WWF's website site uses lots of capital letters in full sentences in typefaces that are quite tall and thin. They're sans serif and tend to be white, placed above darker areas of large images.
Many pages of the site look very contemporary in their design and layout. For example, each page on the species index use a large full bleed image as the first screen of a single page spread that can be either scrolled through or jumped too specific parts using a horizontal menu bar.
The page that the Wildlife Report itself is on follows this too. Again it's a single page that features eyecatchingly bright full screen images with small amounts of text overset on them, which is made readable by a thin black stroke around them. When the page is scrolled through the background periodically scrolls too revealing a different image.
Other pages of the website have similar designs, with the 2013 annual review being a prime example. It again uses an eye-catching image beind small amounts of text with a black stroke. This page appears more like an app interface however, there is no scrolling, all the options are clearly presented on a singular change, with the background changing periodically.
Conclusion
Despite the fairly long history behind WWF and the nature of the work they do, they have a contemporary visual identity, something which I found somewhat surprising. That they've kept with the times in terms of design and online presence suggests that they understand the importance of keeping their options open across their organisation as a whole, which makes me even more confident that this project is realistic.
This suggests that the condom packaging should be largely image based with very little text, and it's important that the design should look contemporary rather than having a more traditional look like you might expect charity merchandise to have. This is important, as having a product that looks contemporary is going to help appeal to the 14-24 age range that WWF want to reach out too.
I took these photos of our bathroom windows in the hope that after having a shower they'd be steamed up and there would be a noticeable difference. I could then use the two as positives and negatives around a handprint that I could edit on in Photoshop. I took them at this time of day as I wanted a fairly light background because of the generally positive and happy tone of the song and the video.
These are the photos I took after having a shower. Due to a combination of it not being as bright outside and the build up of condensation on the windows, they were too unrecognisable to use together.
The glass pane above the bath had steamed up quite nicely to become hazily opaque. The reflections of the rest of the room caused a slight variation of colour across the glass. This was a texture that I was looking for, so I photographed it. Unfortunately when I made a handprint on it the camera didn't pick up the difference of texture so it didn't work out to be as easy as I thought it would.
I cropped it down to a square that had areas of differing hues and shades of colour due to the reflections.
I made a simple vector of a lightly pressed hand. The hand is only gently pressed on and has thin fingertips because this suggests more of a female imprint, and most sexual representation tends to revolve around the female form.
I used it as a mask on the cropped photograph and darkened the area it sat in to make it look somewhat like a handprint. However, when I reversed the masked area to make the hand area lighter it looked a lot more natural.
Because I drew it to look like a gently pressed hand it doesn't have much presence on the page. To counter this I increased the size of it and rotated it so that it fully fit on the page. At this point it just didn't look right on the screen because of how the light areas were at such a visual imbalance with each other. Increasing it even further remedied this with some more rotating and repositioning of it, as now the right hand side was more dominant, which makes it easier to look at. Because of this the negative space is more prominent than it previously was, which is something I wanted to feature.
The edges between the light and dark areas were quite sharp so I smoothed them a bit to make it more comfortable to look at. I only did this slightly as with it being obvious that the hand had been imposed onto the background, it had quite a deviant tone which is somewhat relevant to the sexualised nature of the music industry, without taking away from the intimacy I wanted it to suggest. This is what I submitted.
I looked into existing novelty condoms, and found that there are quite a few that already exist, so clearly this route would be a commercially viable project to be undertaken in the real world rather than just hypothetically.
Video Game Condoms These video game novelty condoms have a retro design, which is replicated by bright vibrant colours with pixelated graphics. Even the shape and size of the packaging resembles games cartridges. Even a light hearted topic such as gaming uses sexual innuendo in its terminology, "Donkey Shlong". Star Wars Condoms These Star Wars condoms are a bit less obvious in the innuendos in singular words, but they concentrate more on phrases that reference the films and are a bit classier because of it. The dark look of the packets matches the sort of aesthetics of the film and all the merchandise for it.
JLS Condoms JLS released a range of condoms a few years ago, and again, the design of the packaging reflects the theme behind it, with particular relevance to colour in this case. The fact that these were released seriously rather than a novelty shows that if this project is approached properly it could not only be commercially viable, but commercially successful.
