Essay 2 - Consumer Kids - Ed Mayo & Agnes Nairn

 Am I twice as healthy, because I have had two diet cokes?” Jed, age 7”

• Children don’t have the mental capacity to understand diets and healthy eating. The marketing targeted towards them confuses them and can even manipulate them into thinking that they are eating healthy. 

“The crisps still packed full of fat but fried in obscure oils that are ‘low in polysatures.’ You say it once and it sounds good but repeat it, and like all PR puff, it dissolves away to nothing really new, nothing you really needs and in all probability nothing you would really enjoy.” 

• Marketing fads give short-term satisfaction, tricking consumers into buying the  product before they think twice. 

“The glossy new veneer of ‘better health’: Smarties with the artificial colours taken out; gummy chews in which sugar and artificial ingredients fuse with 25 percent fruit juice for a natural feel; everywhere you look, saturated fat, but lower than before.”

“Foods that used to be considered a treat are now an everyday option.”

“More people are overweight (1 billion) than starving (800 million).”

“Diets in the 1950s were close to today’s healthy eating guidelines. Researchers suggested that the increase in soft drinks and snacks was the major factor in the deterioration in children’s diets. Hence, levels of key nutrients such as fibre, calcium, vitamins and iron has decreased.”

“Parents are notoriously poor at judging whether their children are overweight. In part, this is because media coverage - with examples of a 14 stone 9-year old - encourages a sense that 

obesity is an extreme condition.”

Type 2 diabetes used to be known as ‘late onset’ diabetes because you had to be over 40 to get it. Now, 5 year olds have type 2 diabetes. 

Four year old children have double the amount of salt in their food that health professionals recommend.

“With convenience foods, not everyone has to eat the same thing or at the same time. Children can be offered choices. And so, the food industry has developed more and more products - many of which are high in fat, sugar and salt - that target this new way of eating and markets them heavily both to parents and children.”

“Parents struggle hard to ensure that their children do not go without - and make sure that their lunch box is no less full than those of their class-mates. In a perverse way, having less healthy food is about status and not losing face. Again, the food industry has products for all of this, competing for space in the lunchbox, knowing that it is easier to put snacks in, even if they are less healthy.”

“The success of children’s junk food in commercial terms is awesome. Of these, the most profitable ‘big six’ are sweets and chocolates; soft drinks; crisps and savoury snacks; fast food: convenience foods; and pre-sugared breakfast cereals.” 

“For every £1 spent on advertising and marketing fruit and vegetables, £70 is spent advertising chocolates and snacks.”

Pam from Devon, parent and community dietitian: “I am a parent and a community dietitian and am exhausted in trying to combat the advertising messages that undermine my parental role and work.” 

Researched by Ofcom revealed that foods high in fat,sugar, and salt account for 80-90 per cent of all TV food advertising spend. The response by the Food Advertising Unit was to hire other academics to try and discredit the findings. Companies didn’t necessarily have to believe their food products were wholesome and healthy - they simply had to hire someone to suggest they were. 

“The moral is that if you want to encourage responsible advertising to children, then you have to take an approach that addresses the full mix of marketing and not just a part of it.”

• In terms of branding being the whole issue. 

Essay 2 - How Food Labels Lie to You by Markham Held

“While the FDA does have hard-and-fast rules surrounding some terms, others are not defined. So if you see "natural" or "all-natural" on a product label, that tells you next to nothing about what's inside.”

Steve Taylor, co-director of the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at the University of Nebraska discusses how there is no legal definition of words like ‘natural’ so companies can trick consumers into buying their products. 

The FDA does police some terms like ‘Lite’, ‘Light’, and ‘Healthy’. However, This still doesn't make the product the healthiest choice because the rules are based on fat content. For example, some low-fat but heavily processed cookies can read ‘healthy’ yet a bag of nuts with a lot of healthy fats can’t. 

Brian Wansink refers to these healthy-sounding terms as “health-halo’s” that surround a product and make it seem nutritious to a potential buyer, even if it is junk food. His research also states that people’s taste can be affected by the vocabulary as well as the amount that they eat.

