Concept Development

Moving forward, I have pushed my faux fashion ad creation forward by first noting down some of the more extreme examples of fashion products and then, theorising my own, more extreme products that could be advertised falsely alongside the real examples.

My research mainly sat with the companies Balenciaga and Gucci, as they were identified early in my research for their easily replicated logo marques and general visual identity, their products appear to generally combine two concepts together in order to make one, high fashion product. Such as combining a high heel with a scrunchie, or a watch with a weighing scale.

These examples are very extreme and would have to be seen to be believed even though they are currently being sold for £1000+. This makes the conceptualisation of products more difficult, but should make their construction and fidelity stronger, as the audience that would be looking through my faux fashion magazine would already be accustomed to concepts like door hinge heel and platform crocs, the problem is that, when I attempt to make these un-sellable products that no one would believe exist, they do exist and are already being sold!

A Typeface You Trust

While I am encountering issue with the product side of the project, my emphasis on the typeface that is selling the products is growing, the idea that the consumers are buying the typeface over the product could be an interesting way to execute my ideas, a more typographical approach would allow me to side step lots of the problems that are occurring with the visuals, as well as streamline the production time of my outcomes, allowing me to spend more time developing my core message over creating flashy faux fashion visuals. There are already many stock image available of products, these high quality images are perfect for manipulation and further, typographic expression this avoids the issue of having to capture photos myself without access to a photography studio, which I think should give my ads the fidelity needed to be functional.

My experimentational outcomes are below.

I think my more typographic approach has raised interesting points. Firstly, the generic looking product was originally thought to be a problem, however the fact that the image is so generic carries a message within it, that it doesn’t matter what the product looks like, what people want is the typeface, the brand that they know to sell this generic looking product, often with a higher mark-up price due to the brands reputation. The slogans used here help to support that message and I think that my theory devised in previous blog entries is being executed well here, these ads could easily belong within a high quality fashion magazine, with typographic systems assisting to build up the fidelity further. The typographic systems and the slogans themselves are powerful, they subvert the message of the ads that these examples would be surrounded by and I think that this has the basis for a successful critical design campaign. The slogans are good, but they could be developed further and due to the fact they can be easily changed and executed I am able to come up with a larger number of slogans, and then find stock imagery to fit the best slogans that I am able to come up, Further slogans are listed below.

CONTINUE IGNORING THE PROBLEM!

Bliss Ignorance! Now in Red

TRUST YOUR BRAIN! we’ve manipulated that part…

GAIN (VERY) TEMPORARY HAPPINESS NOW!

This is for Men, so has manly text

Context

I think that context is an important factor here, the adverts need to be executed in the a way so that they will deliver maximum impact according to the theory I have researched. A faux fashion magazine is a solid way of doing this, but is also perhaps quite linear, and therefor would benefit from some further brainstorming, if I am going to print my designs, could it be improved by considering the wide range of binding and printing techniques available in order to put greater emphasis on the message I am hoping to convey.

Using already existing format concepts within fashion magazine as inspiration I could create my ad and have the subverted message on a hidden third page on the spread, this would make the reveal more physical rather than mental, however I think this might actually make my work too linear, this would require me to make two ads, one with regular messages and another with the subverted message, this would disrupt the multi-layered approach and as a result would perhaps lower the sophistication and intelligence input into the designs. The alternative context concept would be to create a larger scale poster style advertisement with wither tear able or foldable tip ins that would have the ability to reveal different kinds of information at the viewers will, but still allow me to have complete control over what the viewer would see upon initial viewing of the advertisement. This examples could still exist within a fashion magazine, but would stand out more when placed within a magazine due to its added thickness and paper weight, this would spoil the fidelity slightly as when the user would be turning the pages, they would immediately detect that there is something wrong with this particular spread, and so perhaps bringing too much attention to it, raising caution and slightly spoiling the revealing aspect of the typographic elements after the initial manipulation has occurred.

Moving forward with the project I think I should continue considering context as an important part of my outcomes, existence within an already functioning magazine appears to be vital, however I am still considering what I can do that the pages that I have created in order to give the reveal a greater impact and ultimately, make my outcome more effectively critical.