http://www.ted.com/talks/isabel_allende_tells_tales_of_passion.html

http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/

Workshop part 1

Maternity Leave and Women Managers

Saw this in the newspaper today, in an article about maternity leave, how depressing!

Another nice bit of info graphics

This times its animated


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

confused.com

I have been looking at the book A Designers Research manual which is alright, but its all about knowing your clients and i dont feel like a have clients for this project, i know i should have at least an audience, but its still an interesting book.

Found two books Girly Graphics and Tough Style Graphics  which sound interesting as they are aimed at a particular gender and the designs in the them appeal more to men or women, uni doesnt have the books so i could them, but they are not cheap.

Found some data someone, somewhere did female and male favourite colours, which is interesting, but displayed in a very boring way.

Found some websites that specialise in "hip girly design" i think they are mainly american, some of it is nice, other bits are a bit hideous and don't look like they have been done by someone who knows anything about graphic design. But interesting when you look at the following thumbnails how there is a bit of colour theme going on.

Noticing a lot of vector drawing, patterns in the background, dots, there is a craft feel to them but i don't know what I am supposed to do with this knowledge, its kinda like its a feminine design stye that probably appeals to women more than men.

Also found this, which is a whole book where someone has visualised the differences in stereotypes to do with gender regarding school children.

I'm not feeling any flow to my SVR project, i would rather write 2 ITC essays than do the SVR, i'm just not feeling it!
I have also gone through a book called 'Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers' and as it has a list of all the people it mentions I have photocopied this and highlighted the men and women, and of course there is a lot more men than women, so i am going to visualise this in some way.

Have been preparing for my lesson with Marta as well, creating my worksheets for the students to use and cut out coloured paper and what not. Meeting up with Marta tomorrow to discuss how we are going to do everything.

Once again i look like i have done work when i havent i just keep collect other peoples stuff

Testing textures

Giving strong vector drawing a more handmade feel, could be good for showing graphs and info-graphics 

are women shooting themselves in the foot?

Interesting article on women and work

This article is bound to cause a bit of debate, interesting to read the comments posted about it.




Year-long maternity leave, flexi hours, four day weeks... why would ANY boss hire a woman?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226157/Vogue-editor-Alexandra-Shulman-asks-boss-hire-woman.html

SVR research so far

Shelia DeBrettville Answers

Please could you tell about your involvement in the Women’s Building

this is well documented in Wack! The Feminist Revolution!  I created and taught a two day a week  Women's Design program  during the spring of 1971. Some of the results  of that  program were published along with a long article  I had written about the public environment from a feminist perspective in the British magazine iconographic 6.  In 1973 Arlene Raven, Judy Chicago and I decided it was better to teach and work with women in a context created by women and we founded the Feminist Studio Workshop and created the Woman's Building named after the  Woman's Building of the Chicago World Exposition. With the tuitions I bought a Chandler and Price letterpress and a Vandercook printing press as well as a offset  press so that women had their own hands on production and did not need to ask permission from anyone to print their work in multiple. 

and your role within the graphic design industry.

I was fortunate to have a teacher, Mr. Leon Friend, during my high school years who introduced all of us to Savignac and Capiello's designs and had us design posters  about going regularly to the doctor and dentist and other public service print announcements. I was director of the Art Squad so i had a at taste of working with a group of designers within an high school setting.  During College I designed sets and costumes for the minor Latham theatre and hand lettered the diplomas.   My first job  in the 'graphic design  industry" in 1964 was with a European publisher, Chanticleer Press, of what can be called 'coffee table' books on science and art that were published in three languages, and then worked for Yale University Press doing all their advertising as well as some book design.  I moved to Milan with my architect husband Peter and worked for Olivetti for two years.  I designed advertising and a book "Il Canavese" and then travelled for Olivetti to  the stock exchange in Manchester, England,  the ship builders of Goteburg, Sweden as well as other  cities and business to hire photographers and design brochures that showed how the new Olivetti Programma 101, a 1968 computer, helped them run their businesses.  Meanwhile a colleague of mine, Emanuel Sandreuter who was working at Pirelli, and i made posters about Freedom of the press and TV for the Italian  communist party.  We returned to New York City and  I had a desk in Studio Works and began by  free lancing for Creative Playthings and for an interior designer John Saladino when we received a phone call from Herb Blau who was the provost of a new art institute being formed in Los Angeles. Craig Hodgetts was asked to be associate dean of the new Design school, Peter was asked to come design  furniture and other physical things for the Institute  and  I was asked to come and design all the graphics for this new California Institute of the Arts during its  planning stages and teach when the school started. the work I did for Cal Arts, particular being the editor and designer of a special issue of Arts and Society that was published in 1970, was the start of thinking about design as authored by myself and totally shaped in contrast to conventions in order to create a more participatory and democratically shaped society and design practice. 

