http://epiteszforum.hu/node/18017
16.2.11
Snooping around
Just a very interesting flat designed by Tóth Gergely Máté. His openness must be much higher than average.
11.2.11
The matter of taste
What good taste really means? There are so many different theories about good taste and fashion so first I will have a quick look at these ideas then I will write about an essay - From aesthetic principles to collective sentiments: The logic of everyday judgements of taste written by Ian Woodward and Michael Emmison. This Australian article analyses how people judge taste and what their judgement based on.
Classical sociologist had different ideas about taste and fashion which are still interesting today but a lot of things changed since then. The contours between social classes getting blurry as we all have the same rights and we are equal in theory. But it always worth to see where concepts like taste and fashion come from. Kant’s idea about good taste is that it has to be a universal judgement. If something is beautiful there’s nothing to do with its function – like the sunset – it is a “common sense” based on our feelings instead of concepts. I think it should be this way but I’m afraid nowadays there are quite a lot of effects influence our tastes. Not in terms of the sunset but if we are talking about clothes I’m not sure someone who highly interested in fashion would buy a piece if it’s out of fashion no matter how beautiful it is. Trends are essential today in fashion and beauty doesn’t come first all the time.
Veblen and Simmel had a different theory about fashion. Veblen observed that the wealthy and upper class people demonstrate their status through “wasteful expenditures”. Their clothing is different from popular taste and very difficult to wear – like a birdcage in their hair or their massive dresses – which symbolise that they don’t have to work, they are so leisured as they can spend ages waiting to get their hair done. Veblen thought the elite class shaping and sustaining our sense about what beautiful means. According to Simmel’s observation imitation is a fundamental component of fashion. Lower class people copy upper class people so the elite have to come up with new ideas to set themselves apart from other classes.
‘‘Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfy the demand for social adaptation” Simmel
Blumer thought people follow fashion because it is the fashion and not because of the separate prestige of the elite group. Back to nowadays approach I think imitation is still very essential in fashion. Although I don’t think so many people would copy the Queen’s style today but superstars, bands and popular people from the media. We also copy each other; we pick up bits from other people’s style in our environment. Today everybody can dictate fashion like we read in The Tipping Point when downtown kids started to wear Hush Puppies and it became a trend. So who decide what is tasteful? In Bourdieu’s opinion taste is “nediated” which means certain people dictate it. He call these certain people “Gatekeepers” and they could be gallery owners or magazine editors but definitely people who has a huge impact on what reach us as consumers. Bourdieu also said that taste is social so the society we belong to influences our taste. So our taste depends on the Gatekeepers but who they are?
We are working on a Fashion Forecasting project just now and it is very interesting who and how decide it what going to be popular in 18 month. New trends can come from websites or periodical journals, both resources are quite pricy but very essential for designers. These companies have a good understanding of the present by looking at the news, current affairs, economics, cultural and creative happenings and socio-economic trends. Then from the gathered information they second guess consumers future choices based on their emotional connection with the present. They also study the past, how did people react to parallel situations previously which also help to find out the future trends (mudpie.co.uk). So it’s all about social changes around us which affect our choices. But what was first, they try to find out what we want or we buy what they tell us to buy? I guess both because I believe we can’t be manipulated enough to buy whatever they want so the two things has to be in harmony.
Now I’d like to write about what I found out from the Australian article about taste. Their survey involved 619 people from different genders, age groups and background. They tried to find out more about the ideas which different people use to classify objects or behaviours when they judge taste. First they introduced the three abstract classificatory schemes of taste judgment: quantity, composition and quality. Quantity means the correct amount of something considered to be tasteful. Two third of the respondents who used quantity when they talked about taste was female. They said good taste means knowing ‘when enough is enough’. Too much colour, too much accessories, too high heels, too much food on the plate or too many/few words in a situation considered to be tasteless, showy or inappropriate. The next scheme composition is basically about harmony, when things go together or organized in a pleasing way. Again two third of the respondents who used this scheme to judge taste was women. The quality factor refers to definitions like elegance, timelessness and classicism. For an action or an object to be in good taste it must have certain non-functional qualities. Money tastefully spent would mean buying a Jaguar car, Italian woollen trousers or a big boat.
In the next part the authors review two definitions for the references what people use when they talk about good or bad taste: ‘domain of taste’ and ‘basis of taste judgement’. Domain means a social, cultural or consumption sphere to which the respondent refers when talking about taste. The ‘basis’ of taste judgement on the other hand means the reference for a personal or aesthetic judgement. It also can refer to social or collective judgement. According to this survey educated people more likely to use abstract definitions (quantity, composition, quality) when less educated people refer to domains when they talk about taste. There’s a difference between genders as well. Men slightly more likely to use abstract definitions than women but when they do use domains to describe taste females refer to clothing and appearance about twice as much than males. The most significant difference appears between different age groups refer to ‘basis’ of judgement. Older people principally employ collective or social concepts to define good taste when young people mainly use personal or aesthetic concepts for the same.
