OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Part 1

Product, Range and Distribution

Studio Brief one as a whole is about linking media and message and discovering the way that graphic design products can relate to social, political and ethical change.

Part one however starts smaller. 

Through a series of workshops, seminars and individual exploration a body of research is to be produced fully exploring a social, political or ethical issue that we feel personally connected to. 

This body of research will eventually lead onto production of a product (poster, billboard, publication, badges etc) that relates to our issue.

As a highly opinionated individual I've struggled to think of an initial subject of research that I feel genuinely passionate about, there are way too many things I feel personally connected to and things that I consider important or things I care about so beginning my research was something of a nightmare.

I have however come up with a solution- or at least a point to jump off of. I mapped out an incredibly basic mind map listing some of the subjects I feel passionate about.

From this I decided to go to TED talks and watch a talk on each subject, when it came to a broader subject such a science I would pick a talk that seemed the most intriguing or watch more than one. TED talks are something I enjoy watching in my own personal time already and I felt that they would inspire further research and also help me get a better understand of what I cared about most.

Education

For the subject of education I watched a talk by Ken Robinson called How to Escape Education's Death Valley. From this I found not only three more suggested talks on the subject I wish to view but also came up with some questions for further research.

Science

With science a topic I wanted to look into was why current scientific projects get little to no attention or funding seeing as they are the things that could better the world for the next generation. For this I watched The Danger of Science Denial with Michael Specter talking about what is so deadly with ignoring facts and going backwards rather than forwards. I feel this topic is an all encompassing one that covers so many issues with the world today from the fear of vaccinations to fear of genetically modified crops, beliefs that some people may pass off as 'just an opinion' but really they are views that are genuinely damaging to the world that we live in and the people within it.

From this I want to look further into the fear surrounding genetically modified crops and vaccinations as well as the benefits both of these scientific breakthroughs have on the world as well as the reasons why there isn't more funding put into alternative energy sources or scientific breakthroughs.