After thinking of exploring the preconceptions of masculinity and femininity I have found a larger area of research, the official term is the ‘Pink Tax’, statistics are found below.
the pink tax is well known, but perhaps not well considered or represented in design. Within my research for the topic I found a large amount of basic, infographic style graphics like those above, these simply labelled the problem in an informative manor, not actively engaging people’s emotions with the topic area, something that is so key to successful design. These infographics are often made quickly and not represented by larger bodies, the only example I could find by a largely recognised company was a single page created by VOGUE found here.
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/pink-tax-women-money-christine-jardine
This is once again, simply an article and graphic loosely being informative about the subject area, lacking creativity and innovation to engage people’s mind. The pink tax is seen within almost every large scale company, even in adverts from companies like Gillette who’s razors show no difference despite a change in colour and the occasional inclusion of flowers to their razors, and yet their prices are seen rising when aimed at a feminine audience
This research comes down to one discernible fact, that pink is expensive. It’s the most expensive colour a product can be, it raises the price of the product by around 30% and up to 108% simply by being that colour, this straight up, almost mocking tone would help to deliver my message in plain sight, but also allow others to engage their emotions by figuring out more implicit messages that I can implant within my designs. Engaging with the stereotypical would allow me to vandalise the ads that already exist but still allow the viewer to see the change taking place before them. The most achievable way this could be done within the time frame would be to print onto a pink acetate sheet, and that could then act as the pink filter, easily turning everything on the page at least slightly pink, alongside having the page turn pink, alternative messages could be printed onto the acetate, creating subverting messages as well as supporting in turning the page feminine, supporting the price increase that would occur after the filter has been applied
The concept of pink being expensive is a ridiculous thing, yet it appears to be happening to a large scale of products, my critical design could implant on top of ads that already exist, not a million miles away from ‘the fuclcromer’ I could either theorise a way to see an ad in one way, with the usual colour scheme within a magazine, and then allow the user to input a pink filter over the ad, and this would then mark up all the prices present within that particular advertisement. This could be further explored by leaning into the cliches of femininity as visual and typographical furniture to support my message.
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the colour scheme of course, must be shades of pink given the theme of the
works. However, for the typefaces used, my rationale for using a rough, pen
like font is that they firstly appear feminine by natural, especially when compared
to more masculine, heavier typefaces. But my main reason for choosing these
types of fonts is that, with the use of the pink filter I am effectively vandalising
the ad, as well as rebelling against the companies that are responsible for the
widescale implementation of the pink tax. Using neater than graffiti but
rougher than super clean delicate typefaces seem to give this message clearly A
sense of rebellion with a touch of femininity.
I think this concept has the most potential of all my ideas so far, with the project coming to an end soon, I will now proceed to execute this idea in a number of context before having my executions reviewed and then improved in direct response.
Aidan's Graphics Blog 