Royal Condoms
Even upper brow events such as the Royal Wedding have got condoms making money off them, with the "Crown Jewels" condom using purple and gold to try and represent class and royalty. This again shows that it's important to replicate the visual aesthetic of the idea your basing the packaging on.
Conclusions
There are two main things that these examples have suggested:
Playing on words/humour is necessary
It's important to replicate the visual identity of the idea in the branding
It's good that humour is expected to be used, as this is the route we want to go down, and knowing that we need to replicate WWF's visual identity gives us a starting point to work from when it comes to the branding.
For my collaborative brief I'll be working with Jamie on the WWF brief. The brief was about relaying the message of the Living Planet Report to 14-24 year olds, with the intention of involving them with WWF more and to get them to engage with the changes that the report has told us we need to make. The main focus of the report is that:
Wildlife populations worldwide have declined 52% since 1970.
We are living as if we have more than one planet at our disposal.
By taking more than nature can replenish, we are jeopardising our own future.
Our Approach
Because of the seriousness of the issues that are presented in the report, we felt that the best way to engage younger people with it was to produce a campaign that was light-hearted and engages young people in a way which benefits them so they see it as a two-way street, not just them giving something up or making difficult or inconvenient changes to their lifestyle.
We decided to focus more on the decline of wildlife populations, because animals are living things they can connect to people on an emotional level, which makes for an easier appeal that asking people to change their lifestyles. By relating this to popular and well-recognised exotic animals in particular, it will potentially be more interesting and engaging. Proposal
We decided to base our project around a range of WWF condoms, as the younger end of the age range will find it funny, whereas the older end could use them as a novelty if the project was done in a funny way. That said, it'd have to be done tastefully because of how the project is related to WWF. Solving the brief in this way will make the people that interact with the campaign feel like they're getting something back, rather than just giving. We thought condoms would be a good way to familiarise people with the report in a positive and non-depressing way. They have the potential for viral advertising, and play off the wild and instinctive connotations of animals.
The project will consist of the branding and packaging for the condoms as well as advertising/promotion for them, which we hope will include a mix of print and screen. A solution like this could become quite immature and distasteful quite quickly. Jamie and I are on similar wavelengths because we've lived together for 18 months, but at the same time our personalities differ enough to the point where between us, we'd know if the project was getting too serious or too immature, which will really help the tone of voice.
Links I've looked into various different aspects of the problems that arise in panda conservation, as well as politics and political activism in general. Below is a summary of what I've looked at with links to the individual blog posts.
I've found that the research is split down the middle into two categories, Politics and Pandas, which is good because I have an understanding of both areas which will allow me to make the best decisions about deciding how I should go about this project. To summarise my research:
Politics
The visual 'style' of political activism isn't the most contemporary, and tends to be a bit grungy with a hand-made aesthetic, which shows more passion than most contemporary design.
Social change isn't brought around very quickly in Britain, and when it does happen the activism behind the issue needs to be clear and understandable. It needs to maintain integrity and dignity.
Making change happen tends to involve mass communication through the mainstream media, either through social media or news coverage.
Change in the Western world will affect Chinese culture because of the process of modernisation in China.
Chinese culture is slowly becoming more Westernised, especially in the food and drink and entertainment industries.
The Chinese people are powerless to try and affect any sort of change on their own culture because of the political system there, so any change that is to be campaigned for should be aimed at the Chinese Government, not the people.
The colour red should be avoided because of its strong links to Communism and Chairman Mao. Any campaign should try and avoid looking like it's politically based because of the emotional connection that the West and the Chinese people have with Pandas.
Pandas
It is common knowledge that Pandas don't reproduce easily. However, the research and breeding centres in China are becoming increasingly successful at breeding them.
A program has been successfully put in place to re-introduce captive-bred Pandas into the wild.
Pandas are primarily endangered because of human encroachment into their habitat, which means that even if they were reproducing rapidly in captivity and were all ready to be released straight into the wild, the amount of protected space for them to live in isn't big enough, as they need large amounts of space because of their eating habits.
