Assignment 3

This assignment is introducing us to our dissertation's which we will complete in 4th year. For this assignment we had to meet up with our groups and discuss possible dissertation topics. The topic that I have began to look into is how designing children's facilities affects their learning.

Modern Age Project

Assignment 1c

The final part of this assignment required us t0 create a wikipedia entry for our topic. This was to be between 1000-1500words long.Climate Change & Design

Caroline Martin

Interior & Environmental Design



What exactly is Climate Change?

Climate change is the term that is used to describe the change in the Earth’s climate which is often confused with Global warming. Global warming describes the Earth’s overall increasing temperature which is measured by the Earth’s entire surface area. Climate Change describes the planet’s changing climate features such as weather, humidity, global average air temperatures and ocean temperatures. As these temperatures are increasing snow and ice is melting at an alarming rate.

Climate change is a hugely rising problem and some of the reasons for this are the growing population, mass production, human consumption and the Natural Greenhouse effect. The Natural Greenhouse effect is the natural build up of the greenhouse gasses.
According to (www.decc.gov.uk) the Earth has warmed by about 0.754°C on average since around 1900 and by around 0.4°C since the 1970s and also states that human activity is the main cause of global warming observed over the last 100 years, particularly over the last 50 years.

It used to be thought that extreme weather events and global warming could be caused by natural climate change but it is now becoming increasingly indefensible with the amount of carbon dioxide which is distributed into the atmosphere each year because of humans.



History


The first discoveries of climate change occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries when carbon dioxide was discovered. According to the website
(http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/timeline/) the importance of the atmosphere in relation to the temperature of the earth was recognized by a French physicist in 1824. The majority of scientists agree that the Earth’s temperature will rise further due to greenhouse emissions which will cause more extreme, intense and regular weather events. In the late 1960s, a study was done which resulted in predictions that global temperatures may increase by up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit but this is depending on carbon dioxide emissions. In 1987 it was discovered that there were links between carbon dioxide levels and temperatures and these dated back 100,000 years. This resulted in global action on climate change.

In 1979 the world had its first conference for climate change and in 1988 the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and this was set up in order to investigate and report on the experiments and scientific conclusions. The IPCC were aware and tried to advise the world that in order to avoid severe global warming then we would have to cut our dependency on fossil fuels and cut the amount of greenhouse emissions by a significant amount. In 1997 a treaty was agreed which was called the Kyoto Protocol. The aim of this was that 37 industrialised countries were set binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This was signed by 178 countries and came into action in 2005.


The Earth’s climate is always changing and always has done so but not to the extent that we see today and reasons for this are our growing population and mass consumption consequently increasing greenhouse emissions. Greenhouse emissions are created through various things and the consumerism culture that we live in plays a huge part in this. The amount of fossil fuels which we consume has lead to us having to change our ways and start using other types of energy such as wind, solar and hydro but if we were to change our ways and depend solely on non-fossil fuels then this would have a dramatic impact on the predicted temperature and would cut this by 2.4 Degrees Celsius.
“Almost all of the mountain glaciers in the world are now melting, many of them quite rapidly. There must be a message in this” (Gore, A, 2006)

Climate Change and Design

There is a significant link between design and climate change. This is because designers are constantly having to invent solutions and new systems to help them with everyday design as climate change is having an increasingly greater effect on the way we live therefore we must learn to adapt our way of life in order to reduce the predicted rise in temperature and catastrophic consequences.

A key factor in design practice is now to take into account a products life cycle. This process looks at various issues such as raw materials and which are used, the manufacturing process i.e. can you reduce the amount of waste in the manufacturing process? It also looks at retail an example of this is the product appropriately packaged and how is the product transported to the consumer? Is it distributed only when necessary? The Life Cycle also looks at use of a product and the end of life such as can this product be re-used or re-cycled?

Climate change is a growing subject that the majority of designers have to face and tackle so many new designs whether being it for forms of transport, materials, architecture and systems have to be designed to reduce CO2 emissions and possibly help the environment rather than damage it.

