE AND MANIFESTO IMPORTANT POINTS

Activate Self Esteem:

What is the soul of beauty?

At The Body Shop®, we believe each individual is unique and beautiful, regardless of age, skin color, size or background. Our naturally inspired make-up, skin and body care products are created to enhance individual beauty. We will never sell false promises or play on insecurities in order to sell our products. That's why we only create products that do exactly what they say on the label, with no confusing jargon or misleading claims. To us, beauty is a feeling, a natural way of being, where character, self-esteem and humor are freely expressed and celebrated. It's not just about looking beautiful. It's about exuding a vibrant attitude to life. You are beautiful. And we like you just the way you are.

MANIFESTO REPORT:

"it feels a bit too dry, a bit too mainstream. the body shop for me is about being edgy, slightly cocky, and thought provoking. i encourage them to be brave and recapture their edge.”

"the body shop is not against beautiful women but we will refuse to use this single narrow aspect of a person’s characteristics to define all that they are. Our philosophy is that looking good, feeling good and doing good are inextricably linked."

"Confidence in appearance is an important part of self-esteem and we are absolutely committed to helping customers to look and feel their best. We try to use images of people who portray energy and vitality and an attitude to life that celebrates their own style and self worth. We search for the display of spirit and non-conformist beauty rather than an idealised form and we try and avoid using overly thin or young models."