Year: 2019

The article “The Underground Mainstream” by Steven Heller talks about how there are two sides one with mainstream and the underground. Mainstream mostly talks about advertisement but to do so the design need to top notch. However, with term underground to mean I believe is just working on a low profile but still doing a lot of design work. Even though they’re both different from each other it is relevant to contemporary design. For example for mainstream it stats in the article “Their collective goal was to raise the level of both manufacture and design while changing timeworn habits and antiquated expectations, yet their ideas became established.” When it comes to contemporary it is the style that doesn’t fell outdated so the quote theories that with mainstream it focus on change but keep the idea similar. Underground is kind of similar maybe because they do work but have their own goal to change mainstream or help. However, it does related to the design because each one wants to change but help still fell that the style isn’t outdated. With the idea of mainstream and underground I believe that my final project that talks about Disney Animation, well it have to be mainstream. The reason for that one of the articles it states “ Watching the old Disney shorts made me think about what people must have been going through during WWII.” Showing that back then their showing what’s going on in the world with the animation. Showing the pubic by using characters and story that goes on in the war. How it follows in the idea of underground idea maybe it was related to what goes on. For example, in the other article it say’s “ TOMY International announces the retail arrival of its line of toys inspired by the highly anticipated Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film Zootopia.” From what I read I think this influence from movies that help others created new ideas or figure. Another influence that was similar is in the article where it say’s “… The Incredibles. With this incredible new line of accessories, kids can protect and customize their Game Boy Advance SP handheld gaming system, game cartridges, or other gadgets.” Another influence by a movie, which changes the view of a company and creates something that was recently created. Maybe this has to do with how the article talks about the idea of underground but with mainstream I think it follows the meaning.

CITATION

“Mad Catz Reveals Superhero Accessories for Game Boy Advance SP, Inspired by the Walt Disney Pictures Presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios Film, The Incredibles.” Business Wire, 10 Nov. 2004. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A124428121/ITOF?u=cuny_nytc&sid=ITOF&xid=e3c662dc. Accessed 20 Nov. 2019.

 

“TOMY Unleashes Full Line Of Toys Inspired By Walt Disney Animation Studios’ ‘Zootopia’.” PR Newswire 12 Feb. 2016. Business Insights: Global. Web. 20 Nov. 2019.

 

Wolf, Jessica. “Disney War-Themed Shorts Provide a Link to the Past.” Video Store Magazine, vol. 26, no. 21, May 2004, p. 14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=13204838&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

 

The mainstream vs. underground concept is relevant in contemporary design. Heller indicates that the mainstream is a progressive entity due to changes underground culture established by some designers in outsiders (Heller 101). In this way, the contemporary society tweaks the underground culture with the trending issues, and slowly the mainstream becomes the trend itself. Most of the culture is adopting commercial advertisement design.

The design of commercial advertising such as Ketchup uses both visual, linguistic signs and coded iconic message to promote its products. In this way, it fits in the mainstream as the underground captures the consumers by engaging them to their values in the market (Kumar et al. 301). Hence, the underground realm of outsiders who focuses on the design comes out with their own way of creating an advertisement or poster that might either criticize or promote a product (Screti 8). Therefore, the punk and grunge movement unhinges the dominant mannerism and methods used in the mass culture to embrace almost everything.

The underground design that influences the work at hand is leeching off the alternative of culture. The reason is that the underground has been appropriated from the mainstream. In contemporary society, it is termed as “culture jamming,” but in the past decades, it was known as “avant-gardists” (Heller 100). It will shape the mainstream through the fundamental forms associated with advertising the commercials through engaging the art into the advertising aspect. It occurs that not only was the futuristic and constructive art masterwork designed due to cultural change and trending events but involved advertising about new ideas (Clements 27). Hence, in shaping the mainstream, the promotion of commercial advertisement of products expands further to the visual language of an edge through social media as an adopted mainstream of advertising.

 

Works Cited

Clements, Paul. The Creative Underground: Art, Politics and Everyday Life. Routledge, 2016.

Heller, S. “The Underground Mainstream.” Armstrong, H.(Comp.), Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the field (2008): 98-101.

Kumar, V., et al. “Undervalued or overvalued customers: capturing total customer engagement value.” Journal of service research13.3 (2010): 297-310. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247744906_Undervalued_or_Overvalued_Customers_Capturing_Total_Customer_Engagement_Value/link/55a0ff1908ae967fb3ea8758/download

Screti, Francesco. “Counter-revolutionary art: OBEY and the manufacturing of dissent.” Critical Discourse Studies 14.4 (2017): 1-23. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/35065119/Counter-revolutionary_art_OBEY_and_the_manufacturing_of_dissent?auto=download

 

OCT 28TH:

Humans and technology are thought to have a symbiotic relationship with each other. Technology and media are meant to help humans do things that they cannot normally do. The media is meant to deliver a message to the people using technology that can spread the same message across the world. If you are sending a letter, the letter is just a piece of paper, but what is written is an extension of your personality. If you are writing a book, the book is just a collection of paper put together, but it is your voice that is found throughout the book. However, not everything that we create will benefit us in the long term.

Technology and media work for us, but one day it may be possible that it will replace us in describing the messages we want to convey without us. Since technology does what we cannot do as well as a machine or at all, we use it as a form of progress. Despite this, technology does not some developing after we have enough help from them. It is meant to solve one question, “How do we make the task more efficient?” . After a while, the only way for technology to keep solving that question is to do the task entirely on its own. We can see this today with the developments of self checkout in places like grocery stores that aim to make the user experience quicker and easier, but they take jobs away from regular cashiers who cannot keep up. Another example may be the advanced testing of drones that aim to eventually replace mailmen and women in bringing your mail to your door.

Overall, the development of electric age technology has more of a negative impact in my opinion because of the long term effects of developing machines as smart as we are. As people, and even more so as designers, technology should be something that we tell what to do. As media is an extension of our voice, technology should not do anything to change that.

NOV 4TH:

Here we see a target ad that seems to be a sale for back to school products. We see four children, and we can see that two of them are white. This ad is trying to convey that it does not matter who you are, there are back to school stuff for all kids alike. (https://frequent-ads.com/target/target-weekly-ad-L9OtbIrojN-0)

Here we see an old navy add that is very similar to the target ad. We have a group of four people collecting gifts for black friday. What makes this one somewhat controversial is the use of pairing black and white people as couples.Especially since it seems the couple, or seemingly close friends, on the right are still teenagers. (https://9to5toys.com/2018/11/05/old-navy-black-friday-ad-50-off-sitewide-cardholder-benefits-1-socks-more/)

Our last ad is a billboard created by verizon to advertise their brand. We see a large group of diverse workers of many races of both men and women, working together to help bring you quality cell phone experience. If that is actually true is another story entirely, but for the purposes of the ad, it has shown that you can rely on all of these people to have a strong network. (https://flic.kr/p/5iHYmU)

HM site Integrated nonintimate and Integrated intimate 
Versace ad controversial 
Valentino ad 
Jonnie Walker ad some models appear to be ethnic but it’s hard to tell, also placed in back of ad