Advertising and branding also plays a huge part in this. For example the ‘Apple’ Products have managed to eliminate environment-unfriendly materials.
"Apple is committed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world," (Novelli,C, 09)
The power of advertising and branding helps environmentally friendly products and companies become fashionable and also is helping people to understand where the product has came from and therefore resulting in the world being more aware of climate change. Another example of design which is attempting to tackle climate change is the simple heavy duty shopping bag. “It is estimated that up to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year, more than one million per minute.” (www.ecosheek.co.uk) Supermarket chains are now rewarding customers for using their own shopping bags and most shops now charge for the sale of a plastic bag. In 2008 an agreement was been signed between the Government and the seven largest supermarket chains to significantly cut down the number of plastic bags distributed. Although the heavy duty shopping bag does not seem like an outstanding, environmentally friendly design, it is however a small stepping stone to help reduce waste and carbon emissions.


Other examples of designs which help reduce carbon emissions are products which use infinite sources such as solar power, hydro and wind. Many things are now being invented which take advantage of renewable sources such as solar powered homes and cars. The solar industry is growing and a market research group called iSuppli have forecasted that the industry should double every two years.




Designing for climate change is now a huge market which designers have to tackle. Design is all around us so designers have to learn to adapt to designing without using finite sources and they have the difficult job of making and convincing the world that being green is fashionable.








Bibliography

Books

Bank, W. 2010. Development and climate change. Washington DC. Ebraray Inc

Fry, C. 2008. The impact of climate change: The world’s greatest challenge in the 21st century. London. New Holland

Gore, A. 2006. An Inconvenient Truth. Great Britain. Melcher Media

Haggis, G. 2007. The Energy Challenge. Great Britain. Matador






Websites

Environment and eco-living. Available at: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Thewiderenvironment/Climatechange/DG_072901



Metz, C. 09.10.09. Greenpeace applauds Apple climate change flounce. Available at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/09/greenpeace_apple_lovefest/


Osbourne, H. 02.02.07. Fossil fuel and land use behind CO2 rise. Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/feb/02/greenpolitics.climatechange



Richard, Michael Graham. 10.05.10. Solar Industry Expected to Grow Over 40% in 2011. Available at:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/solar-industry-market-forecast-growth-40-percent-2011.php?campaign=top_news








Images



Polar Bears:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/california-education-bill-climate-change.php

Solar Powered Car:
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-cars-solar-jackets-makes-audi-tt-run-on-solar-electricity/

Assignment 1b

For the second part of this assignment we had to create a mindmap of our topic and as we researched more then we had to develop the mindmap. This mindmap was then used to help with the final Wiki. Here is an image of my main mindmap on Climate Change and Design.

Assignment 1a

For the first part of this assignment we were asked to meet up with our study groups to choose and discuss the topics that we wanted to do our Wiki on. I was interested in a few of the topics but i decided to choose to do mine on Climate Change and Design. Here are some photographs of our group meetings.

Assignment 5

PART A





During the first semester, our assignments were mainly based on secondary research. Now we are focusing on primary research methods and this assignment required us to develop a proposal for how we might use the methods that we learnt this semester to take our research further in the topic that we explored in the first semester.







The topic that I chose to investigate in semester one was "How do social networking sites act as a major connector to designers". I am going to look further into this topic and explore the different methods which I have been using this semester in order to investigate this topic further. I will look into the use of interviewing, visual experiments, and observation and will explore what system will work best.





I chose to write about social networking sites because not only do I use them, I find the controversial argument of whether they do more damage than good interesting. I am also interested in other people's opinion's and reasons to why they use social networking sites.





I have looked at various different journals and books about this topic including; "The networking survival guide: get the success you want by tapping into the people you know" by Diane C. Darling, "The Virtual Community" by Howard Rheingold, and "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. "The networking survival guide: get the success you want by tapping into the people you know" is about how to make the most of everyday physical networking and gives tips on how to advance on one's own networking techniques. Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" is a book which tours the "virtual community" of online networking and also discusses social networking in detail showing alot of evidence and experiences. Both texts agree that networking, being it virtual or physical is very important to everyone in order to be successful so therefore helping designers in there careers. Another source that I have looked at is a social networking site itself, "Twitter". I have been looking at a young female artist called Johanna Basford who uses this site to gain publicity. Over a 24hour period she created an interactive and hand drawn illustration which was created through other "Tweeters" sending suggestions to her to finally produce a super sized hand drawn black and white illustration. Some of Basford's clients include The Victorian and Albert Museum, The Body Shop, and DKNY. This is a good example of how designer's can take advantage of social networking sites to help them succeed. Not only is Basford connecting with other designers and people from a similar profession but she is also connecting with the public and getting a chance to advertise her work for free on the internet.