You coined the term feminist design; can you explain what this is?

The article in which this word was first used by me does this.  it is was published in Spazio e Societa / Space and Society  edited by Julian Beinart and published by MIT press in 1974.  Ellen Lupton referenced that article in her piece on me in Eye magazine in 1990. In that article i outlined the visual methods that might encourage a thinking audience, one that had other ideas about how women might be represented in the public sphere and used examples from a class I had taught at the Woman's Building , Private conversations, Public a Announcements.

Within Schools of Graphic Design do you think there is enough being done to promote (past and present) female graphic designers to the student?

I was the first and only woman on the Design school faculty at Cal Arts in 1970. When i said I anted to use my two days teaching on a program for and with women, the Dean, Victor Papenek said I it was not a good idea because then male students would have no woman teachers.  i suggested that he hire more women. He said other things I would prefer not to publish but finally I was given permission to teach that Women's Design program.   Here at Yale in 1990 I was the first tenured woman in the school of art and criticized because my first hire was male, Michael rock.  But it was more significant and  valuable for me to have a colleague who was not other down trodden not grateful to all the male teachers who were here at that time so i chose the smartest and best person who applied - and who had not been at yale before in order to be able to change the spirit and nature of the program in significant ways that would make it the great place for women here soon after and now.  yes now here and elsewhere lots of women here at Yale

Do you think that women bring different attributes and/or attitudes to graphic design? If so, what?

 Sometimes women do and sometimes women do not.  Depends a bit on their parents and their experiences. 

One thing that is different is that my office is often been a "milk pumping station' for new mothers and children have been welcome here  and of course at all events that are public.  Students, make and female, feel free to cry and no have others be embarrassed as crying is simply an expression of deep feeling. Not that this happens often but it is not forbidden by conventions.

Do female Graphic Designers get the recognition they deserve?

Women can get the attention they want.  Some do not want the attention and celebrity that many men really enjoy.

For example are they under-represented in industry events and media etc?

I do not go to many such events. Having just been to a very large international event, I can say that Fiona Raby, Alice Twemlow, Huda Abi Fares, Irma Boom and iI were the very few women among many, many men who spoke at the most recent icograda conference in Beijing.

Following on from the pervious question, what are the barriers or choices to women Graphic Designers affecting them gaining wider recognition and kudos?

I believe, now, the recognition is there if any of us women want it and work for having it. 

With more female graphic design graduates emerging in recent years do you think this has or will affect industry?

yes

And how?  

there are more graduates than jobs and women often are very good at reinventing themselves and will fashion jobs to fit their lives.

Of course in societies where women are less valued they will have a much harder time.

How to you think the role of women in graphic design varies from different cultures and countries?

The more oppressive and male identified the country, the harder it will be for women at home and at work.

How do you think feminist design has developed in the last 40 years?

The fight for equality continues unabated as many countries do not value their women as equal partners outside the private sphere.

In the 1980's more women participate in intellectually mining women's contributions to society  that had begun to be uncovered by 70's feminists. Questioning the categories of gender  deepened our s understanding, There is  not only as much difference within each gender as between genders, there are more combinations of traits than had been been lived publicly, studied and more activists defending the rights of all.

And what role does it have in today’s society?

That "it" of feminist design remain important to consider as long as women are not equal everywhere.

Are there any books, journals or other people you recommend I talk to to aid my project?