This survey is an ultimate proof how our environment affects our judgement and what is based on. Basically most of the people try to fit in to the society and their preferences based on what they experience around them. As a summery here is a quote from the article about what good taste means:
‘‘things that are in good taste are generally not upsetting or disgusting to the general public, people who act in good taste care about the people around them and do not want to upset them’’.
3.2.11
Semester 2/ Assignment 1
This assignment is based on Sam Gosling’s book: Snoop – What Your Staff Says About You. We swapped pictures of our home with another design student who we don’t really know and we have to analyse this person’s personality based on the photographs. My partner is Grant who sent me pictures of his bedroom and his bathroom.
Gosling mentions a psychologist in his book who has a very interesting and very true idea about: What does it really mean to know someone? Professor Dan McAdams says it means processing through three distinct levels of intimacy. At the first level we usually talk about ourselves or others by using traits. Words like honest, friendly, fun, smart, lazy, dull, etc. These words refer to ‘The Big Five Dimensions’ also mentioned in Gosling’s book. It is basically a system used for grouping personality traits into a framework. According to this system ‘The Big Five traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. To make it easier to understand these qualities Gosling emphasised five well-known icons each of them related to one of the traits.
Openness:
Leonardo da Vinci – creative, imaginative, abstract, curious, deep thinkers, inventive, and value arts and aesthetic experiences
Conscientiousness:
Robocop – thorough, dependable, reliable, hardworking, task focused, efficient, good planners.
Extraversion:
Axel Foley (Beverly Hills Cop) – talkative, energetic, enthusiastic, assertive, outgoing, sociable.
Agreeableness:
Fred Rogers – helpful, selfless, sympathetic, kind, forgiving, trusting, considerate, cooperative.
Neuroticism:
Woody Allen – anxious, easily ruffled or upset, worried, moody
But to get to know someone we really have to move to the next level and find out about the person’s ‘personal concerns’. This includes their roles in their social life, their goals and their values (family, harmony, social recognition, etc.)
So based on all these knowledge I will analyze Grant’s personality by looking at the pictures of his home. First of all I want to say he must be an honest person because the photos he sent me weren’t modified at all. He didn’t even tided up his bad to make a better expression. After my first look at his bedroom I immediately realised the amount of books and DVDs he has. And their variety proved me his high openness. He has books in several topics like art, architecture, jewellery, travel, graffiti and many more. He’s reading different magazines but his DVD collection was even more impressive in themes like action, comedy, animation, sport, series and movies that make you think like my favourite French movie Amelie, the Fight Club and the Big Lebowski. His favourites must be the Toy Story – he has a box set – the Mr Man Show – he has a pen case with one of the characters – old cars, especially Volkswagen Transporters – he has quite a few in his bedroom – which tells me he loves travelling and sympathise with hippies so he must love big festivals as well. He has childhood memories in his bedroom like stuffed animals, a big Lego figure and characters from the Muppet Show. He likes cartoons, which tells me he’s fun loving and doesn’t take things too seriously. He doesn’t afraid of bright colours in fact he likes them but I think he’s favourite colour is blue. There’s a pile of shoes on the top of the cupboard so he likes to dress up stylish. He has about 3 pairs of converse and a couple other streets wear shoes so he likes casual clothes, he usually wear jeans and jumpers. There is a pair of (probably) running shoes and a pair of elegant ones but they’re hardly used. I don’t think he’s very sporty but tries to stay fit. I also found extreme sport magazines about winter sports so if he’s keen on any sport it must be skiing or snowboarding. Probably he goes skiing once or twice a year just for the sake or fun and adrenaline. There’s a helmet and a high visibility vest beside the door so maybe he’s cycling as well but I haven’t seen anything else that could prove this.
The decoration of the room wasn’t too extreme, mostly little objects tell about his personality. A Dundee pillow is in the centre of the view and a Dundee sticker appears on one of his toolboxes. He likes people let know he is from Dundee, he’s proud of it and I think it’s also a reminder of his family and friends. There are quite a lot of family pictures - mainly babies, probably his wee brother - framed on the top of his bookshelf and also on his wall. They also function as social snacks for him to don’t feel too isolated from his family. Because this room is his ‘office’ as well as his bedroom I would judge by the photos that his extroverted especially when I look downer on his bookshelf and realise the amount of alcohol bottles he has. There’s a bottle of good quality whiskey which could be there for relaxation purposes but the rest of them – Jack Daniel’s, Vodka, Strongbow – are more like party drinks. I don’t think he spends a lot of time at home, he likes to go out and be with friends.
He has a huge Lara Croft poster on his wall, opposite of the bed which I wouldn’t thing relates to his favourite movie he just admires her body, which is fair enough. There’s a sunrise picture on the wall, which could mean a little bit of neuroticism, but I think is there because of the beauty of the picture. Above the bed there’s a big yellow poster probably from one of the winter sport magazines, it sais: “In snow we trust”. Because I found him an honest person I think it’s not there to make him look adventurous but he must be really into skiing or snowboarding.