Maple Fortress Research

There’s been a lot of chatter recently about when a designer is not a designer, thanks to Fraser Muggeridge’s Alternative History of Graphic Design show, presenting magazine covers by non-designers. One designer with no formal training who recently appeared on our radar is Derek Wycoff, and if his work is anything to go by, sometimes you can get on just great without art school.

Having studied “internet studies” at Appalachian State University, where he currently works as a web designer, his spare time is taken up making posters and art for concerts, film screenings, galleries and other events. He lives in a remote North Carolina area called Boone, which he describes as a “hippie town.”

“I’m a total design nerd, but I feel like I am missing out by being so isolated geographically. The arts community is small and only a handful of folks work to create it. Luckily, a lot of those folks let me flex my skills early on and I was able experiment with posters and make some effort to refine my style,” says Derek. “Sometimes it’s nice to exist in the margins.”

That style is a wonderful mix of clean line work, cheeky illustrations and clever collages, working to brief like a pro. “I always like to incorporate a little bit of psychedelia and I have the tendency to keep chopping things to bits till they are no longer recognisable,” Derek explains.

- Emily Gosling, It's Nice That

How would you describe your graphic artwork as Maple Fortress? Is there a particular aesthetic or style that you try to subscribe to or is it a more organic approach based on whatever the project is about?

I would say it’s mostly project based. Overall, I like to keep things less refined and just zone out and make stuff. 

Every time I start working, I’m just looking to create something I can be okay with in a few months, years, or even the next day. The key for me has always been trying to maintain a feeling of looseness and excitement. 

I gravitate towards more pop and op-art kind of stuff, but I really try to be open to any new influences and use improvisation as much as I can to achieve results.

Your portfolio includes album artwork and show posters and an array of other projects. How did you get started doing graphic art and what were your earliest inspirations?

When I was a kid, I would draw and make comics. I started playing music and being in bands as a teenager and that’s where my interest gravitated. In high school, I started designing really simple websites. They looked horrible, like most things on the web back then, but that took me on the career path I have now. My day job is a web-developer. 

At a certain point, music brought me full-circle into art and design and I figured out how to integrate everything. My earliest inspiration was album covers and show posters. That is still my biggest influence and the main way I find many graphic artists I love.

What role does music play in your work? How does the music of an artist you're designing a piece of art for dictate your design, if at all?

I’m usually listening to podcasts when I work! Honestly, an artist or band’s music doesn’t have much influence on the work created. Most of the time I make stuff based off a feeling or inspiration of a particular moment. If I can create something quickly without thinking too much, then I have all I need to get started. The rest of the process is editing and reshaping.

You are the drummer for one of our favorite bands, Naked Gods, from Boone, NC. How is your creativity utilized differently as a drummer than as a graphic artist? What similarities are there in your processes writing drum pieces and designing as Maple Fortress?

When I started playing drums I was constantly breaking sticks, warping drums heads, and cracking cymbals. I’ve listened to some of those recordings and I really loved how much soul and creativity was lurking under the surface of the sloppiness.

At a certain point I learned how to not break things and my style became a little more focused. When you become technically better at something there is always a risk of losing the charm that made your playing interesting. Recently, there’s been a process where I’m trying to integrate the two styles of playing, the reckless with the newly refined. I feel like that is my mission statement with most things I make. Trying to reclaim the wild parts and make them presentable.

Are you contracted by bands to do show posters or is it something you do independently to promote shows? What's been your favorite band to work with?

Sometimes it’s the bands, but most of the time it’s the show promoter or a friend. I like working with everyone!

Your artwork is the album art for your band's latest self-titled record. How is it different doing art for your own product than for a client? What was the inspiration behind that album artwork? 

The band has given me a platform to freely create which I am very thankful for. It’s a lot of work trying to add a visual element to this thing you’ve already spent so much time writing and recording.

I am very lucky to be in a band with thoughtful/creative people who are very supportive. Our guitarist also creates art and is a talented screen-printer. Most bands aren’t lucky enough to have two visual-artists. I feel like we kind of tag-team the visuals and that keeps things interesting.

