Danielle Muntyan

An Archiveof Inspiration and Research

An archive collating a series of researched topics and sources inspiration which have influenced my personal practice throughout the final year of my BA(Hons) Graphic Design degree at Leeds College of Art.

Contents01. An Inspiration Diary02. The Relationship between Graphic Design and Fashion Design03. The Fashion Industry, The Body and Eating Disorders04. “Where are all the Female Graphic Designers at?!”05. Branding and Identity06. Editorial Design

AN INSPIRATION DIARY

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2014 I find inspiration comes in many forms and can also come from the

most unlikely of places.

I have been documenting sources of inspiration throughout the year on my PPP blog, with ‘Inspiration Diaries’ collating a series of images from my personal blog.

A small collection of images have been featured to showcase my interests surrounding Graphic Design, allowing for a visual link to be recognised and seen within my personal practice.

THE RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN

GRAPHIC DESIGN AND

FASHION DESIGN

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THE RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN

GRAPHIC DESIGN AND

FASHION DESIGN

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Jay Hess & Simone Pasztorek, Graphic Design for Fashion /

“There is an increased sense of creative potential when the Graphic Design Studio is commissioned by the Fashion Industry. Synonymous with visual and conceptual innovation, Fashion is also grounded in commercial realities. The benefits of a more integrated creative relationship with Fashion were not fully realised until Peter Saville was commissioned for the Autumn/Winter 186/87 Lookbook for Yohji Yamamoto. His collaboration with art director Marc Ascoli and photographer Nick Knight became the defining moment of ‘Modern Fashion Communication’. Almost immediately, ‘Graphics’ became as vital for Fashion as it had been for the Music Industry.

The creative freedom involved in working with the Fashion Industry has made the relationship highly desirable for Graphic Designers. The cyclical Fashion seasons provide consistent opportunity for reinvention and rarely produce less than spectacular results. This freedom often directly influences the broader practice of the Design Studio: Fashion can become a unique creative playground for experimentation within the commercial world.”

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InfluenceI have always been inspired by fashion. I feel there is a beauty within garments and their associative branded identities which draw in so many different types of people, are marketed in different ways and stand for different manifestos.

Fashion appeals to me within my practice for several reasons, including a background in fashion marketing studies, an obsession with lookbooks and an eye for quirky design, allowing one to be creative and expressive pushing the boundaries with design, stocks and substrates, whilst producing unusual outcomes opposed to ‘run of the mill’ design.

The fashion industry, like fine art has no boundaries. One can interpret a garment or a painting in many different ways depending on the eye and ones thought process. Graphic design however needs to be understood, clear and functional, being the bridge which links the obscure world of fashion with reality.

Different designers and different collections, all have a range of aesthetics, use different silhouettes and have different tones of voice, allowing for a wide variety of designs to be executed. I personally find design influence and inspiration from the garments themselves; their shape, colour, pattern, texture, cut, silhouette and detailing, and try to interpret this through visual graphics, typography, collage and photography.

When I am working on fashion briefs, my first point of call for research is Harvey Nichols. I walk around for hours, make a few notes, interrogate the staff for lookbooks and make a secret wish list of things I will one day own when i am a successful graphic designer running my own fashion related studio.

A girl can dream.

Chloë Sevigny / “Fashion embraces the weirdos. They are into that. There are always young people that people in fashion are interested in. You know, youth and energy - it brings something different.”

My practiceThe following spreads show examples of my own fashion related work, specifically lookbooks that have produced throughout this academic year.

I believe that my work is quite literal yet explorative, as well as being highly experimental in regards to stocks and substrates, layout, art direction, use of colour and vinyl for book binding. These are elements of my own practice which I believe have developed over time by working on both self-initiated briefs and client-led briefs.

I am heavily influenced as stated briefly by the garments themselves, their materials, shapes, textures, colours and patterns, and often use these as key graphic elements throughout publications and digital work produced, as a way of digitising the collection in a unique and special way. I feel with Fashion it’s important to have a level of consistency and tribute through the Graphics created and used, relaying with the particular collection at hand, the brand and the associative tone of voice.

I have worked out and developed my own way of crafting and designing this year which I think is quite different and quirky, which has since become my ‘signature style’, so to speak. The process of designing and executing a final outcome I find to almost be like crafting a garment, piecing the different elements together in order to create something beautiful, yet functional.

Grafik Magazine hit the nail on head so to speak, in regards to my design style and personal practice, in a feature ran about me in November 2014.