He has a lot of electronics: 3 headphones (one of them very colourful – probably to wear it outside), a computer with many accessories, 2 stylish cameras and an iPod. I think he’s really into music and a little bit into photography as well which also speaks about his openness. He has a computer area and a desk for his art work where I found a little Eiffel Tower object, also relates to travelling. There’s also a note for himself probably to remind him to a deadline so he tries to be more conscientious and he’s maybe a little bit anxious as well after all. The two calendars in the room could mean that he’s conscientious but I think they came for free with magazines. His room is tidy enough for a boy, he tries to organise things – toolboxes, bookshelf –but he’s not the best in it. At the first look his room seemed much messier than it really is which could be the consequence of the size of the room. It was quite dusty as well so I would say he isn’t high on conscientious he’s more self-motivated and do what he does because he likes to do it. Most of the things in his room more functional than nice: cardboard boxes from the supermarket to keep stuff in it, broken chair at the computer table, and table lamp without lampshade. He has a couple of stylish object though like a Coca Cola bin, a Coke bottle with Robert Burns’ face on it, a colourful plastic sward, the Lego figure and the monkey from the Pg tips tea advert.
He’s bathroom was very clean though. He has deos and perfumes in the bedroom; Listerine, hand cream and good quality shampoos in the bathroom. There’re three toothbrushes beside the sink and two of them are very well used, just left in the glass for no reason so he’s definitely not a tidy person. His self hygiene must be much better than the estate of his bedroom – although the fake flower was a nice try to make it look fresher - so I think he tries to look cleaner and tidier for the outside world than he really is. I think his most important values are family, friends, home, travelling, being stylish and having lots of fun.
The two traits that easier to find out from bedrooms are openness and conscientiousness but this room functions as his office as well so extraversion could be find out as well. I think Grant is very high on openness, lower than normal on conscientiousness and higher than normal on extraversion. I don’t think he’s neurotic and his agreeableness is probably normal.
I just met with Grant in person and he was surprised how accurate I was about a lot of things about him. I didn’t get anything totally wrong so it worth the time I spent on analyzing him. I was right about his traits, his favourite colour, about his strong connection to Dundee, his family and his friends, about his values, his enthusiasm for music and turned out that the objects I was ignoring didn’t mean too much to him either. I found out some more details though about his stuff. He is very proud to be Dundonian but he didn’t even remember the sticker on his toolbox. The Dundee pillow is the same age as him such as the teddy bear beside his bed. He uses alcohol for leisure purposes and for go to parties as well. He loves going out and doesn’t spend too much time at home. I wouldn’t think he invites people to his flat but he said he does. He also agreed that when he goes out he wears some kind of a mask (like to be clean and tidy, smell good) but his bedroom is his private space so he can keep it messy and dusty. He leaves things for last minute so the message on his desk told the truth.
About the sport stuff he agreed he tries to keep himself fit but not very successfully. He does snowboarding but he hasn’t been for two years because of an injury but when he did go he went abroad and with friends so the fun part was right too. About the helmet and the high visibility vest he said he’s planning to start cycling and live healthier but he hasn’t started yet.
There were a couple of things I wasn’t sure about and they turned out to be meaningless or too personal to get them right. The Lego figure is a torch – practicality again – which was a present from his parents. The plastic sword was from a college and he just kept it. The Coca Cola bin was from his mum and he use it because it’s practical and he kept the Coke bottle because Robert Burns is on it – Scottish link again. Lara Croft came with the flat but he feels the room needs it for some reason. A relative as an inspiration gave the fake flower to him because he’s designing a booklet for her wedding. So he wasn’t trying to make the room look fresh. The picture of the sunrise is of the Tay Bridge what he really loves – the best thing in Dundee as he said – taken by his ex-girlfriend. One of the three toothbrushes is his friend’s who stays over quite often and he’s using the other two. He finds it hard to bin toothbrushes though, he’s using them a lot and take one with him when he stays at friends’ house.
Grant’s analysis about me was quite right as well. I do love nature, outdoor and plants and I do care about the environment. He realised that we have two sleeping bags and two metal cups so he assumed I have a close relationship with the person I live with. This is very true, we do everything together with my boyfriend and we find it hard to be separated. Which sometimes keeps me back doing things, like go for a student exchange for example. Even when he’s away for a week I feel so bad about it. Although a week is totally manageable but I couldn’t live without him for more than a month. I do try to live and eat healthy and I enjoy cooking as well. The presence of alcohol and tea is quite confusing though. I’m a very calm person and enjoy relaxing with a cup of tea or a little whisky but I also enjoy going out. I think I’m social but I wouldn’t say our flat is a party place, it’s more for relaxing. We do invite friends around but because we live quite far from the city centre they don’t come very often. Mentioning the decoration on the walls made me think because that’s totally true that I love fashion and more the arty part of it but why it’s all about me. There’s only one architectural picture on the wall – my boyfriend’s interest – and I don’t know because I like to control everything or he just doesn’t really care. Well, he usually agrees with my taste and I’m more interested in decoration but I think I’m pretty control freak as well. I try to work on it though. It is true for our relationship that I’m the more neurotic, more hyper person and my boyfriend calms me down. About the books we’ve got Grant thought I’m a knowledgeable person but I definitely wouldn’t say that. I’m interested in so many things, I’m open-minded but my memory doesn’t work quite well so I take books and movies as an experience and than usually forget about them. Of course they are built into my personality but I can’t remember actors, writers, bands or titles I can remember only for visuals. This is one reason why we bought that huge map because I’m really bad at geography but if I can see countries on the map I might be able to remember them. It works so far. But the other reason – that Grant was right about – was because I’m interested in travelling a lot although I haven’t had the chance yet. That’s one of my biggest dreams to visit as many places as possible maybe even live in a couple of them. I just have to reduce the amount of rubbish I collected so I can move easier anywhere I want to. Grant haven’t realised that I collect junk so I hided them successfully – under the bed for example. It is important for me to live in a tidy and clean place but I’m not obsessive about it. It’s just about the good chi of the place what I have to keep up also with candles and innocence sticks otherwise I just go mad. So maybe I’m neurotic after all.