After retrieving this secondary research, I would like to go ahead and gain some primary research to learn more about public opinions and for what reasons people use social networking sites. I would like to know if people think that social networking sites help designers connect with the rest of the world. To do this I would start by looking at the methods which I have been taught this semester and these are observation, visual experimentation and interviewing. To achieve the best results I would start by conducting an interview. I would target a group of designers and then ask them a set of semi-structured questions which would help me with my research. The group of designers that i would interview would have to be different ages, genders and from different backgrounds so that my results were not biased. I would ask a set of questions that were not straight to the point but subtle which would gently prompt the interviewee to give me the answer that I am looking for. I think that I would also conduct a public survey to gain an insight to the public opinion's on social networking. The questions that I would ask in this interview would be about social networking affecting the general public and not so much a specific group such as designers because I would like to see the results for designers and the public. I could also conduct a survey which would also allow me to collect accurate and fast information. However a survey may not achieve the best results as many people might give false answers for quickness or perhaps just to protect information about their private life as they feel put on the spot because these questions are being thrown at them from nowhere. If the interviewee is asked a series of semi-structured questions then I think that they will then give you more information as you are engaging back with them and it becomes some sort of conversation.

Another way to gain primary research would be to observe people in a computer suite and see if they use social networking sites. However I do not believe that this would be the most effective and correct way to find out this information. Aswell as invading these people's privacy, it would not help me to answer questions such as "Is this networking site helping this person in their career?" or "what does this person use this site for?". Alot of people would obviously not feel comfortable with someone watching over their computer screen observing what they are doing and that is why I have decided to use interviewing as the method that I would use if I was to take this further. Interviewing would give me all the information that I would need on this subject and would enable me to gain a deeper understanding of the people that use these sites. A problem that may arise in interviewing would be that people would not answer honestly or would not feel comfortable answering a series of questions about there private life's to a stranger. A way to work around this as I previously said would be to ask strategically worded questions which are not straight to the point because in that way the interviewee would feel more at ease and they are answering the question for you rather than you almost telling them what to say.

To conclude if I was going to look further into the topic of "How do social networking sites act as a major connector to designers" then I would gather secondary research on this topic and to do this I would use interviewing as the chosen method as it helps me to collect all the information that I need. This would also enable me to acquire accurate information quickly.

PART B

For this part of the assignment I will write a short proposal on how I could use the methods that I have used in both semester 1 and 2 if I had to re-do one of my studio projects. The project that I have chosen is the "Juteopolis" project from the first semester. This was a group project and the brief was to design a exhibition space for the DCA which was based on "Juteopolis", the name Dundee was given in the peak of the Jute production. The purpose of this was to inform the public about Dundee and it's history within the Jute industry.

When we first started this project alot of the research that we gathered was from Verdant Works which is an old Dundee Jute mill which has been conserved and is now a Jute museum. More of our research was from Dundee's library and also the university library. However now after completing assignments on primary and secondary researching methods I can see that if we had to do this project again we would be able to collect accurate information and lots more of it quickly. I would start this by using interviewing techniques to interview a number of different people.

The first of the interviewee would be the general public. To do this I would brainstorm ideas and come up with questions which I could ask people on the street to find out what they understood about Dundee and the Jute industry. I would try and target each generation to see how each generation's knowledge differs. The older generation would be likely to know more about this than the younger generation. However it would be interesting to see how our exhibition would need to educate the public. I would need to make sure that my questions were general and were in no way going to offend anyone. I think if our group had this knowledge prior to doing this studio project then we would possibly created a better exhibition and if not then we would have at least be far more knowledgeable about the subject. I think it is important to know as much as you can about the client to enable you to design the best possible design for them.

The next of the interviewee would be the people who currently work at the Verdant Works. Although we did get to speak to them I think it would be more effective if we could have had private interviews to gain as much knowledge as we possibly could. It would have been useful to brainstorm and plan a set of structured or semi-structured questions to enable us to retrieve as much useful information as possible. Getting to interview an exhibition designer could have also proved very useful and interesting. I would have been able to find out what types of exhibitions are successful and what techniques are most effective. Another method that would be very useful would be to observe a variety of different people in an exhibition to see what parts they find the most interesting and also to see what parts of the exhibition they spent the most time at. I would observe a group of people of all different ages for example adults, the elderly and school children. It would have been very beneficial to see who spent the most amount of time at different stages of the exhibition and also to see what catches different age groups attention most. I would also set up my own experiments and small exhibitions in order to see what the different people thought of my designs. It would also be useful to try different methods out before completing my final exhibition. I could have also conducted a survey or asked people a set of structured questions as this would have been very useful to me to find out what the client would prefer rather than assuming.