“With a feminine, Nineties-inspired aesthetic and a portfolio of unusual lookbooks, this young graphic designer is set to go far, whether in her natural habitat of the fashion industry or beyond.”

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“Fashion can become a unique creative playground for experimentation within the commercial world.”Jay Hess & Simone PasztorekGRAPHIC DESIGN FOR FASHION

THE FASHION INDUSTRY,

THE BODY AND EATING DISORDERS

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InfluenceWhen I was 15 I was diagnosed with both Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. Now at almost 23 years old, I am fully recovered. I have however, always been interested, or obsessed with fashion and specifically magazines. I have always subconsciously known that a small fragment of my illness was influenced by the fashion industry and the material which I was seeing and being exposed to at the time. High-fashion magazines such as Vogue featured skinny models, with long legs and tiny waists, whilst the more high-street magazines such as Glamour, featured articles and ‘plans’ to lose weight in order to look like those models seen on the runway.

Even today this is evident in the media, whether via social networks, magazines, online blogs, articles, books and advertising. There is always a pressure to look a certain way which is where the fashion industry have fallen through their use of advertising and design in recent years, promoting the diets and the skinny frames, opposed to the subsequent illnesses which can arise from such unrealistic desires.

For my COP module, I researched into why the media is obsessed with an ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ body image, and how this has in-turn effected eating disorders. In an expansion of this, for my practical element, I produced a book which looked into the past 114 years of commercial fashion advertising and photography, showcasing how the female body is used to sell products, or promote a desired ‘look’ From my research, it was shown that over the past century there have been many fluctuations of the average body size, however the present day airbrushed and skeletal look we face everyday in magazines and on billboards is the slimmest it has ever been.

In my opinion, the fashion industry should be using their power and use of media, graphics and advertising to produce a campaign against an ‘ideal’, delivering a positive message to a mass audience.

Victoria Secret Ad Campaign A/W 2014, “The Perfect Body”.

Lane Byrant for US Weekly, “The Perfect Body” rival, late 2014.

“The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.”

NAOMI WOLFAUTHOR, THE BEAUTY MYTH

“WHERE ARE THE FEMALE GRAPHIC DESIGNERS AT?”

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InfluenceAs a female, I feel it is important to have female role models in the creative industry whom new and young designers such as myself can aspire to be like and look up to. I hadn’t realised until I had started university and began researching more in depth into the industry and the subsequent areas that I like, that many of the designers behind the brand names and studios are actually men. This is not only the case with Graphic Design, this is becoming more and more the case in the Fashion Industries too. But why? I have reflected upon my three years at LCA, and come to the realisation that I have not seen one female guest speaker, or visiting professional. I find it quite disappointing in someways, however an obvious marker that the industry is still heavily influenced and swayed by males and the male opinion.

I find it bizarre that in industry itself, the majority of designers, artworks and print technicians are male, when so many females embark on and complete creative courses such as Graphic Design. I have said before, and will state again that one day, I would like to be seen as somewhat of a role model within the industry, and hope to inspire female designers to further push themselves, promote themselves and to work in the industry post-graduation.

Whilst I appreciate different forms of design and different creative practices, I have recognised a handful of female graphic designers which I feel are inspiring, powerful within their specialisms and work, or have worked in industry. These are Dawn Gardner, Kate Moross, Susan Barber, Carolyn Davidson, Paula Scher, Louise Fili and Jessica Hische.

Fact: It was actually Carolyn Davidson who designed the iconic Nike ‘swoosh’ tick in 1971, which is now an internationally recognised logo. The design was sold to Nike for $35.00, and 500 shares of the company.

Rebecca Wright on the Ratio of Girls with Graphic Design Degrees VS those in the Industry:“There’s a funny thing going on with graphic design and girls. It’s noticeable on HE courses up and down the country and writ large as the new academic year begins again. For of all the students arriving and returning to study undergraduate and postgraduate graphic design, the majority are female.

At Central Saint Martins this is by no slight margin. Of the 525 students enrolled this year on BA Graphic Design, 372 are female, which is 70.8%. The picture is similar on MA Communication Design where female students are 68.3% of the cohort. Within the broader context of art and design education, this is not in itself unusual. A 2013 Guardian survey reports that of the 12930 students at the University of the Arts London, of which CSM is part, 9370 are female – a pretty weighty 72.5%. And of the 49,920 students studying creative arts and design in Higher Education in the UK, 30,790 or 61.7%, are women. What is unusual however, and deserves scrutiny, is that this female domination in graphic design education appears to be reversed when it comes to the graphic design industry.

