Being a creative student, I have always been inspired by different medias of art. Despite the fact that I am doing a course in photography, it doesn't just mean that my work is influenced by photographers alone. One artist who I find particularly inspiring is Wendy Ortiz. Since I was a little girl, I have always been captivated by beautiful illustrations. Whenever my mum would read me a story, she would get tired of me stopping her from turning pages of my fairytale books, just so I could look at the illustrations for a bit longer. The work of Wendy Ortiz reminds me of some of the illustrations I used to see in my fairytale books. Ortiz creates a dark yet romantic theme throughout her work, which is also reminiscent of the Art Nouveau movement.
Most creatives these days tend to connect to their audience through social media. I follow Wendy Ortiz on Instagram and Facebook. Not only does she share her fantastic work, but she'll share who inspires her, and what helped her to become the brilliant artist she is. Her work is influenced by the artwork of Alphonse Mucha, which is very clear if you look at the details and use of patterns in her work.
I hope you enjoyed looking at the artwork of Wendy Ortiz, if you love her work just as much as I do, go and check out her website!
As part of my course we look at a lot of advertising. We look at what works and what doesn't work. As part of the course we have looked at famous adverts from the past and present. Last week we had to present an effective, and an ineffective advert and discuss why we think that each ad is effective/ineffective.
When I thought of effective campaigns, I couldn't help but think of Coca Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign. Coca Cola replaced the famous logo with Great Britain's most popular names. It shows how doing something very simple can be a great success. Everyone wanted a bottle of Coke with their name replacing the logo! (...Guilty)
Due to social media, there was a 7% increase in sales, the company earned a total of 18 million media impressions, traffic on the Coke Facebook Website increased by 870%, with page "likes" growing by 39%!
Share a Coke had its own tours around the country, so that you could place your name on a Coke bottle.
Share a Coke was a great success over the internet. Thanks to Twitter, hashtagging, Instagram and Facebook, bottles of Coke were almost everywhere.
I think the Share a Coke campaign is a great example that keeping things simple can often turn out to be incredibly successful. Even I, as a consumer bought a bottle of coke which had a friends name on it and sent a picture to him. Sad, I know, but it amused him!
For the ineffective campaign, I chose to discuss the controversial Shameless campaign by Suit Supply, which got banned. I had a lot to say about this photograph. Photographically speaking the shot is well lit, but that's possibly the only positive thing I have to say about this photograph. The Shameless campaign had posters all over stores, they were taken down as many people were offended, and children could easily see the photographs. When I look at this campaign, it says to me "If you wear one of our suits, you can dominate and degrade women!" this is in no way a positive message to give to the public, especially to young children. While researching the story behind the ban of these ads, I discovered that the photographer, Carli Hermes stated that the shots were "Carefully designed and artistic."
As a woman, I struggle to see the artistic side of this campaign. I understand that sex sells in today's society, it always has done. But sugarcoating dominating women for a campaign is not acceptable.
As part of my research, I asked both men and women how they felt about this advert:
Male no.1: "Honestly, I think it's weird, crude, sexist and ineffective. And I'm not a conservative guy, but if that was on massive boards around the place, I'd consider complaining."
Female no.1 "I cannot see anything good about that picture. All I see is a man dressed in a suit who thinks he has some entitlement to do what the hell he likes with a woman."
Male no.2 "That's a bit naughty/degrading?"
Female no.2 "It looks like a man in a suit who looks as though he has a pick in women. Even the way hes looking at the piece of clothing the women is wearing to see if she lives up to his standard."
I thought I should show an ad which was also effective and ineffective. This is the "Clean your balls" campaign which was aired in Australia. I would have shown the Clean your balls campaign when I was doing my presentation, but it was too long. This advert is effective because it's humorous, shocking and memorable. Although it's ineffective because it's a bit too much on the naughty side and caused controversy down under (no pun intended).
This advert made a lot of people laugh, yet not everybody has the same sense of humour. This advert got banned for being sexist, racist and ageist.
My name is Amelia, I'm currently in my second year of University studying Photography for Fashion & Advertising. Here you'll find my work, my thoughts and some "behind the scenes" to show you how I pull my photo shoots together.
Photography has been a big passion of mine since the age of fifteen. Throughout my school years, I had always experimented with art but never found a media that I had excelled in. I was quite talented at sketching, reasonably okay at painting, but I was never quite there. That was until I discovered photography. It wasn't long until I discovered that I had an interest in fashion photography, I used to buy copies of ELLE and Vogue and stare in wonder at the beautiful photographs before me. Being the weird, arty, slightly gothic quiet girl in school, I kept my interest for fashion photography private. I thought you had to be one of the popular girls to have the slightest interest in fashion. Everyone knew photography was my hobby, but no one knew I had an interest in fashion. Shortly I had decided that I wanted to make a career out of photography.
After I had completed my GCSEs, I waved goodbye to my horrible school, and I started a new course in college. My years spent in college were the years I had finally come out of my shell! I experimented with photograms, film, and digital photography. I have some of my best memories in college, I truly miss it at times. It was that push I needed that I didn't get from school. I also got some great experience with photography through college, and outside of college.
When I graduated college I took a gap year. I wasn't so sure if University was the right choice for me, and I didn't want to start a new chapter of my life if I wasn't 100% sure if it was the right choice. Throughout my gap year I assisted photographers, experimented with my personal projects, attended photography workshops, worked to save up money for new equipment, but also had fun at the same time. By the time February rolled around, I had made the decision that I definitely wanted to go to University. I was fed up of being stuck in a small town, not pursuing the career that I had dreamed of for so long.
By September 2012, I had started a new chapter of my life. I can safely say that it was absolutely the right choice!
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