During our first semester one of the things that we were working on was how to collect secondary information. If I had used this knowledge in this studio project then I would have alot more research to help me. If we had used the library's cross search then I would have been able to collect more books and journals about Dundee and the Jute industry. It would have broaden my knowledge on the topic therefore allowing me to possibly create a better design.

Learning about secondary and primary research has definitely been worthwhile and will help me in future projects. I now understand that through the use of experiments, observation, interviewing, reading journals, magazines and books that I can now gain an enormous amount of research to help me with my future projects whether it being for design studies or the studio. Using these methods will help me understand the clients needs and their story which will enable me to design the best possible design for them.

Bibliogrpahy

Darling, Diana C, (April 2003) The Networking Survival Guide: Get The Success You Want By Tapping Into The People You Know, The McGraw Hill Companies

Gladwell, Malcolm, (2000) The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, Little Brown

Rheingold, Howard, (1994) The Virtual Community, Harper Collins

Websites

Johanna Basford

http://www.johannabasford.com/

Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/JohannaBasford

Assignment 4B & C

For this interview stage I chose 4 different individuals and asked them a series of semi-structured questions which would help my understanding on how magazines influence people's ideas of design and taste. The questions that I asked helped me to gain a deeper knowledge of what influences people's decisions and ideas and why. The subjects that I chose to interview were of different genders, ages, and backgrounds so therefore the outcome of this assignment should not be biased. The series of questions that I asked my subjects are:

1. What magazines do you read?

2. Where do you Read magazines?

3. How often do you watch television or see adverts?

4. Can you think of a particular advertisement being from a magazine or the TV that sticks in your head? If so why?

5. Do you have a favourite brand or shop? If so is this advertised allot in magazines or television?

6. Is fashion important to you?

7. Do you own any product which has had a major impact on your life?

8. What was your last major purchase? Did anything have an influence on you buying this product?

9. Do you have a favourite designer? Are they successful?

The first of my interviewee was a young female design student. Being a young design student fashion and the way she looks is very important to her and I found out more about this after her answering my series of questions. She regularly buys fashion and style magazines and this is a weekly thing. Reading these magazines seemed to be almost part of her weekly routine as she reads them for pleasure in her house. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements whether it being from the television or magazines and this has had an effect on her as she watches televisions for around 5 hours a day and the advert that sticks in her head most is the television advert for one of the fashion magazines that she reads. Her latest purchase was 2 days ago and that was some tops and a necklace which she seen in a magazine. Her loyalty to buying fashionable and specific brands was clear as she often buys from the same shops, probably because these shops' items are advertised regularly in magazines. Alot of the clothes that she buys are modelled on celebrities so being successful could reflect her view on fashion and looking good. It seems that both television and magazines are highly influential on her decisions and tastes in fashion and design.

My second subject was a female primary teacher. She admitted that she is not fashionable because it is not at the top of her priority list. Her main focus is to look after her family and home. She rarely reads magazines but when she does it's mainly ones which are about cooking or the home. She does however read alot of educational newspapers which are obviously about current affairs and the worlds news. When she does buy something new, it's not something that she has seen advertised, just purely bought as a spur of the moment thing. She does watch about 2-3 hours of television a day so she is exposed to advertising but is not affected by them. The brands that she buys are not ones that she has seen advertised but are ones that she has bought for years and if not its one that she's heard a friend recommend.

My third interviewee, a male college student stated that he thinks that he is relatively fashionable and his highly influenced by advertisements. The only magazines that he buys are motoring ones, so he is not highly influenced by adverts in these magazines. The advertisements that he sees are on billboards and television adverts. He does have a favourite brand but that is only because he likes and trusts this brand so is therefore loyal to it. He watches about 3-4hours of television a day so is exposed to advertisements frequently.