As far as the album artwork, Corita Kent was probably my biggest influence. I was really into her color palettes at the time. I love the overwhelmingly positive nature of her artwork and her story is amazing. 

- New Commute Music Library 

"My work blends elements of Pop and Psychedelic Art to create collages and posters utilizing dense lines, patterns, and simple colors."

Kate Gibb Research

Kate Gibb is a screenprint obsessive, currently creating from her makeshift print studio in north west London. Her early studies in printed textiles fuelled her inherit love of colour, shape and pattern which continue to provide the base of her works. 

The kind of printing she is inspired by is process led and utilises chance, hiccups and the happy accidents that this unorthodox approach throws her way. This informal, playful and exploratory manner reflects on her practise as predominantly intuitive and self taught. 

In essence she is known for her music based artworks, predominantly for her long standing relationship with 'The Chemical Brothers'. 

Alongside her print based artworks and the more commercial illustration side to her practice, she is also an educator. 

She currently collaborates with fellow artist William Luz under the guise of 'Touching Elbows'. This title reflects an ongoing collaborative approach to image making, craft, colour and form.

Kate is a silkscreen artist and illustrator extraordinaire, with a studio that is bursting at the seams with screens both old and new. Her unorthodox, playful approach allows her to work intuitively, relying on twenty years of experience and print based experimentation to create each piece. Her practice is driven by colour and process, and her prints – predominantly created as unique artworks – are often defined by moments of serendipity. It's only in the last year or two that she’s looked to retain the aesthetic of her approach while creating small, limited editions. Kate is incredibly gifted and it’s her technical nous as much as her eye for colour that inspires many to seek her advice. She often works alongside other artists including Look Uppers Sophie Smallhorn, Giuseppe D'Innella, Josie Molloy, and William Luz (formerly William Edmonds). Her collaboration with Will, Touching Elbows, continues to bear the juiciest of fruits and editions by the duo are now available from Look Up. Her commissioned images have injected life and colour into campaigns for clients including Dries van Noten, The Chemical Brothers, Stussy and a recent commission for Hermés.  Her personal and professional practices remain interwoven, each informing the other; commercial work often provides the impetus to experiment with new techniques, and vice versa. - Look Up

Mike McQuade Research

Mike McQuade is an American graphic artist living in Richmond, VA. His work has graced the pages of The New Yorker, and the covers of major publications such as WIRED & The New York Times Magazine. Mike also runs a small design studio, themcquades.com — working with respected institutions, brands, publishers, and entrepreneurs.

The Many Layers of Mike McQuade

By Scott Kirkwood

Mike McQuade admits that as a high school student, he spent too little time studying and too much time skating through the streets of New Jersey and New York City, leaving street art in his wake. Twenty years later, he’s producing illustrations for the New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Institutional Investor—respected publications housed in towering buildings not far from where he wielded cans of spray paint. 

That unlikely journey began after McQuade graduated from high school (with a less than stellar grade point average) and followed his passion for art and illustration to the only school that would accept him: The Art Institute of Philadelphia. There, he learned technical skills, if not the big-picture problem-solving skills that define the best graphic designers. He says he developed those skills both on the job and with help from his wife, Nicole—a professional photographer and graduate of the Tyler School of Art.

STARTING AT THE BOTTOM

While tackling entry-level positions at a small agency in Philadelphia and Comcast Interactive Media, McQuade spent his evenings and weekends dreaming up his own personal projects, putting together a portfolio that eventually caught the eye of a creative director at BBDO and resulted in a move to the Chicago agency. But the financial crisis of 2008 led to layoffs, and that left the remaining staff with 80-hour work weeks and sizable branding projects to be tackled in mere hours. So McQuade went across town to Tom, Dick & Harry Creative—a boutique agency that offered an up-close look at the process of acquiring clients and issuing proposals. The company’s leaders were so supportive, they paid McQuade’s full salary while he took a months-long leave of absence to care for his ailing mother, who would succumb to cancer.