I found this assignment very interesting and I think that’s probably the best way to find out other people’s personality to analyze their stuff. Of course they have to agree with the process. But if you ask someone to provide information about him/herself this person will give me the information what he/she thinks is important. More I get more I can find out so I can be more accurate. I don’t think many people mind providing personal information because their curiosity is stronger then their fears.
30.1.11
Lecture 21/01/2011
Today’s lecture was on two main subjects. First of all about taste and than about how a piece of art or design becomes famous. I’ll try to answer a couple of questions about taste first.
Where your opinion comes from?
Have you ever told someone what he or she should like or do?
Is good taste genetic?
Do people or your environment influence your taste?
Do you think you have good taste?
My opinion comes from my mind of course, based on my experiences so it doesn’t mean they can’t be changed in a couple minutes. If I have an argument with someone on a topic I try to stay open and listen to the other people. I don’t think I have any opinion which can’t be changed if I speak about it with an intelligent person and I find his or her argument stronger than mine. In that case I feel I learnt something new. So my opinion comes from my experiences, they aren’t fixed but in certain subjects they are very strong.
I really don’t know if good taste is genetic or not. I think it can be but definitely depends on the environment around us as well. I would say our parents have a huge impact on our taste because they decide what we wear, what we eat and what we think when we are children. Of course it can be changed later on by other people around us. For example my sister and I have very different tastes. I don’t really know why, maybe because we look very differently as well, total opposites, like fire and water. Perhaps we got our different looks from different relatives and our taste coming from the same route. I also feel she always followed other people’s taste and opinion much more than I did. We used to hang out with the same groups and she picked up the group’s style very quickly. Maybe because she likes to concentrate more on one thing at the time, for example I never had a typical girl friend relationship with anyone, when they do everything together and I never settled down with any groups either. I just don’t feel it is necessary to be a part of a group or have someone beside me who agrees with me about everything. That would be boring for me but she needs a strong background as a support. She also cares more about what people think about her. I criticise her look quite often because I know her history and as an older sister I feel I have the right to do so. I wouldn’t criticise other people’s taste though. I just don’t feel that’s any of my business. I believe in freedom in fashion, there’re only two things what disturb me but I can always look away. First if it’s improper like doesn’t cover what it should cover and when it obviously has no personality behind it like if a group of people look almost exactly the same. The last one what I usually criticise about my sister because she’s too suggestible and she pick up too many trends and behaviours from her environment. The funniest thing was when they bought exactly the same coat with her girl friend without even seen each other’s or talked about it.
So I think environment definitely has an impact on people’s taste but it depends on the person how much. I found something interesting about the roots of our taste. I think we start to care about fashion and clothes during high school and that background gives a basic judgment for us. In my high school almost all of us wore boots, jeans and baggy/knitted jumpers. We went for kind of an alternative rocker look. We had no uniforms like here which gave us total freedom but one way we were still very similar. Not all of us of course. You always find people in a group who come from totally different background and look quite different too. Here girls wearing uniform so they have to find their way to alter that look into something else. They wear accessories and (if it’s allowed) very short skirts so they can look wilder and I think that’s what teenagers want to achieve. The two founds are very different so do the outcome a couple years later. We all pick up things from our environment later on as we join to different groups based on our hobbies or interests, different universities and get know many new people. But the found base stays the same. I think our ‘final’ taste depends on how open minded we are. If I’m interested for example in tribal cultures, sports and arts I will pick up different bits and bobs from the different interests so my taste getting more and more complex and interesting. But if I would spend my life at the same workspace after I finished high school hang out with the same group of people at the same pub or watch TV and be a couch potato my taste would be dull. Travelling, reading and being interested in the world makes our taste more sophisticated.