My final interviewee is a young male landscape gardener. In his opinion he is fashionable but does not buy any magazines. Neither does he watch much TV, (around an hour a day) so he is not exposed to influential advertisements. However he does do alot of Internet shopping so this is where he see the advertisements that do influence him. He does have his favourite brands and shops but this is only because he has shopped there for years and is loyal to them. His last purchase was a top that he bought in a shop but had seen it advertised on the Internet. This conveys that advertising is everywhere we look even if it's not just in magazines.

After completing this assignment and discussing it I found that magazines are not the only influential form of advertising, as television and the Internet both seem to be just as powerful and if not more. It is obvious to see that the older generation have different priorities for instance the 1st interviewee saves her money for buying new fashionable clothes but the 2nd interviewee will save money for family holidays so it very much selfless because she has different priorities. The older generation understand the value of things and this is reflected in the things that they read like educational newspapers. I found that the younger generation watch alot more television so they are therefore exposed to more visual advertisements. I found that to some extent everyone is brand loyal whether it being that they buy weekly or every 6 months, they still stick with the same brand and this is usually because the brands that they like are well advertised or have a good reputation. One of my questions, (What was your last major purchase and did advertisements influence your decision to buy this?) showed that technological items such as mobile phones, cars, and ipods had the biggest impact on these peoples lives. These are all items which are constantly successfully advertised in magazines, newspapers, television and the Internet.

To conclude i have found that magazines reflect the readers taste and also successfully advertise and sell items which are regarded as "in" or fashionable and this is down to various different reasons for example the models they use, the colours and there front covers. Some readers will not consider price or value for money but will only consider what the magazine and critics have said about the product. In my opinion advertising on the Internet, billboards and television are more influential than magazines as they are viewed more often than magazines, mainly because they are usually free to view.

Assignment 4a

For this assignment we were asked to choose one particular topic to investigate and conduct a series of interviews on 3 or four subjects who we did not know. The question that I chose to investigate is "How do magazines influence people's ideas of design and taste?". I chose this subject because I'm interested in advertising techniques and their effects and influences on people of all ages. I thought that this would be an interesting subject to look into as all magazines are full with advertisements and I wanted to see what effect this had on readers. I began this assignment by drawing up a mindmap which consisted of magazine types, advertising, where do people read magazines and why, and finally why do people buy magazines.

Assignment 3

In this assignment we were asked to observe and record how people behave and interact and try and detect any unspoken etiquette and rules. Obviously observation is a huge part of design but we often are oblivious to the way that people interact with design and the unspoken rules and regulations in society that are formed by design. As I'm from an Island I decided that the ferry would be an interesting place to do this assignment. I'm from the Isle of Bute so it's only a brief 30minute crossing but this allowed plenty of time to observe the behaviour of the passengers.

There are the various different categories of people that travel on the ferry; the commuters, the students, the tourists and the locals usually heading or coming back from a day's shopping in Glasgow. As I am a regular passenger on the ferries I am well aware of the unspoken rules and regulations but thought it would be interesting to record other passenger's behaviour. There are some signs which guide passengers on their journey but it's interesting to see people who have obviously never been on the ferry before as they are not quite sure where to sit and what usual drill is so they often observe people who do know what to do.

Before boarding the ferry you must buy your ticket in the ticket office then sit in the waiting room and wait to board the ferry. This in itself was interesting as it's obvious who the locals are as they are the ones who know when to make their way to the gangway and where to wait in order of being the first on board. Tourists who didn't know what to do looked like they followed on behind the locals however there was some signage to help the users for example signs saying please Que this side and please be ready to board 5 minutes before departure time. There was no particular order of the people boarding the ferry apart from whoever was at the gate first and the elderly people. There were no un-written rules about who got on first but there was a written rule about letting the passengers off the ferry before getting on it.

Once boarded the ferry it was obvious to see that some of the regular passengers have their favorite seats so it was a mad rush for them to race the rest of the passengers to their preffered spots. I for instance always have the same seat that I prefer to sit in as it has an amazing view but is also one of the comfiest on the ferry and is close to one of the televisions so I can watch the news if I want to. It was also obvious to spot the regular passengers as they communicated with the staff on the ferry. One thing that i noticed about tourists was that when they first came onto the ferry the first thing they done was look about at the views then went to the cafe to get a drink then would go to find a seat but all the seats would be taken whereas the regulars went straight to get a seat and then when everyone was settled they would then go and get their coffees so that they had a guaranteed seat.