Some of the remaining areas where Pandas live in the wild are isolated, which means that breeding isn't always possible as it's not always possible for a male and a female to interact with each other.
A large earthquake in 2008 made farming in some of the land that used to be Panda habitat more difficult, and so the owners of the land are less reluctant to give up or sell up their land to become protected areas for Pandas.
Even the isolated areas of existing Pandas can be joined together by habitat corridors, which are man-made habitats that join together natural habitats.
If the number of captive-bred Pandas re-introduced into the wild continues to grow and increase at the rate that it's currently growing at, and the unprotected area is cut down there won't be any habitat to release the Pandas into, which undermines the effort that's been put into and progress that's been made with Panda conservation in captivity.
Proposal
It is clear that the Panda population will only rise slowly, and there is nothing that can be done for that. But what can be done is to protect the areas that they could be introduced into to stop the population being but at risk again in the future.
A Western campaign aimed at the Chinese Government encouraging them to protect more areas of the Pandas habitat would be the best way to tackle this, as there is reason to believe their Government are willing to co-operate with the Western world, as is illustrated by the recent Beijing Olympics. At the same time, if it was big enough, the Chinese people would see the campaign because of the Western influence on Chinese culture, and this would give them a renewed sense of enthusiasm about Panda conservation, which may now be starting to wear off after the 2008 earthquake.
For people in the West to get on board with the campaign it would be good to avoid any links to WWF, as there is sometimes a sense that Pandas get special treatment from them. Given that WWF advise the Chinese Government on conservation issues, it would be more suitable to use WWF as some sort of negotiator between the campaign and China. At the same time it is important to WWF that they're not seen to be pushing the Chinese government into any decisions.
Without the immediate weight that comes with WWF backing, the campaign would have to target specific people that would be interested in taking some sort of action for the campaign. The way to target these people is to work with zoos in the West that currently have Pandas on display to public. These zoos include Edinburgh, Madrid, San Diego, and Toronto, which gives a good cross section of cultural differences to show enough support from the West in general. This would also target the Chinese Government directly because they own all Giant Pandas across the world, so you'd think they'd always know what was going on around the Pandas that live abroad.
The emotional connection that the West has with Pandas is something that should be capitalised on, which should be easy as there are hundreds of photos of cute baby pandas. Education is important as well, as if people understand that breeding is becoming successful, it will re-enforce the importance of protecting the habitat.
It's important that the campaign appeals to young children who's parents have brought them to the zoo to see the Pandas, as this will lead to them questioning their parents, which in turn provokes thought in the parents heads. I saw an example of this on the TV show Outnumbered recently in the clip below.
The parents that can afford to take their children to big expensive zoos are most likely the sort of people with disposable income that could potentially donate to any campaign as well, so this works on two levels. If the campaign was run in the San Diego, Toronto, Edinburgh and Madrid for a year, over 7 million people would see it, which not only raises awareness and educates the people interested by targeting them directly, it has the potential to raise a large amount of money.
The other day I watched the below National Geographic documentary about pandas, which focuses specifically on how captive bred pandas aren't naturally equipped to live in the wild, and what measures are being put into place to allow captive bred pandas to succeed in the wild. It was really interesting and demonstrates the massive amount of hard work that is put in to the conservation of pandas, which is why some people say that panda conservation is a waste of resources. It should be noted however, that the below process is all down to independent research and breeding centres with the help of the Chinese government. They have little involvement with WWF, so they're not using up loads of their funds.