I do think I have a good taste but who doesn’t? If I wouldn’t be happy with my taste I would change it. Well we all change it as time fly by because we follow new fashion trends even if we don’t know about it. It’s like when someone having a chocolate beside me I will suddenly feel that I need one too, maybe not the same type though. We all pick up new trends and adjust them into our personality. But how we decide what to buy during a shopping trip? For me choose the right clothes has two main assumptions. If I go shopping because I need a pair of jeans I will buy the cheapest one at TkMax (so I don’t have to bin it after a couple month because it torn) that fits all right and kind of match with my taste. But if I am not looking for anything in particular just having fun looking around I buy clothes what ‘speak to me’. I have to feel something strong about it, an excitement. It could come from the pattern, the colour or just from my memories but has to be something special about it. This is why I felt really depressed this Christmas when I went home and the airlines managed to lose my bag (they still haven’t found it). I feel they stole a part of my personality, a part of my life. It was full with my favourite jewelleries (lot of them handmade) and my favourite clothes. I just realised how much they meant to me. They can’t pay me enough money to make me feel pleased. I can’t buy them again they were like a collection for me. They weren’t expensive but I had an emotional link to them they were a part of my identity.
The other subject was about who and how decides if art or design piece is good or not? Why certain works get famous and others don’t even if they are better than the well known ones? Where the values of a piece of art come from? We talked about Andy Warhol’s screen prints which worth a lot but you can’t be sure if he made them or not. A huge group of people worked in his studio, it was almost like a factor. But because he’s work was very unique in that time and he was kind of a weirdo -which was a good thing in the 70’ s- 80’s in new York- so it helped him become known and famous. Being innovative and unique is always a good thing but on the other side he killed the spiritual part of art and made it into a production line. For me he was more like a genius businessman with a good taste than an artist.
There’s another thing can make you famous very quickly if someone influential buys your piece, the Queen for example. Certain people have a huge effect on public taste, whether if it’s a gallery owner, an art critic, a powerful people, or a film/pop star. I think we can’t really change it. But nowadays we have tools like blogging that makes it easier to spread our work and show it to the client directly without these certain people’s judgement. I think craft markets have a similar function but they usually appear in bigger cities. They just have a special atmosphere what I don’t think blogs can replace but unfortunately markets have no future because of shopping centres but blogs do. Although in bigger cities market type of places can exist like the art squat Tacheles in Berlin but governments don’t seem to be happy about them. They try to close the building in Berlin, which would give no chance to the artists to sell their art. So keep blogging and if you are interested in the Tacheles here’s a little information about it.
http://www.bushtrash.de/bilder/tacheles/tacheles.htm
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,584324,00.html
13.12.10
Assignment 4
My original subject was connectors in design and after we done a brainstorming session about it and I made a mind map to discover it even further I started to focus on interactive customer research. I didn’t find articles which directly relate to my subject but I found two interesting ones. The first one by Debra Gimlin, it is based on field research in a hair salon and explores the stylists work as connectors between current beauty ideals and clients. They are the representatives of beauty industries and they are in the front line of dissemination of cultural ideals.
Gimlin spent more than 200 hours during a year period at Pamela’s Place in Long Island, New York. She chose this beauty salon because she found it unremarkable compared to an upscale salon in Manhattan, where a hairdresser would be an artist and compare to Harlem where they would be equals with their clients. In this case they are service workers so they need to construct professional identities to nullify status differences between them and their clients. The main purpose of this article is to explore their ways to create these identities and find out if it is successful or not.
They want to feel equal because their lower social status limits their influence on the customers and as they see themselves as naturally gifted people who always knew that they going to be hairdressers it is a very important thing for them. They don’t see their job as a job but as a lifestyle as they are talented and committed to beauty culture and hairstyling. They have three main ways to construct their professional identities. In their world hierarchy based on appearance so their look has to be fashionable, they wear makeup and of course their hair has to be perfect too. The next thing is being experts in style, contemporary fads and attractiveness put them above their clients in the hierarchy of beauty culture. The last and most important thing is called emotion work. They listen to their clients and remember their stories to make them feel important and pampered. A faithful client is essential for a hairdresser because they will follow them when they move to another salon. It also makes them feel as friends of their customers so it makes them equal.
On the other side there are the clients. In this case they are white women because of the location of the salon. Their age are between 21 and 61, work in professional occupations, most of them married with at least one child, mainly coming from the middle class. For them hair displays feminity and an indicator of social class. But in their case it isn’t influenced by fashion standards but the environment they live in. It could be their husband, who doesn’t like short hair even if it’s trendy or they have small kids and it doesn’t allow them to spend too much time with their hair or a male-dominated occupation they work for so they have to look serious. They have different views about the perfect hairstyle but their opinion is very similar. It seems like they all want natural-looking hair, which indicates middle class lifestyle as a consequence of healthy living. It has to be feminine, simple, classy and about shoulder length which makes them look professional rather than fashionable or tacky. They connect longer hair with youth and overt sexuality so that would be very inappropriate for an over 40 woman. They don’t like unnatural colours or too dramatic style. If their hairstyle isn’t who they are, for example too dramatic, it means that it associates them with a group of people they don’t want to be identified with.