During the crossing many people do various different things, for instance when I'm on the ferry on a Monday morning some of the early commuters are doing work and preparation for the week ahead and I've also noticed one regular female commuter does her hair and make-up on the ferry. I also noticed that the commuters come onto the ferry and sit in little groups with other people who they travel with every day so it's quite a sociable journey as most people are sitting with people they know chatting away even if it is only 6.30am. This made it quite obvious to see who was a regular passenger n who wasn't. On a Friday when I get on the ferry usually about 5pm most passengers are relaxing and having a glass of wine or a beer. I've also noticed that there is quite often a young group of guys or girls who are not from the island that are going to Rothesay for the weekend and there usually having a few drinks and having fun on the boat preparing for their drink fuelled weekend. On a Friday there was alsi lots of students coming back from a week at college or university and they just sat chatting or having a drink.There was no awkwardness between the locals and tourists as the locals are often too busy to bother about what the tourists are doing. Another thing that made it easy to spot the local islanders was that they would often see someone they knew and go and talk with them for ten minutes then go back to their seats. So there are no rules about getting up and changing seats or walking about because it is a very open seating area.

On departing from the boat the locals know when to get up and wait at the door so they can get off the boat before the crowd so the locals seen them getting up and followed. Obviously uncertain of when to actually get up and head to the door as there is no voice-overs or mentions of when to get up and go to the door so in most cases its just a matter of following the people who look like they know. The ferry journey is not quiet or boring like a train or bus journey, it is very sociable and enjoyable.

In conclusion I found this assignment interesting as we often don't notice things like peoples behaviour and unspoken rules in society but when you pay attention and observe, then you gain a deeper understanding into everyday life of certain people and their mannerisms.

Assignment 2

Part B

In this assignment we were asked firstly to randomly choose 3 images and ask a group of people of different ages, backgrounds, genders etc to analyse these photos and say what there understanding of the story that these three images convey. After that we had to add a 4th image and see if this helped people come up with the same interpretation of the image and then finally after that add text to one image and if they didn't come up with the same interpretation then add text to another image until everyone had the same understanding on the set of images.

My first image was this one which is a bottle of wine with two wine glasses.

The second image is this photo which looks like a tropical island or paradise.

The third photo is of a love heart in the sky.

Part C

The people that I chose for this task were different ages, different genders, from different backgrounds and from different areas. I think that it is important to have a variety of people for this experiment so that it would work best. Most of the responses were very similar but it was interesting to see how different people interpret the same thing.

"A couple go on a romantic holiday and a plane draws a heart in the sky" Kirsty, 19, Montrose, Student

"A couple went away on a romantic get away where they relaxed on the beach and drank wine while watching the sun set" Fiona, 19, Balloch, Student

"Someone goes on holiday and has fun relaxing on the beach and drinking wine and they meet someone and fall in love." Ashley, 17, Rothesay, 6th Year Pupil.

"A couple went on a romantic holiday to a beautiful island and spent their time relaxing on the beach and drinking wine." Katie, 19, Glasgow, Student.

"A couple are on holiday and they are lying on the beach one day watching the sunset and drinking wine and the man proposes to his girlfriend" Brad, 21, Rothesay, Landscape Gardener

Part D

I now had to chose one of the previous stories and add a fourth image and see if the next group of people all have the same response to the images. The story that I chose was the second one by Fiona. The 4th image was a kiwi fruit.

"A couple were on their honeymoon on an exotic island. They lay on the beach all day sunbathing, relaxing and eating exotic fruits. When night fell it was time for champagne while watching a beautiful sunset." Sarah, 20, Northern Ireland, Student.

"There was nothing better than sitting on the beach at night with a glass of wine watching the sun set. Or during the day I loved spending the day looking at the crisp white clouds in the sky." Karen, 21, Northern Ireland, Student.

"A newly married couple decided to spend their honeymoon on a beautiful island. They planned to spend their time relaxing underneath the beautiful sky and also eating and drinking fresh food and drink." Ross, 22, Dundee, Student.

"A couple were on holiday on a beautiful island and spent their time watching the sunset, eating fresh fruit and drinking wine." Siobhan, 20, Stirling, Student.

Part E

For this part of the assignment I added the word "Honeymoon" to one of the images.

