RSA- The Final Concept

24/11/2020

This week I really struggled with my brief and moving my idea forward, I had the idea what I wanted to focus on and communicate but I was just struggling deciding on how to move it forward, what to make out of it how could I create this into social media movement. I had a meeting with Sean, however I didn’t find him very useful as I was overthinking each idea and I needed someone to give me clear guide lines. The next day I had a short meeting with David to discuss my ideas, he told me I’m trying and thinking of too many things at the same time he said you have the idea the concept just research on it and focus on one area. From our chat, I felt more confident and he gave me few things I should research on that would develop my idea. I focused more on the misconceptions and researched into what are the publics assumptions and misconceptions (see the post named ‘immigration and misconceptions‘) vs the reality. I realised I was too early on and the reason I wasn’t moving forward because I wasn’t doing enough research. However, after more research into my concept and social media I have more knowledge on the causes of these misconceptions and general knowledge about how social media works such as algorithms.

This is one of my mind maps focused on visuals and potential outcomes for the brief. The mind map focuses on how to visualise the message but also the outcome such as social media campaign or an app. The main concept was ‘myth vs reality ‘ as I was focusing on misconceptions that was the myth and the reality was the factual information that shows those misconceptions are just myth that is created by people. It was aimed at vocalising these misconceptions but then educating the users to change their opinions. I thought I could create this with strong typographical visuals it’s all focused on words, I thought about visual language focused on blurs and clarity, with typography or potential photographs for more powerful visuals as I liked the project Humans of New York that was so powerful and influential. I then thought how can these visuals elements have a place on social media, if I was goung to make something social media related a movement etc I would need a hashtag as then it will spread quickly. As seen on examples such as #metoo and black lives matter. I found examples such as VSCO and Groupon. They created campaigns such as #blackjoymatters where young users submitted photographs on VSCO and shared them on official page to raise awareness and show off the modern black essence. This was good campaign which I believe works really well it raises awareness and shows off talents that lacks voice. I also found Groupons campaign called #PassTheMic, this campaign included lives on Instagram stories and Podcasts with Black powerful people to give them power a voice talk about black lives matter and also other issues that are significant in the society.

I was also thinking about what to include in the social media campaign, I thought about billboards, human stories again to focus on lack of empathy on social media. to execute this i would do photographs and stories of immigrants lives. Then these can be shared via a hashtag, other users can share their story either about themselves or relatives. I also thougtha bout an app which gives answered to misconceptions this idea was influenced by one of the projects focused on migrants in America . The project focused on diversity and called whatdiversitygivesus.com I will be focusing more on this project on later post but basicllay the idea is the question is what has the …. done fo America anyway? the blank bits can be filled with muslims. mexicans, africans or any other ethicnity you have which then the website gives you information of your question. The question it self reminds of a misconception such as like they do nothing for our country so it breaks it by using facts and information on related question. I believe this is educational but also very easy way and clear way to educate someone with an assumption. The design is so simple and clear to the point. So I had the idea I could do an app which answered assumptions and misconceptions related to immigrants in Uk. This app could be used in school students as well, they could share their findings on social media.

The concept:

After a lot of research and mind maps I decided what I wanted to do for this project, since the first day I knew I was strongly aiming towards anti immigration and how since Brexit there has been a divide between groups in society. I want to focus on misconceptions aimed at immigrants in UK. From my earlier posts, I did in depth research to what are people assuming about immigrants and how their assumptions are very exaggerated compared to the real figures. I saw one of the key researches these misconceptions are circulating aorund social media is throigh spread of misinformation. It creates a negative image of asylum seekers and immigrants in UK. I saw spread of these misconceptions divides the society creating tense and hatred. To answer this brief I decided to create a virtual exhibition, it was on one my ideas on earlier mind maps but I moved away from the idea as I thought I needed have a plug in or a platform design for this brief. But after a lot of thinking, I realised I want to answer this brief in my own my style I don’t have much experience with algorith designs or plug in designs so I thought I could answer it through my way and I believe it works in many different ways.

I want to create an exhibition because I believe in a world were there is a pandemic, people are leaning more towards exhibitions and design to get there mind off things. The exhibition will attract both sides of the divide focusing on them in each section. I want to also develop this virtual exhibition into a social media campaign involving Twitter. In addition, it could be something real one day, as I have read that Twitter does want to work on the spread of misinformation and hatred on their platform. Also, using a hashtag As many people believe hashtag movements are not useful as it doesn’t give direct results or changes as it just creates a lot of engagement however I believe with the examples I listed before it can be very powerful and it’s now a key part of our life as we are as users expected to raise awareness to things and share when we see it. It gets people talking which is the first step for an issue to rise to the ground. It needs to be talked about so something could be done. As you can see I already started to visualise the idea below on the mind map.