Luckily tons of books! I think it worth tracking ideas historically, look at England's own Germaine Greer and Eva Figes' 1970's books ,  our Judith Butler's Gender Trouble.  di f f e  r e n c e s  journal that comes out of Duke University press.  I mentioned two older journals with articles by me from the 70's iconographic 6   and Space and Society June 1978 or earlier ( I do not have my CV here and do not quite remember which year ) that you might have read before asking these questions as the questions might have changed a bit...

Sian Cook Interview

Sian Cook Interview - have finished typing it up now, this is a slightly edited version as the first question answer as it is similar to Teals.

1. Please could you tell me more about the Women's Design + Research Unit (WD+RU)

Shift has changed slightly, in the 1990’s its was about the underrepresentation of women in design, because they were a lot less visible, I mean you might think its bad now, but back in the 90’s it was much worst. You ask people to name a woman designer, and they would think you one name, April Grimer and get stuck.  And I think that’s shifted a bit over time, I mean its been 10 years and I think things have changed in the industry, s the projects we tend to work on now are more about using a sort of feminist philosophy to inform our approach.  A lot of our projects now are to do with social issues and communities and that kind of work, so its less about, we’re just about the women, we are about a feminist approach to design, which is also inclusive of men,

2. Within the Faculty of Design do you think there is enough being done to promote female graphic designers? Both past and present.

I mean we have very strong female students, in terms of results and output from the course, maybe even more so than male students.  We tend to have at least a 50/50 balance, if not tipped more towards women, certainly on my pathway.  So I think the women are defiantly there, in doing the design and getting the good grades and getting out there and seem to be being quite successful. I don’t know weather there is anything specifically that we would do to promote them above male students because I’m sure they quite need that,

Do you think they have knowledge of female designers in the industry already?

Do you mean role models? It is a bit more tricky, I mean we do try, certainly on my pathway I’m very aware of it, so I do try to kind of so if I am showing examples of work or whatever I try and show a broad range of work and make sure that it is more inclusive. So you are not just holding up male superstars. And I know we try quite hard, we have a joint first year and the teaching teams we have to put together for that, and we are very conscious of that and trying to keep an even mix of staff. So there are as many female members of staff visible as there are male. I mean it is unfortunate that in the way of pathway leaders , we now only have 2 female out of 6 but that’s bound to sort of vary a bit.

3.  Do you think that women bring different attributes and/or attitudes to graphic design? If so, what?

This is the big one, are we all equal and the same or are we all equal but different kind of argument, which is sort of tricky when you start to think, because when you think you have an answer to this, you’ll see an example of something that disapproves your theory, so I guess its quite difficult to say.  I guess the way Teal and I work, we make a very deliberate choice about the type of projects we get involved in and maybe how we approach people and things like that, we probably is formed from a feminist past, because we are probably more old school feminist, obviously being that much older. So we are probably a bit more conscious of it but I’m not sure for students weather they really see those distinctions anymore. I mean yes you probably do get quite a lot of women who want to work in the charity sector or who want to do more worth while design than go into advertising. But not exclusively so by any means.  In terms of role models what is interesting is, I’m quite please that we are getting some really good female graduates from this course and are in the position to offer internships and things to our students, so I think we are kind of creating our own role models al little bit, because if you look at the advertising industry that’s still much more male dominated than the general design industry.  I would say in general design, it’s a lot more equal but advertising is still quite a hard nut to crack I think for women. There is still prejudice I think for women, it’s a bit of a macho work ethic that tends to go with advertising, its all about being kind of tough enough and all of that and I think that can come across as a bit off-putting.  And people think well my work life balance is more than this and also a little bit of old fashion prejudice. About 3 years ago I had a student who had an interview at an ad agency for an internship and they were a traditional old school kind of ad agency, and she was being interviewed by someone who had been in the business 50 years and she was basically told, women can’t do advertising. And you just kind of think if there are still dinosaurs out there with that kind of attitude.  Bt I think its on the way I think there is enough new, young, interesting agencies that are coming up who don’t have that kind of

4. Do female Graphic Designers get the recognition they deserve? For example are they under-represented in industry events and media etc?

yes I think they can be, I think are under represented in the design press because basically all journalists are fairly lazy if they don’t have to do any research and they can just grab well known names or whatever for pieces then they will do obviously because it makes their job easier. And I think that pool of names tends to be male dominated, of the people they will go to for comments, so if you look in creative review or design week and its who is saying what about this week its nearly always all the usual suspects. So I think it’s a bit of lazy journalism on some parts.