So the salon is the place where the negotiation starts between stylists, and as we found out, their perspectives are quite different. Due to the author’s exploration customers’ opinion is always stronger for several reasons. The most important reason is coming from the emotional work what stylists do for their clients during the 3 or 4 hours what they spend there every month to achieve natural looking hair. Emotional work makes hairdressers feel that they are friends of their customers and equal with them but it’s based on a one way communication. Clients share personal information with their hairdressers but it seldom happens on the other way. It is part of the service what they sell rather than a friendship. It also makes stylist more concerned to satisfy their customers so they have to put their personal opinion and wishes above their own interests. They also depend on their clients’ money so their claims to professional identities remain unsuccessful.
This article was objective and because it based on field research the information must be reliable. For me the article’s argument about social statuses doesn’t matter that much but hairdressers are the best example for connectors in the beauty industry. It comes through from the article that the personal relationship between stylist and client is very important for both of them and although clients not always listen to their stylists they trust them and their opinion. Probably the best way to satisfy a customer is to listen to her point of view and solve the problem together. A customer’s taste or opinion on a product can be inspiring and the technical skills of a stylist or a designer can make sure the final ‘product’ is professionally made. In my opinion this conversation should exist in a boutique as well but nowadays shopping happens in malls, in a very impersonal way.
My next article written by Sharon Zukin and Jennifer Smith Maguire and it is about Consumers and Consumption. It compares the early concepts of consumption with today’s sociological studies and researches the history of globalization. The point of this study is neither to praise nor to condemn consumers, but to understand how and why people learn to consume, over time, in different ways. It views consumption as an institutional field which means to consider it as a set of interconnected economic and cultural institutions centred on the production of commodities for individual demand.
Classical theorists didn’t offer empirical demonstration of their ideas about consumption but relied on generalized, anthropological observation. Marx (1972) considered the desire to consume as a social need induced by capitalism: a “commodity fetish” and he describes these acts as animal “functions”. Veblen’s (1959) work signals a moral disapproval of “status consumption” and the preeminent role in consumption played by women. The authors support their opinion with many examples from early theorists that consumption has been viewed both amoral and gendered.
From the 1970s and early 1980s developed economies shifted from manufacturing to “postindustrial” production and consumption became more visible in both the destruction of the landscape and the conscious reshaping of the self. Benjamin’s (1999) research highlights the innovation of mass consumption, the display of piles of goods from distant regions which made novelty abundant and caused the gradual eclipse of small merchants and peddlers by well-capitalized firms. New retail stores, advertisements, popular magazines and daily newspapers tended to make the consumer a powerful role model and to surrender common sense and sobriety to individual dreams of self-enhancement. Leach’s (1993) study, unlike Veblen’s critique about “status consumption” refuses to blame consumers. It analyzes the department stores’ “strategies of enticement” by using new building materials like plate glass and electric lights. He argues these stores “democratized desire” while motivating men and women to buy. As another point of view feminist historians emphasize the ambiguity of department stores by providing a reason - shopping - for women to appear unescorted in public, they could gather or sit alone without fear of being molested by men or just leave the domestic space of the home.
Increasing capacity in mass production industries pressed companies to try any means – including advertisement – to sell their goods. Although advertisements had a big part in manipulation of consumers’ wills another important thing was the evolution of specific products. Schudson (1984) considers that the increasing availability of cigarettes in contrast with other forms of tobacco emerging pressure on the use of time during the workday; and changes in women’s public roles and social status. Mintz (1985) looks at how sugar became a key consumer good – along with alcohol and tea – in modern Britain. It would not have occurred without broad cultural changes in the use of time, women’s roles, as with cigarettes, and opportunity to use sugar in new social rituals as at teatime and during a separate course at meals called dessert. Sugar also links the two ends of the “commodity chain”: consuming regions of the northern hemisphere and producing regions of the southern hemisphere.
A group of sociologists in Britain studied the development of Sony Walkman and also Sony’s ability to learn from consumers’ behaviour. According to their model the production and consumption are not two poles of commodity chain, but continually interacting processes in a “cultural circuit”, where products both reflect and transform consumers’ behaviour. Their product design reflects to young people’s social practices of self expression, individuality and sociality.
Frank (1997) studies how men’s clothing industry succeeded in socializing consumers to the idea of emotional obsolescence during the 1960s by the growing desire for creative self-expression. Advertisements exaggerated fears of conformity, praised creativity and created the subculture model of “cool”. Clothing as well as soft drinks and cars were presented as a choice of the young, the wild and the creative. Slater (1997) links the rise of consumer culture with the modern creation of a “choosing self” which means identity shifts from a fixed set of characteristics determined by birth to a reflexive, ongoing, individual project shaped by appearance and performance. But without fixed rules the individual is constantly at risk of getting it wrong and this anxiety attend each choice which creates a modern mass crisis of identity. At this point advertising and magazines are becoming a new medium which helps coping with the dilemma of producing one’s identity. They combine advice, amusement and appeals to buy.
People who work in services and cultural industries have to deal with the pressure of creating an appropriate appearance, particularly for those in frontline service work, where they represent the image of the corporation. Their occupational success requires an appropriate “package” through various “body projects” such as dieting, working out, undergoing plastic surgery and developing a fashionable, personal style.