Key Points Before human expansion pandas weren't endangered, it's been the loss and isolation of habitat that's put them in the position they're in today. The Chinese government and people are fully behind saving the pandas. The earthquake in 2008 that destroyed panda habitat kickstarted the need for research and breeding centres. Before captive pandas can be re-introduced into the wild, a large breeding group in captivity must be established. In order for pandas to successfully breed in captivity, you have to understand how they breed in the wild and try to re-create these conditions. Young pandas are kept together in captivity, which encourages interaction between them. In 2006 a panda was returned to the wild after 3 years of preparation. After a year he was found dead after being attacked by a predator or another panda. In 2009 a base was set up in a national reserve that was affected by the 2008 earthquake. This base is where captive pandas are prepared to for release into the wild. This preparation means that humans can't have contact with pandas. From when pandas are born here they stay outdoors in a protected enclosure with their mothers for two years. Because of the quick rate pandas eat bamboo, humans have to replace it. To do this they dress up in panda costumes and smear themselves with panda poo and wee which masks both the sight and smell of the humans. After this the panda is put into a larger protected area with its mother. This area is higher up in the mountains, more realistic of the conditions it would live in in the wild. They are left completely alone here for 5 months. Because of the earthquake, farmers in the area are more willing to be relocated, which allows more land to be replanted for panda habitat. Before the panda is released into the wild, a stuffed predator is placed in the habitat, along with it's scent and a recording of the noise it makes. This makes sure the panda knows how to react to a predator in the wild, an instinct it may have lost through captive breeding. The release of the panda is a political act. The people who worked to develop the process aren't present for the release, the act of releasing the panda falls to politicians. The Success of the Program Tao Tao (male) was the first panda to be released after following this program, and was released in October 2012. In November 2013 Zhang Xiang (female) was released following a similar program. Both pandas are doing well in the wild. In October 2014 another female was released (Xue Xue) but died from illness a month into her life in the wild. She was the fist panda to be released who's parents were both born in captivity, and the fact that she was able to pass the same tests as Tao Tao and Zhang Xiang to be able to be released is proof that the re-introduction system works. Her illness was thought to be caused by a bite from a rat. Conclusion It is increasingly becoming the case that breeding pandas is becoming less of a problem. What is a problem is that when it comes to releasing them, there isn't much protected space to release them in to, which undermines the process of reintroduction.
Memory gaps in graduates is a warning sign of a stroke
Katie Hopkins got fat for 3 months to prove she could lose it
Scientifically Proven Facts About Weight Loss (Forbes Online)
Cutting calories by dieting is much more effective for loosing weight than improving the amount of exercise. "If you want to achieve a 300 kcal energy deficit you can run in the park for 3 miles or not eat 2 ounces of potato chips.". Exercising also makes you hungry which makes you eat more anyway.
Regular exercise is needed though, as it keeps your metabolism from slowing down, which keeps down the rate at which we gain weight.
After gaining and loosing weight it is harder to maintain the same weight than it was to maintain the weight before you gained and lost it, which means that it's much more effective to make sure you don't gain weight than it is to lose it.
The idea that some diets are better than other diets for losing weight is a myth, any diet will work as long as it's stuck to.
It doesn't matter what you eat when you're on a diet as long as you're counting the calories. Eating 500 calories worth of salad will have the same direct affect on your weight loss as eating 500 calories worth of chocolate.
Allowing yourself to get hungry makes you more likely to make poor decisions regarding diet and exercise, and so it is more effective long term to make sure you don't starve yourself.
2pm: Dairy Milk; half litre Mars milk; chicken, bacon and mayo sandwich, white bread
4pm: half litre Mars milk; Galaxy
6pm: fish, chips and peas; half pint full fat Lemonade; chocolate cake and double cream 8pm: tea; half tub Pringles; cheese on toast
10pm: 1 litre Mars milk
Working it all off: Katie’s daily diet (1,500 calories)
1 hour run 3 times per week and 20,000 steps per day
8am: porridge with skimmed milk; pumpkin seeds; banana
10am: salty popcorn
1pm: quinoa salad; Milky Way
4pm: hummus and pitta
6pm: chicken and salad; jacket potato; yogurt
8pm: tea; fruit juice
Katie Hopkins Quotes
Too Fat to Work Quotes
Lazy and lack ambition.
Changes a persons first impressions.
Would someone put you in front of a client?
Do you look dynamic or disciplined? Highly efficient?
Sickness issues are a big risk with over weight people.
We lost £16.8 billion because of sickness.
Over weight people know you have to give a good first impression and they choose not to change themselves.
Can You Be Big and Happy Quotes
Fat people that are happy are in denial
No discipline
Less healthy, more prone to type 2 diabetes.
Influencing things like 'Plus size range for children' - 3-16. In shops like M&S & BHS, Sets an example to children.