Exhibition : The exhibition will focus on the idea of misconceptions related to immigrants. I will be using Twitter as my main social media platform. Below you can see a mind map which I created about the exhibition, I was thinking about how the exhibition will look visually but also what will be included in it. How can I show these misconceptions and horrible tweets are effecting peoples lives and spreads hatred on social media. I belive this idea will work because an exhibition is something both groups will be interested in, it will attract more audience as it doesn’t have to relate to one group of people. You can be members of any divide but still enjoy seeing an exhibition. In addition, I believe in a Pandemic we are currently living in, people are looking to do more things to fill their time at home and leaning towards art and design. This is help the accessibility as more people can join.

For this exhibition my intial outcomes were:

Moving posters with information.

Posters

Billboard posters

Exhibition Layout

Exhibition artwork inside – Photographs.

Branding materials – logo, colours, typefaces

The exhibition I wanted to design had 3 rooms 3 sections which focuses on different divides. The first room is focused at anti immigration users with their misconceptions, it will be a room full of typography a twitter room, tweets covered on walls aimed at the one side of the divide like eco chambers. The second room will be aimed at the immigrants, how these words on twitter effect and have an impact on their life, how it dehumanized a certain group in society, I could show this by photography and people stories. Then room 3 will focus on information and the reality, real facts about the living conditions of asylum seekers and immigrants in society. It will be a like a one way system where each room connects from start to finish. I believe this will be interesting and people can see the impact of their words on peoples lives and finish off with the real facts which they could leave with questions about their opinions. This was the initial idea which needs to be developed with visuals and I need to look at the brief go through the criteria.

This is second mind map which is more like a guide to what I need to do for my project. I know I want to create an exhibition so I need to research into exhibitions aimed at diveristy and immigration in the past. Typographt installations and plitical exhibitionjs which can givem mea new idea. I had a short meeting with Katie today who is a graphics post graduate, she designed a similar project las year focused on efffects of social media so David recommended we shoud speak to her. Speaking to her was very beneficial because she has so much knowledge on social media and algorithms. She recommneded we do lots of research on social media so we understand what is already done and needs to be done. I also had a second meeting with her about myexhibition ideas as she said shell willing to chat again if we needed which is so nice as she can also understand how stressful it is to work in a pandemic through online tutorials. We had a chat about how I was struggling as i feel like I don’t feel connected to university and lack of motivation. She was understanding and she gave me loads of tops as she had to do their major project last year in lockdown. I believe it is very challenging times for everyone and especially if you are doing a creative course it is hard to feel inspired and motivated.

As we were chatting she asked which group of immigrants I would focus on and I said I’m Turkish so I have more knowledge on Turkish immigrants stories and experiences. So i would focus on them and she said ti would be good to research Turkish design culture. It could give me ideas for the visuals too. I thought this was such a good idea as initially since the day I had this idea on immigrants I knew I wanted to focus on Turkish immigrants as thats my background but it got lost in the way. The next stage I believe in my process is research exhibitions focused on immigrants and any projects that target migrants experiences. I believe this would be a good to see what approach people take.

However, after some thought I realised I don’t want this exhibition to divide immigrants as this is not the purpose of this exhibition. All the things tweeted about them is usually just directed at all of us unless there is specific event. It is always directed at all of us rather than a small group of ethnicity, generally all immigrants are seen as one and it doesn’t matter where you come from. So in my exhibition I wanted to focus on all immigrants, so they can all connect to it in some way with the things they see. As I was looking at colour schemes and types focused on Turkish culture in UK but something didn’t fit in to the project. I decided I want to keep the colour scheme black and white. As there is two sides, the divide is between black and white, the black is the myths, hateful comments, misconceptions whereas the white is the other side. It is the most clearer way to communicates two sides.

27/11/2020 Group Tutorials

This week we had a group tutorial with Sean, to show our visual ideas and the progress we made. I felt like at this stage I was very sure of my concept but lacked the visual development which was very stressful. However, David said we should turn up to the tutorials with whatever we have. I explained Sean about my concept and my ideas and he was positive about it, he suggested how will the exhibition look and how will people access it which is something I need to think about in. The next stage I think is to start thinking about the visual development but also decide on how would the exhibition accessed.