Another very effective way to increase sales, and even for winning elections, is consumer research. Survey questions are usually about customers’ self concepts and their preferences on different topics that have no direct connection with products. It allows developing more defined typologies of consumers than standard socioeconomic categories like age, gender and social class. Another strategy aims to determine consumers’ “relationships” with the brands they buy their loyalty to specific brands based on emotional attachments and behavioural ties.
In our time media and manufacturers created holiday shopping seasons like Christmas by structural changes, including changing conceptions of, and values associated with domesticity. Christmas gift giving is a complex process of resolving the conflicts between the family and economy. The gift transforms the abstract commodity into an expression of love and a means of maintaining kin relationships, while Christmas shopping is the process of wresting significant gifts from the impersonal world of the mall. Also receiving gifts „from Santa” allow adults to fulfil their desires for luxurious goods without feeling guilty about being acquisitive. Christmas brochures and advertising educate consumers in how to celebrate the event. In general consumer culture uses a symbolic, global language to reduce interest, especially among young people, in traditional forms of culture.
Consumers around the world aspire to an ”American” model of consumer society as a basis of their needs and desires. Global brands as Coca Cola, Heineken or Pempers sold exactly the same way worldwide. Marketing strategies try to provide uniform value to customers across the globe and form collective identities to eliminate national, cultural and ethnic differences. This is the path to globalization.
In former socialist societies like China or Eastern Europe advertisements and articles in new lifestyle magazines socialized people to be consumers even before the goods were widely available. Ideological and legal changes encouraged self-expression, allowed visible signs of luxury and comfort and shifted the goods and services from collective provision by the work unit to individual provision on the open and often unregulated market. Advertising in these countries represent goods as symbols of a country’s growth and modernization. Ethnographies in China document how the social space of McDonald’s provides young people with a gathering place, as well as with tables where they can do homework assignments. Both are welcome in a society where apartments are usually small and bedrooms are often shared.
But there’s still a conflict in consumers’ soul between shopping by necessity, as our parents have thought us, and shopping for status, as encouraged by the media. This research suggests that shopping is both an enormously controlled and a potentially creative activity, which indicates why many consumers feel strongly about it.
This article gives a very complex sociological analysis of history of consumption. It helps us to understand the different tools of manufacturers and the media to change our thinking and our social behaviour. In the last couple decades they managed to achieve their goals and get hold of an enormous power to control us. Unfortunately it’s not just about corporate profitability but about the “political project” of globalization. Consumerism had a huge effect on why America and China are the biggest economies today and also have the biggest political power. It is scary to realise how complex and powerful consumption is but if we get to know the enemy it might make it easier to fight against it. Although this review doesn’t condemn consumerism but I definitely do. I don’t think they have the right to control people’s mind and get hold of power by making a fool of us. It also has a negative effect on families, social relationships and on our planet. Unfortunately this review also made it obvious that we designers might have the power to change small things around us and maybe in our society but the biggest power is in the governments’ hand.
Finally as a comparison of the two articles I realised a similarity between hairdressers who try to create a professional identity to have more influence on their clients and manufacturers who try to do exactly the same. They created the shiny malls and adverts to give us the impression of luxury, style and comfort what made us believe that’s what we want, we can trust them and they know what good for us. The only problem is that one thing is missing, the personal contact and the conversation between two people. They tell us something what we have to accept because there’s no one to talk about it. It is similar than in the salon where hairdressers listen to their clients but in this case we have to pay to listen to their ideas and more or less, depends on our personality, we have to accept what they say.
Their services are also very comfortable for us because it is much easier to go to a shopping mall than walk around the city and find the small shops which might have exactly what we’re looking for, something personal and unique. According to this review that was the original message of consumption as well to create the “choosing self” and arouse the desire for creative self-expression. But manufacturers symbolise mass production not uniqueness. They can’t provide what they meant to. Also their prices will always be lower because of the nature of mass production: the cheap labour they use and the industrialised factories they produce their goods in. So they make use of third world people, their factories ruining our planet and they still can’t provide what they meant to. Why we still trust them?
Bibliography
Gimlin, D 1996, ‘Pamela's Place: Power and Negotiation in the Hair Salon’, Gender and Society, Vol. 10, No. 5 pp. 505-526
Zukin, S, Smith Maguire, J 2004, ‘Consumers and Consumption’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 30 pp. 173-197
24.11.10
Lecture 19/11/10
This lecture was about visual communication. We looked at war posters from different countries with different messages. It turned out that posters from Russia and Germany were more artistic while British ones were very simple and less sophisticated but more effective which is the most important thing when we talk about posters. Because British army was voluntary these posters advertised war many different ways. They used symbols to make their messages stronger and more effective. The interesting thing about symbols is that they don’t work in any context. Visual language is the same as spoken language, it isn’t universal. Symbols mean different things in different countries. One of the British war posters used a famous, powerful man to advertise war, but the face of that man wouldn’t mean anything for people in other counties.