Events wise you usually see that people are conscious, I don’t think you would ever see an all male line up, like the fuse thing, I think people are a little more aware but again they probably have to work a bit harder to find the women to go onto panels and things so it tends to be a little bit of tokenism, sometimes only one or two and predominately male.  And so I think it maybe is that thing about self-publicity, that if I did have to generalise I would have to say that a lot of women are less bothered about self publicity. They just get on with it and do their job and they are not kind of attention seeking in the same way.  And men will pull themselves up they for spokesmen or sitting on juries or whatever it is.  Its not that they are more arrogant it’s that they are more willing to put themselves forward maybe.

5. Following on from the previous question, what are the barriers or choices for women Graphic Designers that affect them from gaining wider recognition and kudos?

I think a lot of it is to do with their own self confidence as much as anything, there is a theory, which I have seen elsewhere not necessarily related to graphic design, there is that kind of fear of feeling a bit fake in what you are doing, that kind of anxiety you get of “I’m in this job do I deserve it, will people find me out”  And there has been psychological studies on this which prove that women suffer from that more than men proportionately  so they might feel a little under confidence in there abilities and business position. So maybe there is a bit of that, so maybe it is a bit to do with female psychology, there has been a bit of press about it. So if you are feeling I’m lucky to be here, you are much less likely to push yourself forward, its more “oo I’ve got a job”, I don’t know weather it’s an education matter or weather its something just inherent, that you can’t change.  I mean I don’t think there is outright prejudice these days, but you have got to kind of put your self out there a bit and go for it really.

6. With more female graphic design graduates emerging in recent years do you think this will affect industry? And how? 

Well I can’t really say that I have got my finger on the pulse of industry because I’m not in it anymore so its kind of a little hard to tell as I said I get the sense that knowing where our graduates go to that a lot of female graduates do get quite good jobs and do get into companies.  I suppose what I don’t know so much about more is whether there still is a glass ceiling that maybe prevents them from rising above a certain level. Which has always traditionally been a problem and I suspect that there is still a little bit of that, but again there is all of that business then it is a tough career design and if you make the decision to take time out to have kids or look after relatives or whatever, that’s probably quite a tough call because you are probably never going to get that extra level that easily.

Shelia DeBrettville questions

i am going to be interviewing Shelia DeBrettville, Professor at Yale University on her view on women and graphic design, but having just read an interview she did with some other woman i am finding it a bit daunting as it talks about feminism and a lot of stuff i don't understand or have an knowledge of.  
These are the questions i have for her so far, a lot are similar to the ones i asked Teal and Sian

Please could you tell about your involvement in the Women’s Building and what its purpose was?

You coined the term graphic design feminism? Can you explain what it is?

 Within Faculty of Design do you think there is enough being done to

promote female graphic designers to the student? Both the historical and modern role women have played in design.

Do you think that women bring different attributes and/or attitudes to graphic design? If so, what?

Do female Graphic Designers get the recognition they deserve? For example are they under-represented in industry events and media etc?

Following on from the pervious question, what are the barriers or choices to women Graphic Designers affecting them gaining wider recognition and kudos?

With more female graphic design graduates emerging in recent years do you think this has or will affect industry? And how? 

How to you think the role of women in graphic design varies from different cultures?

SVR changed my idea

i'm not too sure who i am writing to when i post on here because i have no one following this, but i have kinda changed my SVR report thing a bit, before i was just going to document my quotes from my research typographically or create pictograms, but this never felt like it was gelling, it did not flow at all. then at 2am one night i had  brain wave, and i have decided to instead look into the ways we visualize men and women in design work, so what images, symbols, colours, so we use to indicate gender. so... i am going to collect images to start with then maybe create my own, who knows.

More inforgraphic stuff

What is Called Design Thinking?

View more documents from Michael Dila.