Infographic

Infographics are fun visual representation of data that students will find highly amusing. It will ease the pressure of trying to understand and analyze data as they will be presented in an artful manner that young learners can relate to. It is fun and at the same time stimulating. It is also thought-provoking where interesting discussions arise as students dissect texts and images. It is a great way to fuse graphic design and data handling.

Magazine Cover Design

Using http://www.magcover.com/, I designed a magazine cover that would cater to DIY fanatics. The publisher of this magazine is Homepage, an independent and privately held publishing companies. It is the home to some of the world's best-selling hobby and leisure magazines. The intended audience are creative housewives and husbands, single men and women who are looking for hobbies that can be lucrative, furniture makers and DIY fans. I would like my readers to take the magazine home, collect them, and regard them as a very useful manual that is worth keeping and handing down. 

The cover shows a step-by-step image of up cycling a table. It immediately appeals to DIY-ers because they can easily relate to it and get an idea from it. The font of the headline is a classic design similar to what the magazine features, classic designs. The color, earthy and natural represents wood which is one of the most beautiful and practical material to work with. The font size is perfect for the size of the picture, not too overpowering but big enough to be easily noticed. 

If I were to give two adjectives to describe this cover design it would be motivating and resourceful. The magazine is supposed to motivate people to create and not be afraid to experiment.

Representation, Stereotype and Bias

Stereotype

This magazine ad is an example of stereotype. It shows a group of women all dressed in "power suits". Our society believes that to represent a powerful, modern, working woman, she has to be dressed in a way the fashion world dictates. Clad in black and trimmed suits apparently represents her most. 

Representation

This magazine ad is an example of representation because it is trying to portray order in the midst of chaos. This ad is trying to tweak the fact that the life of a mom is glamorous instead of showing that with all the responsibilities that come with housekeeping, an inexperienced mom would find it difficult to cope. Drinking vitamin water will not change the difficulty that parenting entails.

Bias

This magazine ad is an example of bias in society. Fashion has dictated that a beautiful woman should be skinny, tall and blonde. It has become a universal point of view that a woman who has a rounded shape, a bit heavy and average in height is not considered as "beautiful" in the fashion world. Such biases brings forth insecurities, "it hurts not to be beautiful!" 

Codes in Media

The Technical Codes found in the media samples were:

MOVIES

Symbol: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" had a lot of colors and animation. The objects, like different kinds of foods were made to be very attractive and fantasy-like, bringing the audience to dreamland.

Technical Jr.:The camera zoomed in on the major food groups and main characters.

Symbol: "Series of Unfortunate Events" used a lot of shades. Dark colors like gray, black and green were used to symbolize gloomy and sad emotions and situations. A lot of visuals such as thorns, swirls and shadows were used to show confusion, pain, and fear.

Technical Jr.:The camera zoomed in and out, wiped and swiped rapidly, keeping the viewers interested and guessing what is happening next.

TV COMMERCIALS

Symbol: The Wrigley's TV commercial made use of familiar junk food that most viewers have already tried, making it easier for the ad to convince them about their negative effects.

The catch phrase "Eat, Drink, Chew Extra" has a chant-like rhythm that is easy to remember. The commercial also used a popular song "Bad Boys" changing the lyrics to "Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna chew when he comes for you". It sent a message to the viewers that eating all these junk food will cause tooth decay or bad breath therefore chewing gum was a necessity.

Technical Code Jr.:The camera zoomed in on the junk foods that were supposed to be attacking or enticing the woman that made an emphasis on the "villains". A close up on the woman chewing gum saved the day.

Symbol: The Nolan Cheese commercial was very humorous. The typical mouse trap was used to show a typical rat looking for food and getting trapped along the way. But he redeemed himself towards the end when he got stronger after eating cheese. The way strength from eating dairy was portrayed was effective.

Technical Code Jr./Written: There was a blackout in the middle of the commercial right after the rat ate the cheese to show suspense. The music "Rocky" made it exciting for the audience to watch the rat do weight lifting. The catch phrase "Seriously Strong" worked perfectly with the images.