A much-quoted survey of the UK design industry published by the Design Council in 2010 revealed that only 40% of designers were women, in startling contrast to the 70% of female design students. This statistic prompted dissertations and magazine articles, questions to awards panels and industry line-ups, and both defence and dispute. And yet, despite the debate, there are areas of the industry where there seems little evidence of significant change.

Attend any design conference and the likelihood is still that the speakers will be predominantly male; look at the boards, panels, juries, the partners, chairpersons and even the majority of awards winners, and the picture is the same. And this is a problem. It’s a problem because, as in many other walks of life, the higher echelons of the industry does not reflect the

demographic it purports to represent; neither the future of the industry nor the audience it serves. Yet there was a never a time when we needed this more. Unprecedented social, economic and health related challenges necessitate 360 degree thinking: a diverse range of people and perspectives to innovate, propose and provide. While graphic design education strives to provide an environment of equality and pluralism where competition thrives and meritocracy is the measure, there is a culture in parts of the industry that lags behind – it may recognise the value of talent and graft, but it rewards confidence, charisma and chutzpah, and the uncomfortable truth is that these attributes do not always sit as comfortably with women as they often do with men.

This is not to suggest that to be a woman has a bearing on levels of skill and competency in the discipline – great graphic design is created by both male and female students, and in this regard the issue of gender is of little concern. However, after 15+ years in design education, my experience is that female students are still less likely to want to grab the limelight, less inclined to push themselves forward and to self promote. These students show their confidence in other ways – in the events they organise, coordinate and manage, the group work they often lead and the imagination and innovation with which they develop their project work. But the lack of fanfare that accompanies these activities may lie behind the lack of visibility of women graphic designers at those top tables.

The best graphic design courses teach their students, regardless of gender, to be skillful, articulate and agile designers: to empathise, to work with and not just for their clients and end-users, to take their role as citizens seriously. These courses create the space for young designers to flex their creative muscle, take risks, push boundaries and make mistakes, to think freely and act consciously. I’m not suggesting any of this should change. But maybe we should be more honest about where resistance and potential inequalities lie. Few courses explicitly discuss the issue of gender in the contemporary graphic design industry, or the hierarchical structures and cultural machismo that persist. But if we want to equip our students to have influence in industry, and for its shape and face to change, perhaps it is time that more of us did so.

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BRANDING AND IDENTITY

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InfluenceBranding and identity design has always been of interest to me, however over the past year has become a much larger part of my practice, both in terms of self-initiated briefs and commissioned freelance work.

I love how branding gives a product or business an identity, and allows the concept behind it to be visualised in a creative manner. I also love how branding can be drawn across many products and elements in different ways further expanding the identity beyond a logo. I have found this is particularly the case in the fashion industry, with the use of additional items such as swing tags, lookbooks, invitations, gift bags/boxes, wrapping paper, stickers and window dressing to create an overarching feeling and aesthetic for the brand.

I am a fan of expressive, colourful and exciting branding, which is captivating, eye catching and remember-able, however depending on the brief I also like working with a more minimal, stripped back aesthetic. I feel having an interest in different styles of branding has allowed for me to be quite a versatile designer, and driven me to experiment and work with different fields outside of the fashion industry also.

I have taken my personal branding and self promotion quite seriously over the past 2 years, really pushing myself to showcase my work and my practice as not only my profession by as an extension of

“YOUR BRAND IS WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU, WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE ROOM”

JEFF BEZOSFOUNDER OF AMAZON

“YOUR BRAND IS WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU, WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE ROOM”

JEFF BEZOSFOUNDER OF AMAZON

EDITORIAL DESIGN

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InfluenceWith the digital age being in full swing, there is the fear that printed publications will no longer be wanted. I have always loved books. As a child I would read them. As a young adult, I like to design them, craft them and create them. I think it’s a terrible shame that due to advances in technology, traditional crafts are often forgotten. This is one of the reasons why I like to produce my own publications, whilst there is something satisfying about achieving the perfect outcome.

In my own practice I am heavily influenced by publications such as magazines, lookbooks, photography books and zines, which I feel transpires through my portfolio. I feel the wide variety of outcomes which can be produced is extensive with thought and planned out craftsmanship. I also appreciate well designed and produced books, lookbooks and magazines, having an extensive collection in my own studio space at home. To be surrounded by creative work, publications, books and various forms of inspiration is the key to a starting point for any brief.

A variety of books, magazines and other publications have been collated, showing a range of aesthetics, visuals, type choices, art direction, execution and design which I feel has inspired my personal practice throughout this year.

Influence