"A couple are on their honeymoon on an exotic island and they spent their time eating fresh fruit, drinking wine and watching the sun set." Gregor, 18, Rothesay, Blacksmith

"There is a couple on their honeymoon abroad on an exotic island" Harley, 18, Rothesay, Mechanic.

"There is a couple on their honeymoon on a tropical island and they spend everyday relaxing in the sun, eating fresh food and drinking lovely wine." Georgeann, 51, Rothesay, Primary Teacher

"It was the middle of the summer and a newly married couple were on their honeymoon on an exotic island and they spent every day with each other sunbathing on the beach and eating the local produce." Jen, 22, Rothesay, Sectary.

"A young couple are on their honeymoon in New Zealand and spent their time at beaches and drinking wine" Mairi, 26, Glasgow, Nurse.

"There was a newly married couple on their honeymoon on an exotic island and they spent all of their time eating fresh fruit, drinking wine and relaxing on the beach." Sian 26 Rothesay, Nurse

"Newly married couple on their honeymoon on an exotic island. They spent all of their time relaxing on the beach and drinking wine" Janine, 24, Rothesay, Factory Worker.

I think that this assignment was a good way to learn that many different people read into photographs in different ways but when text is added to the photo, the image is interpreted very well by the viewers. In the first experiment the first responses where quite similar but as i added another image and text then everyone's responses started to become more similar. This experiment definitely helped my understanding of Barthes' essay "The rhetoric image" as I learned that adding text helps the viewer understand the image a bit more than they did without the text.

Rhetoric of the image

For the first part of this assignment we had to read Roland Barthes' essay "The Rhetoric of the image". I found it difficult to understand but after reading it a few times I soon understood the central message of the essay.

Barthes looks into the advertising image and analyses the image in order to obtain answers to questions such as how does meaning get in the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond? In some people's opinion's the image is seen to be inferior to "language" but on the other hand some people think that there are simply no words that can describe an image as the image is simply too powerful.

Images can sometimes be hard to interpret but after reading this I understood more about how we can break down am image in different sections in order to understand it's meanings and underlying connotations. Barthes discovers that an image is broken down into three messages which are: the linguistic, the coded-iconic, and the non-coded iconic. The linguistic message is a huge part of how images are portrayed and this is about how text can be used to add impact on an image but in some cases images do not need to be supported by text as they are powerful enough as they are. Labels in images can suggest to the viewer the company's name and also information about the quality of the item and company. The linguistic language sometimes does not offer any advantage to the viewer as some images are powerful enough let us interpret them without the aid of any linguistic message but however images as well if interpreted accurately can help with the understanding of the text. The image that Barthes is analysing contains various key aspects that help the viewer interpret it such as composition, language and the way it evokes feelings or memories. Our interpretation of images depends enormously on culture.

Although this essay was a difficult read it gave me a huge insight into analysing images and I enabled me to understand the importance of images. After reading this essay, the second part of this assignment will allow us to carry out an experiment which will hopefully improve my understanding of Barthes' essay as well.

Disneyfication

I was looking forward to last Friday's lecture for the simple reason that it was about Disneyfication. Although I'm almost 21 I still love watching Disney films and going to the Disney store as I love anything Disney. I think it's because I've grown up watching Disney films and it just takes me back to my childhood. Disneyfication refers to a specific approach to place, history and literature characterized by simplification and a cleansing of unpleasantness. Disneyization refers to a structural change in society as exemplified by principles associated with the Disney theme parks.(Alan Bryman 2004).

The Disney Castle in Orlando Florida is a magical place and is very exciting when you see it in real life!

We watched a video of Beauty and the Beast and we were also shown pictures of how the characters physical appearances have changed over the years and they are now more attractive. The video showed clips of the classic Disney film and also people's opinions about how Beauty and the Beast is ultimately about the Beast who is the male being violent and abusive towards Belle the female and these people think that this might rub off on the children watching it. My opinion is that these people are reading into this far too much because when I was a child I didn't pick up on it and I'm confident that none of my friends did either. Another point that the critics picked up on was the fact that in if not every then the majority of Disney films the female character always has to rely on being saved or looked after by the heroic male implying that females cannot be independent. I think that this is a fair point but in Disney's defence I really don't think that children are going to pick up on this, especially when now a days there are so many young single mum's who have to be independent.