MAGAZINE ADS

Symbols: The Wendy's hamburger showed a superimposed picture of a hamburger. Using smaller fonts and having the drink behind it made the hamburger look gigantic.

Written: The buzzwords went well with the image like "Baconator" showing tons of pieces of bacon popping out of the hamburger and "Smaller is better works only for gadgets" emphasizing the appetizing and filling size of the hamburger.

Symbols: The Farm Fresh Produce ad used a colored photo of the vegetables against a black and white background photo of the city. This effectively expressed the message that no matter how polluted or routinely life in the city can be, there is still a possibility to have something fresh and out of the ordinary.

Technical Code Jr: The use of colored and black and white photograph showed a clear contrast between fresh and shiny to drab and boring.

Media has a such strong presence in our daily life. We are actually living in a media saturated world where all the things that we see affect us emotionally, socially and intellectually. It is therefore an important skill for learners to be able to analyze and undertand how media can be both deceiving and beneficial. This skill will allow our 21st century learners become effective and critical producers and consumers of media messages.

LESSON PLAN

Objective: How are food marketers crossing the line between advertising and entertainment to engage young consumers, and why does this concern children’s consumption in daily life? To what extent are product-related games, quizzes and apps making children both recipients and tools of marketing? In the lesson below, students look at various forms of advertising, then keep logs of the ads and other branded content they encounter over the course of a week. The students will reflect on their experiences researching and how they will become different consumers.

Materials: Computers with Internet access, projector, links to examples of advertisements and commercials. (see links below)

Warm-Up: Display the following three-question quiz on the board/projector.

1. It is conservatively estimated that children influence more than $_______________ in food and beverage purchases each year in the United States.

a. 10 million

b. 50 million

c. 50 billion

d. 100 billion

2. In February, the McDonald’s sites HappyMeal.com and McWorld.com received a total of ______________ visitors, around half of whom were under 12.

a. 7,000

b. 70,000

c. 700,000

d. 7 million

3. General Mills’ Lucky Charms site, with virtual adventures starring Lucky the Leprechaun, had __________ visitors in February.

a. 27,000

b. 57,000

c. 157, 000

d. 227,000

(correct answers: 1. d; 2. c; 3. d)

Reflection: Have students answer the questions with table groups. Ask students if they find any of these numbers surprising.

Lesson and Activities:

Activity A

A. Show the movie title sequence.

Ask the question, "What were the feelings you had while watching the movie? List them all down on the board or chart paper.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

B. Show the magazine ad. Ask the same question, "What were the feelings you had while looking at the ad? List them all down on the board or chart paper. 

C. Show the Magazine ad again and play the movie at the same time. Alternately show the ad and the movie making sure that you give an ample amount of time using the music from the movie as a background music to the magazine ad.

Ask the same question again, "What were the feelings you had while watching both at the same time? List them all down on the board or a piece of paper.

D. Compare your lists and discuss the similarities and differences.

E. Show the TV commercial

Wrigley's Extra Chewing Gum

Ask the students to describe the commercial. Ask the question, "What is the message of this TV commercial? Is it effective? What are the benefits of using images and music altogether to relay a message?

F. Do steps A-E for Activity B with the following media samples.

Activity B

Movie Title Sequences:

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Magazine Ad:























TV Commercials:
Nolan Cheese Commercial

G. Compare the results of Activity A and Activity B.

H. Show the Wendy's ad again and play the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie at the same time. Ask the question: How did your feelings change about the magazine ad? List down answers on the board or chart paper and discuss the differences from the list made in Activity A.

Activity C 

Poll the class. Ask for a show of hands for each of these questions, and tally responses on the board:

• Have you ever played a game, taken a quiz or used an app related to a food, drink or other product?
• Have you ever “liked” a product on Facebook? Ask some students to share which products they have “liked” or tagged online. List them on the board.

What do you notice about the list? Have you asked your parents to buy these products? