I made this poster for a modern punk band. With out even thinking about it to much I decided to use the Dymo tape type face. This shows that even though i didn't live through that punk era I still have made the connection between 'punk' and 'dymo tape'. This also goes with another point that Mr Barker made about how Graphic Designers help form social and cultural identities. Even now, 30 years later, young graphic designers are using the same type face that links with a pop culture movements, further stereotyping different cultural groups
Sustainability in the text 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario' by E Balser is defined as generational equality in the environmental, moral, social, economic and political areas of modern society. This means that we need to live in a way that doesn't hinder the future populations chance to survive.
Capitalism is based on growth. Always expanding and accumulating more things. It’s a never ending social structure that constantly needs new things to commodify. It does this by subsuming non capitol markets or by expanding internal markets. With out growth Capitalism falls down and goes into recession, which is a ever present situation we are in.
Crisis of Capitalism is when the cycle of capitalism appears as if its going to end but then something new starts it up again and further pushes the idea of consumerism. The reinvention of capitalization each time there is a crisis only furthers the cycle of capitalization. An example of a crisis of capitalism is the environmental crisis, The capitalist world uses up the worlds resources and this is having an enormous effect on the worlds climate which could hinder future generations. This crisis instead of stopping this crisis it has merely latched onto it and furthered the cycle of capitalization. Every company is going ‘green’ but it is just a way of making the consumer feel better about buying their products/services. If the companies were to actually go ‘green’ they would shut down and not use up any more of the worlds resources. But that is not the way of the capitalist world. A new wave of ideas and technology push past these limitations of the environmental crisis preventing the ‘apocalypse for another day’.
One solution in the text is that of the Bio-fuel produced by BIOX a company. This fuel produces lower emissions for diesel engines and gives a longer lasting engine life. The bio fuel is produced from vegetables and animal fat which gives it the ‘stamp ‘of sustainability because you can grow plants and farm animals. The problem with this fuel is that is produced in large unsightly power plants. The most recent of these plants has been built in the poorest part of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It was also built on the communities green space. The plant has reduced the residents quality of life exposed them to harsh chemicals and pollutants in the air. It brings up the question of whether this sort of communal ‘sustainability’ is working if it is on the sacrifice of the poor and if so it isn’t much of a community.
The concept of sustainability has many complications when faced with interlacing with capitalism. The very idea of growth with out hindering future generations is flawed with in the current system. The worlds natural resources will not last the human race forever and unless scientists eventually find a way to make fusion power work or other techniques the worlds thirst for power will be far larger than current techniques can give. Sustainability is a communal concept which means everyone will have to be involved. This community is not very apparent in a capitalist world were there are poor and rich people. Ultimately the few rich will be making the main decisions on the environment because they have the power and influence that makes sustainability a flawed concept because there is no communal progression.
I am going to analyse this piece of Graphic Design through The Shannon-Weaver mathematical model. This info graphic poster of the Lunar stages throughout 2011 is from a Spanish Graphic designer called Dimitre Lima. This piece of graphic design is a fine example of redundancy because even though it is from Spain the graphics alone can communicate the message to all people around the world.
Putting it through the Shannon-Weaver model, the Information source would be the moons lunar phases, the Transmitter (encoder) would be Lima's Design, the Channel would be the poster, the receiver would be the viewers eyes and brain and then the destination would be the person looking at the poster. The design of the poster could be seen as using the technique of redundancy because its very simple when you look at it for what it is. The outer circle which is made out of numbers represents the dates in year and is divided into the months through the names of the month on the outside and the lines and symbols coming from the centre represent each stage of the moon. It has all the basic information laid out in an easily understandable way. It also has the year and an image of the moon to clarify what it is.
It could also be seen that this piece of info graphics is using a different technique of entropy because at first there is a lot of lines, numbers and information thrown at you so the audience could feel a bit overwhelmed with information. The way the information is laid out could be considered as noise because it is laid out in a very visual and interesting way which some people could see as confusing.
Lawrence Grossberg (1984) ‘An other boring day in paradise: rock and roll and the empowerment of everyday life’ Available from: http://www.jstor.org/pss/853365 [Accessed 26.01.11]
Adorno feels that the mass produced popular music has as been standardized. Even when a musician tries to change a characteristic of the music, it is still standardized. He thinks that every piece of popular music is the same. He also goes on to say that the listener to this standardized music is psued0-individualised. This means that the listener already has a pre conception on what 'choice' of music he likes, even though there is no 'choice' because the whole music industry is standardised. He thinks that this standardised music keeps people in line because they don't realise that the music has already been listened too for them.
Its a type of control over the masses that hides its self within all the standardised music that appears to be choice. He even thinks that if people realised this 'hidden agenda' that it would provoke a resistance. But the promoters of this entertainment say they are just giving the people what they want. So it doesn't seem like they are force feeding the standardised music to the masses.
It also appears that this standardised music is easy to listen to rather than Adorno's 'serious music' which gives the listener room to escape the dullness of reality. Because the popular music is easy to listen to it doesn't push anyone out which makes it easy to sell cultural commodities which are hidden behind pseudo-individualisation.
This video of Katy Perry is definitely linked to a nice bit of escapism. The candy cane wonder world that is filled full of nice ginger bread men, beautiful girls and all things nice is linked to the American Dream and especially California. She sings about how nothing compares to these beautiful californian girls which makes both men and women think about being / being with these women. The woman Katy Perry is always branded as her own woman who has a 'don't give a shit' attitude which people love because they like 'individuals' but her herself and her rank music is standardised.