“They took care of me, and in a way that is pretty rare nowadays,” says McQuade. “But as I received more inquiries into my freelance work, and I had the opportunity to work on some really interesting projects, the full-time work started to feel like it was getting in the way. I knew going out on my own would be tough the first year, but watching someone you love pass in front of you gives you a different perspective on what you should be doing with your time. Ultimately, I wanted that bigger challenge.”

As it turned out, that first year wasn’t as rough as he’d expected. McQuade soon received recognition as an ADC Young Gun (in 2011). Not long thereafter, Richard Turley, creative director at Bloomberg Businessweek, offered a cover assignment focused on Palantir Technologies, which mines online data to identify suspected terrorists. The success of that project gave McQuade the confidence to contact other high-profile art directors, including Matt Dorfman, who oversaw design for the New York Times op-ed page at the time.

“I emailed Matt and said, ‘Hey, if you ever need a guy like me to do a piece of editorial art let me know.’ And he replied, ‘Oh yeah, definitely,’ which I thought was just his way of being polite; then he wrote back the next morning and said, ‘How about tomorrow?’” McQuade had a day to piece together an illustration on the impact of Kodak’s departure from Rochester, New York. The morning the piece was published, McQuade set an alarm for 6:00 a.m., ran down to the Starbucks on his block, and emptied the shelves of every last copy.

McQuade’s distinctive collage style took off after FiveThirtyEight art director Kate Elazegui saw one of McQuade’s pieces for Wired magazine and subsequently asked him to illustrate a piece about EA Sports’ efforts to incorporate player stats into its Madden NFL Football video game franchise. Elazegui provided photographs of J. J. Watt, and McQuade paired the images with color blocks, numbers, and iconography to deconstruct the process visually—“Dada mixed with data,” as he describes it. That approach has since informed his commissions for the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and others.

THE HAND OF THE ARTIST 

McQuade uses Adobe Photoshop CC throughout his process, to slice up images, to make grids, and to organize hundreds of layers created using imagery from old magazines. He often starts by scanning photos into an old HP printer, removing backgrounds or adding color, and then applying textures from a library that he’s created over the years. He also uses Adobe Illustrator CC to build icons and symbols; then he brings them into Photoshop for placement.

For his riff on the “Visible Man,” produced for a Fortune article about doctors leveraging medical data to help patients, McQuade made some sketches, scanned in an old Dover medical illustration, and sampled the colors using Photoshop. He then masked out portions of the image, added shadows to convey depth, and spent some time using layers to to push and pull the components until the composition felt just right.

These days, he’s moving into the realm of collages with a 3D look. When Berenberg 10, a British financial publication, commissioned an illustration focused on psychological responses to a shift in the global stock market, McQuade borrowed a phrenology bust from a friend and spent hours in Photoshop, replacing the labeled sections of the brain with stock-ticker data. When Oregon Humanities printed a piece debating the use of trigger warnings on important college literature, McQuade’s solution featured a book wrapped in caution tape that seems to come off the page. Even simpler illustrations like those for the New York Times and Johns Hopkins Magazine appear to be actual multimedia pieces rather than creations composed entirely of pixels.

ILLUSTRATION SOLUTIONS

Today, art directors typically come to McQuade with assignments, so he spends very little time marketing himself. He focuses much more energy on crafting visual solutions for editorial art directors: “When I sell a concept to an art director, it’s typically a moment of excitement followed by many moments of fear as I figure out how I’m going to get the thing done in time to hit the deadline.”

What’s next? As this article was being completed, McQuade was working on branding materials for Red Wing Shoes and Puma, six illustrations for ESPN The Magazine, an illustration for Buzzfeed, and a cover image for Institutional Investors.

“Every time I get an email with a new piece of writing attached, I get excited because it’s almost as if I’m starting from scratch—my style is constantly evolving, and my thinking is always getting a little deeper,” says McQuade. “Because once you do your fifth illustration for yet another article on ISIS, you have to start thinking way outside the box.

Palefroi Research

Palefroi is Damien Tran and Marion Jdanoff.

They met in Berlin in 2011 and discovered that they share the same drive and energy toward screen printing. Multiplying projects together, they decide to formalize their partnership in 2013 by creating Palefroi, a framework which embraces all of their practices, the self-publishing of books and prints in particular.