The above clip discusses how overweight people sometimes lack the confidence and motivation to attempt to lose weight, and this is the problem we decided to try and address. We decided that a solution to this would be a gym that had a minimum weight requirement for memberhip, as this would stop people feeling intimidated by more athletic-looking people, and build confidence to do more exercise in public. The graphic response for this would be the branding of the gym. We'd use yellow because of how it's bright and has positive connotations. The font would be Times New Roman because of how it's average, which is the weight that we want people to aspire to be, as well as the serifs providing a sense of stability. We'd use it in italic to suggest movement.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding The base was set up in 1987 when 6 pandas were rescued from the wild. Since then no pandas have been taken from the wild, but through breeding and exchange programs they now have over 120 pandas. 124 Panda cubs have been born there in 85 litters, of which 88 survived, which is a big improvement on the less than half of new born cubs that survive in the world. In 2013, 20 pandas were born at the centre with 17 surviving, which represents a big step forward in the research that's been done and ability to care for the new born cubs. Chengdu's base covers 200 hectares of land, which helps out other endangered species in the area, particularly the red panda and the golden monkey. Because of the size of the base it is able to support the other breeding/research centres and reserves around it, which is important as a vast majority of the wild population are located close to Chengdu, which is why it's known as 'the panda capital of the world'.
Woolong Research Facility Pandas are notoriously hard to breed, and the common consensus is that this is because they're too lazy to reproduce, or naturally don't have a very high libido. This has been disproven by scientists recently, and we now know that the females are only on heat 3 days a year. But even during these three days there's no guarantee that a male will be around, as male and female pandas tend not to get along the rest of the time, which is why they generally live in solitude. Like humans, some females have difficulty conceiving, both in the wild and in breeding centres. Woolong Research Facility has started using IVF on these pandas, and in 2009 the first test-tube panda was born there.
Panda Porn There have been arguments made that pandas kept in captivity aren't exposed to the natural behaviours of wild pandas, which can sometimes lead to difficulties in the logistics of breeding, as in the wild pandas would see other pandas breeding and so would know what to do when it came to breeding, as the BBC clip below explains.
Because of this, some breeding centres have exposed their pandas to videos of other pandas breeding, to various successes. In one breeding and research centre reported that every time the male panda tried to mount the female she would fight him off, but after showing them the videos she didn't do this. Full article here.
Conclusions It would seem that the breeding isn't a problem for the survival of pandas, as now that scientists understand the breeding behaviour of the pandas, they can use this to their advantage within the breeding centres. One problem that has been raised here is that pandas are solitary animals for the vast majority of the year, and need large amounts of space each because of the quantity of bamboo they eat. When it comes to the time of year when they are able to breed they don't have a particularly high chance of interacting with each other because of how spread out they are, which makes it important that there are as many wild pandas as possible, which in turn means that as much area of forest is protected as possible.
A lot of the Peter Gabriel album covers are based on abstract imagery, and so using some sort of abstract illustration with sexual undertones seems like the perfect way to go.
A prominent feature that I want to carry forward from his existing album covers are the textured look they all have to them, but this is something that I'll have to balance finely in a minimalistic design.
Making use of the negative space will help with this because the high contrast between the positive and negative space I hope to achieve should help stop a texture from making the cover look too busy.
Olly Moss The idea behind wanting to use some form of negative space came from the Star Wars posters by Olly Moss. They're examples of design that I've always looked up to both for the creativity behind them and the amount of patience that must've been required. Olly Moss's website is here
Tang Yau Hoong The use of negative space in these Land Rover adverts is prominent because of the high contrast between the foreground and background. This bold use of colour is fitting for Land Rover because it's a strong and bold product. This sort of design would also be fitting for the Sledgehammer artwork because of how bold it is, whilst at the same time looking very simple, which is what I'm aiming for. Tang Yau Hoongs portfolio can be found here
George Bokhua This style of illustration is really appropriate because of its simplicity and high contrast. By leaving an opening in the black shapes the negative space is more prominent. The contrast between pointy corners and soft corners help the negative space stand out too. George Bokhua's Behance page can be found here
