Designer's Responsibility

I found this speech by Kalle Lasn where he talks about the responsibility of designer's and where we as designer's 'fit in.' Lasn speaks about how designers are in a powerful position as people that set trends and fashions, creators of messages and 'cool-makers' used to deliver a message However Lasn goes on to describe how deisgners today may be facing an identity crisis, and questions whether designer's have become 'corporate slaves.'  

Adbusters

Adbuster's is a activist magazine which is at the forefront of supporting and networking culture jamming, it is widely recognisable for it's creative parodies and subvertisments. Founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz the non-profit, advertising free, magazine has been published since 1989. The magazine features juxtapositions of images and text to present thought provoking imagery and messages, however it has been criticised for looking too commercial and having style over substance. 

The Adbusters media foundation describes the magazine as:

'Ultimately Adbusters is an ecological magazine, dedicated to examining the relationship between human beings and their physical and mental environment. We want a world in which the economy and ecology resonate in balance. We try to coax people from spectator to participant in this quest. We want folks to get mad about corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy, and any industry that pollutes our physical or mental commons.' (https://www.adbusters.org/about/adbusters)

Previews of the issues of the magazines are available online like the one below: 

'Uncooling' Joe Camel

(http://www.joechemo.org/about.html)

Joe Camel, the fictional character of Camel cigarettes, had become a recognisable icon of the smoking brand. Presented in advertisements as being smooth, successful and popular Joe Camel was used to make smoking appear 'cool' and appealing. In 1996 Adbusters used a subverted image of Joe Camel to Joe Chemo, the previously fun-loving cigarette character was now facing the realities caused by smoking.   

'Joe Chemo was developed as an antismoking character by Scott Plous, a Wesleyan University psychology professor, after his father nearly died from smoking. The idea was to present a more honest image of smoking than the Joe Camel character used by R. J. Reynolds.' 

After being published in an edition of Adbusters the image of Joe Chemo appeared in many media outlets including television, in the press and on billboards. Joe Chemo became a well known symbol of anti-smoking. Advertisements which used Joe Camel were stopped in 1997 due to targeting or appealing to the under 18's market, whilst Joe Chemo was being distributed as posters around schools. The impact and attention which the Joe Chemo campaign had makes me think about whether this is a good example of culture jamming succeeding and consequently 'uncooling' a brand.  

(note: could use semiotics to compare the advert and subvertisments response, researching Saussure, Barthes, Baudrillard.) 

Key Terminology

Whilst researching my topic I have came across key terms which are important for me to understand and be able to use:

• Détournement - Refers to 'turning around' and applies to reversing or subverting an images meaning. 

• Dérive - 'Literally "the drift," the dérive was an idea borrowed from the Dadaists. The Situationists defined it as "locomotion without a goal." (Lasn, P102, 2000)
• Meme - These are the core images and slogans of a corporation which a jammer uses to manipulate e.g jammers use the Nike's recognisable swoosh logo  

• Situationist - Refers to the French 1960's, avante-garde movement which critiqued capitalism. Relates to the theory or practical activity of constructing situations.

• Transgression - an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offence.

• Postmodern Culture - Nothing is original, everything is consumed

• Commodify - to treat (something that cannot be owned or that everyone has a right to) like a product that can be bought and sold; to turn (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity

• Subversion - the act of trying to destroy or damage an established system or government

• Counterculture - a culture with values and customs are very different from and usually opposed to those accepted by most of society; is a subculture

• Propaganda - ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
• Homogeneous -  composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind
• Hyperreality - generally defined as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction merge together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins - simulated versions of reality

The Billboard Liberation Front

I found this small section interesting, on the Billboard Liberation Front manifesto, it reminded me of how advertising can invade our private or personal spaces, ads are used in places we wouldn't necessary expect to see advertising - so they are forced upon us. I think the idea of advertising in personal spaces is something which I want to explore further.

Culture jammers use various different media to subvert and expose advertisements, however at the forefront of altering billboard advertisements is the Billboard Liberation Front. (BLF) The group was formed in San Francisco in the late 1970's and was a reaction against media intruding public spaces. 'Advertising suffuses all corners of our waking lives; it so permeates our consciousness that even our dreams are often indistinguishable from a rapid succession of TV commercials.'

(www.billboardliberation.com/ArtAndScience-BLF.pdf)

I found the article 'Altered States' relevant it focuses on the BLF and outdoor advertising. (Warren Berger, Advertising Age's Creativity. Jun 2000, Vol. 8 Issue 5, p51) An interesting point the article makes is that advertisiers can be highly influenced by the appearance of cultured jammed advertisements.  

'Culture jammers like Napier "have had a big influence on the look and tone of advertising in recent years," says Annie Finnegan, a creative director at Arnold Communications who has lectured on guerrilla advertising at Creative Circus. As Finnegan and other observers point out, a growingnumber of ads have become highly adept at co-opting and imitating culture jammed ads -- such that it has become increasingly difficult to tell whether the graffiti on billboards is authentic or whether it has been inserted there by advertisers. Examples have included the Captain Morgan rum ads, in which the advertiser has crossed out headlines and scribbled all over the pretty pictures, as well as a recent Amstel Light campaign featuring posters that seemed to have been written by a crazed anarchist urging the public to avoid Amstel "at all costs," and warning of "impending doom."