Palefroi is also the name they use to sign all of their pieces as a duo. Tran and Jdanoff constantly go back and forth between their individual and their collective work. Their language as a duo is at the crossroads of their respective worlds. One is formal and abstract, the other narrative and figurative. Over the years, the boundaries between their personal and collective work have become more and more porous.

They produce limited edition art prints, posters, artist books and zines. 
Their work is characterized by a free-form aesthetic in which rules are taken apart, allowing creativity and playfulness to come to the forefront of their compositions.

Graphic greatness and beautiful books by Berlin-based Palefroi

Catherine Gaffney

Hand-made books are slightly difficult to showcase online, but do your absolute best to browse through Palefroi’s beautiful projects, screenprinted and produced in limited editions by the Berlin-based art collective. Made up of artists Damien Tran, Marion Jdanoff, and Susann Pönnisch, Palefroi’s work is clever, bold, and consistently engaging – the illustrations feature stark geometric shapes alongside looser, free-flowing elements, and the palette always appears extremely considered. There is also an excellent use of negative space and a keen awareness of “the page” as a scene within a wider progression. Subject matter ranges from mountain peaks and battles to ghostly, mythological creatures, often evoking the sinister and the surreal. Wonderfully done.

Spin Studio Research

Graphic design is our passion. We are obsessed by the challenges of a discipline that exists in a state of constant flux. At its best it is thought provoking, memorable and leaves a lasting impression.

Our holistic approach in dealing with the complex requirements of clients is supported by extensive experience delivering rigorous identity systems across all platforms, digital, print and environmental.

‘Over the last 20 years Spin have firmly established themselves as one of London’s best design studios. Delivering consistently high quality work across a huge range of clients that span the arts, communication, broadcast, design, electronics and entertainment sectors as well as application, their portfolio includes identities, books, marketing campaigns, motion graphics, packaging and websites’.

—Lecture in progress

In the Studio With — “We know our neighbours, it feels friendly and human, not too trendy or try hard, it’s a place to work.” We meet Tony Brook and the team at London studio Spin…

Will Hudson

Over the last 20 years Spin have firmly established themselves as one of London’s best design studios. Delivering consistently high work across a huge range of clients that span the arts, communication, broadcast, design, electronics and entertainment sectors as well as application, their portfolio includes identities, books, marketing campaigns, motion graphics, packaging and websites. We visit their London studio as well as their more recent second home to see where the magic happens and meet some of the team…

The Studio

We started life in 1992 and has, for the most part, enjoyed working for a diverse range of clients in a number of disciplines. We have been relatively early adopters on the digital front, which has had its advantages in our primary source of business, the creation of bespoke identities. All contemporary identities have some form of digital expression, for us the seamless linking of the analogue and digital is a strength. Print isn’t going anywhere. 

The Team

Currently stands at nine. Six full-time designers (two work on Unit books full time) and three support staff consisting of a Managing Director, Studio Manager and an accountant/book keeper. We have one intern, we run a programme primarily for Unit Editions but sometimes for Spin.

What is important about the working environment?

That it is dry, warm, comfortable and has a positive atmosphere.

What was it about this space that made it right?

All of the above. It is a small complex of work and live/work spaces which gives it a nice feel. It’s relatively quiet, is a decent size and crucially was available to buy.

What’s the best thing about the studio?

The light and sense of space. It’s a nice place to be. We know our neighbours, it feels friendly and human, not too trendy or try hard. A place to work.

How would you talk about the studio culture?

Inclusive. It is open in all senses, there aren’t many hidden conversations. I sit in the middle of the designers, they hear everything that goes on, which is a good thing. We tend not to encourage working too late unless it is necessary. Quality of life is important. Music is played all day everyday, it has always been important to us, as it is in most studios. We often have lunch together, and have a big fry up on Thursdays (Thursday/Fryday).

What do you look for when recruiting and adding the team?

Talent obviously. That they are going to add something, but most importantly that they are good, hard-working people. Talented jerks don’t cut.

Are there any self initiated studio projects projects?