Over the years Disney films have been altered so that they have happy endings as opposed to horrible and horrific ones which would leave children not loving Disney as much as they do. In all Disney films the female characters have been portrayed as almost barbie doll like which is unrealistic and this might be one thing that young girls pick up on. This is the wrong image to be projecting but if the females in Disney weren't as perfect would it have the same effect on children loving Disney so much.

To conclude I think that although there is alot of criticism of Disney, it is a hugely successful business which lightens up children's lives, and also perhaps some adults too.

Analysing Photographs

Assignment 1

For this assignment I chose to analyse six of Alison Donachie's photographs of herself growing up. Although Alison is in my class I do not know her very well so she would be a good subject for this assignment. I also thought it would be a good way to find out more about one of my classmates. At first I found it quite difficult to try and work out who people in the photographs were and what the possessions said about Alison and her family. Once I started though it didn't take long for things to make sense and a story was soon created from the photo.

Photo 1: In this photo is Alison and what looks like an older sister, who was probably a key influence on Alison growing up. The older girl in the photograph doesn't look particularly interested in what Alison is doing, perhaps suggesting that the two girls don't have a very close relationship, maybe because the other girl is quite a few years older than Alison. Alison is dressed very smart but she is very young, maybe about 5 or 6 so it is more than likely that her mother has chose her outfit for her to wear. However at this age her favourite colours seem to be red and pink as her outfit is mainly red and there is a pink doll's house sitting beside Alison as if she has been playing with it. This shows that she likes playing with typical little girls toys and she is not much of a tom boy. The living room is very tidy and everything is in it's place showing that the household is very organised.

Photo 2: This looks like a family photograph, maybe not of immediate family but cousins, aunts and uncles as well? It looks like it is at some sort of occasion like a Christmas dinner or a party as one of the older ladies is wearing a party hat. They all look close and happy however Alison looks a bit confused and maybe not too happy that the photo has been taken. I don't know if she was maybe just a bit shy as these people do not look like immediate family. On the other hand she seems to look quite settled and comfortable sitting on this older ladies knee, whether it's her grandmother or an older aunt. Alison seems to be starting to take control of her dress sense more as she has her hat on back to front rather than having it sitting normally, maybe trying to be different or this was the cool way to wear a hat.

Photo 3: This photo is of Alison and what looks like the family pets, a dog and a rabbit. She seems to show an interest in animals and she looks very comfortable and happy with these animals. Her body language conveys that she is not at all scared of these animals and she is confident in the way that she holds them. Alison looks like she is still quite young in this photo, implying that her love of animals started at a young age. Close bond with animals, maybe more so the dog as it is very close to her so there must be alot of trust in the relationship. Alison is also wearing Adidas trousers showing that she was aware of fashions from a young age.

Photo 4: Confirming interest in animals and her love for them as she is with what looks like her dog or a relatives dog and she looks extremely happy. It looks like she has a very close bond with this dog because in both the photos that the dog is in it is very close to Alison and it doesn't look uncomfortable. The dog looks like it has been part of Alison's life when she was growing up and this is why they have such a close relationship. Alison is also wearing an Adidas top which shows that fashion had an influence on her growing up. In the background there is a photo of what looks like Alison or her sister (if it was her sister in the first photo) showing her family are proud.

Photo 5: Alison is a young teenager in this photograph with a close friend. She looks very happy and they seem to be very close because they not only have an arm round each other, her friend is also holding her hand showing that they are comfortable and happy in each other's company. Judging by Alison's top (an AC-DC t-shirt) she knows what music she likes and perhaps had an older person influencing her as the band is an older band. Perhaps a parent of older sibling has influenced her taste. She looks like she is beginning to take more pride in her image as her hair has been dyed and cut shorter and this is maybe her beginning to create her own sense of style. From the photo the environment looks like a nice and comfortable house. The kitchen looks modern and again everything seems to have a place shoeing the household is very organised.

Photo 6: In high school, with friends in what looks like the playground or sports field. They all look very happy and close. Alison seems to be growing up and following fashion trends. She has dyed her hair again in this photo and although all the girls are in school uniform they still convey their own style such as their belts, jewellery and hair styles. Alison looks alot more confident and it doesn't look like her favourite colours are pink and red anymore.



When I talked to Alison about the photos and my comments she said that all the information that I got from them was accurate. This shows that you don't have to be a psychic to be able to read photographs. People's possessions and body language in a photo can say a million words and this was proved in this assignment.