Nowadays posters are more international I think but obviously not all of them. The message to sell a BMW can be universal but when it comes to M&S it is totally different. I remember a TV advert which was about how many things M&S did for British women, like invented ready meals. In my country it would sound hilarious. Why would you buy your food in a plastic box, put it into a microwave and eat it on your own or serve it to your family. First of all for me food has energy which comes from the fresh ingredients, from the people who made it and I wouldn’t put my food into a microwave because it ruins everything in it ( I think the last one is just me). Of course if the aim is to fill the hole it’s a perfect solution. But then why are we sleeping in a bed and not on the floor? Because that’s very uncomfortable such as fast food for our body. Of course we can’t feel it immediately but after a decade or two. There are other easy options for today’s busy housewives like get a take away, order a pizza or go to a restaurant. It’s all about time saving, isn’t it?
I used to study mass media during high school and I remember my teacher told us something about today’s adverts. She said men made up the image of the perfect female body to avenge on women because they wanted to be equal. And if you think about it I’m really not sure women’s life get any better since the suffrage. It’s totally different though. On posters and from telly we know we have to be perfect looking. I went home (Hungary) for two weeks in the summer and we went for a canoe tour for a couple days with my friends. We spent the nights beside the river tenting and I met with two countryside girls. One of them was wearing a short and she had hairy legs. I realised that I haven’t seen such a thing in the capital for ages ago. Nobody would wear a skirt or a short with hairy legs. I actually have nightmares about me going to the beach and my legs are hairy. And I know I’m not the only one. We just not allowed to do that even if it’s 35 °C which is normal in Hungary during the summer. If you go to Budapest everybody has perfect legs like on the posters. Maybe not the old ladies but everybody else. But that’s just a very basic thing. Because women on those posters are really perfect it makes you feel very bad about yourself and you will end up having plastic surgery. Well, that’s a bit extreme but definitely exits. Females spend too much time and money on their appearance and if they can’t reach their aim they feel bad about themselves.
The other thing is that we have the right to work since we are equal. So we have no time to cook and be with our family which means we have to buy ready meals, hire a cleaner and let our family fall apart. Because I think that also would be a woman’s role to keep the family together. There are families in these modern days which never sit down for a tea at the end of the day or even every week but maybe at Christmas. So thanks for M&S we can be free. But we are losing the pleasure to serve healthy food for our family, spend quality time with our kids and enjoy the peace and love surrounded by our relatives.
Assignment 3
I was trying to look at resources about interactive/visual research techniques mainly used for research customers’ taste in terms of aesthetics or design.
Ben-Amos, P 1989, ‘African Visual Arts from a Social Perspective’, African Studies Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 pp. 1-53
This article seems interesting because it concentrates on the meaning of art, the relationships between art, society and culture and how they affect each other. It contains two essays both research people’s visual preferences about sculptures. They try to find out more about the society and the culture by analyzing the answers. Although it isn’t a recent article it shows two different ways of thinking and analyzing. It could be interesting.
Zukin, S, Smith Maguire, J 2004, ‘Consumers and Consumption’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 30 pp. 173-197
This article also seems interesting but it’s more about consuming which doesn’t relate that much to my subject. It tries to understand how and why people learn to consume in the 21 century and researches the different types of shoppers. Why they become addicted to shopping and what their aims are during shopping.
Cauter, T 1952, ‘"Organization of a Statistical Department": Some Details of a Market Research Agency’, The Incorporated Statistician, Vol. 3, No. 3 pp. 37-54
This article is about the different ways of market research but it’s from the 50’s and it analyses the traditional ways of market research. I’m more interested in new ways so I keep looking.
Fine, G A 1992, ‘The Culture of Production: Aesthetic Choices and Constraints in Culinary Work’, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 5 pp. 1268-1294
The title of this article seemed interesting but it’s more about the role of workers in a management than about aesthetic choices of the customers.
Bogart, L 1957, ‘Opinion Research and Marketing’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, Anniversary Issue Devoted to Twenty Years of Public Opinion Research pp. 129-140
Another article from the 50’s but this one seems interesting enough to have a closer look at it. It’ about market and opinion research by using the tools of social sciences and other ‘new’ techniques.
Gimlin, D 1996, ‘Pamela's Place: Power and Negotiation in the Hair Salon’, Gender and Society, Vol. 10, No. 5 pp. 505-526
Although this article isn’t a recent one it looks very interesting because it’s about the personal relationship between hairdressers/stylists and their customers. It also analyses female’s idea about beauty and what has an effect on that.
Poggenpohl, Helmer, S 2002, ‘Cultivating an interest in design research’, Visible Language, vol. 36, pt. 3, pp. 246-53
This article is recent enough and analyses a topic what finally really relates to my topic. It’s about the importance of design research and the main factors which help to develop new research techniques.
A link to the tutorial of web research.
Search for makers by name, technique, material, object, etc.
Free online books.
Everything about colour and composition.
Design History research.
An interesting magazine website either for research or just be informed, inspired.
Fresh, innovative works from design graduates. Originally an annual exhibition.
Artists’ blogs and articles.
Museums:
V&A
Design collections.
Nice collections.
My favorite design site for inspiration.
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