Unit Editions would come under that banner, the publishing company that myself, my partner Trish and Adrian Shaughnessy set up. It takes a massive amount of effort and commitment on all our parts but is hugely satisfying.

Zine Experimentation

After choosing my 5 designers that I will include in my final publication, I practised making a zine from some of their work. This process was really quick and hap-hazard, but I love the outcome. By quickly collaging on the scanner by simply placing pieces of work together I was able to create pages for my zine in seconds, and the outcomes were contemporary and modern. Next, playing around with invert and contrast took it even further.

I learnt a lot from making this simple zine; for example, I tried to make inserts that had small pieces of text on them but when it came to binding I realised that this left a blank side to the insert - something that will now be considered beforehand in the future. I also realised that I really need to consider page numbers and whether they are even or not. These small 'bumps in the road' effect the over all quality of this little mock-up, however, this will improve the quality of the publications that I make in the future. 

This process made me realise that I definitely want to create one large publication holding all of the information for this brief. The possibility of making five separate ones was there, however, I love the continuation that designing a book has. As well as this, I love the idea of combining my favourite artists work and seeing a splash of me across the page. 

Poster Design

For my poster design I disregarded the previous collage that I had done and decided to focus on the simple shapes and colours that are used by the designers. I quickly took a design from each designer, traced a shape (sticking to the most basic) and colour picked a colour from the design. This resulted in 6 layered blocks of colour, that with the multiply layer blend mode applied, overlaid one another to produce sections of darker hues. Although the colours popped, this image looked flat on the screen and needed to be replicated physically. I like the transparency of my design and so chose newsprint to work with as it has that slightly transparent quality and off-white colour. I scanned each shape onto the newsprint repeatedly until each layer was showing, once without trying to attain nice placement, and once whilst positioning them to have a better layout. I put both of the designs next to each other and saw my final poster in landscape. Both of the layered up designs seemed to work so well when next to one another - and so I made this my final poster design, although incredibly abstract.

I learnt a great deal from this process about how I will produce my final publication. through making mistakes, I learnt that in this case less is more! When combining imagery from 5/6 designers you can not perfectly replicate each one. Chose your favourite parts and get on with the layout of the publication itself. For example, the elements that I chose for this poster were simple, but that gave me more freedom to play around with my own design and what I did with them.

Initial Collage

I tried to make collages based on each of my six designers using their own work as well as collage material with the intention of developing these into a poster combining all 6. I really struggled with this task as I put too much time and effort into each individual collage - causing them to look overworked. Upon reflection I did not fully understand the task and took it too far. The collages are, in my opinion, unsuccessful as they mimic the designers work too closely, shown mostly in the Max Bill Responses. The ones that had potential were Reid Miles and Wolfgang Weignhart as the process was quicker and less complex. 

In order to make a successful poster I need to be able to simplify the design elements, otherwise they will all fight each other and not work harmoniously. I will also move away from cutting and sticking and towards the scanner as this process is so much quicker.  

Crit Notes

Reflect 

- The notebook idea is good and makes sense, but needs to be simplified. 

- In general, always stick to one idea rather than trying to combine them. 

- Must go physical and get off the laptop. Does not have to be photographic, can be using the scanner etc. when thinking about your ideas think - how can this be interactive for me?  

- How can my ideas be more relevant to the book, not just study tasks. 

- The playful type is really strong and should be continued. 

Speculate 

- In terms of the notebook idea I will play around with the texture on the cover, perhaps using something that resembles TV static.
- I will definitely develop sticker designs to help myself customise the cover. These could be labels, post-it notes, other science related things?
- Look into different notebook designs - does it have to be a Component Book? Could it resemble more of a text book? Look into this and pick out the ones that I like.
- Make it physically! Actually buy a book and customise it through the use of stickers and tags, photograph it, and this could be the cover.
- What can you include on the cover from the context of the book?
- In terms of the 'holes in science' idea, can I experiment more with making each layer more interesting and relevant? A collage, photo, texture?
- What can I do with the holes? turn them into atoms, planets, or cells?

Research

- What textures to gather
- Textbooks
- What to stickers to design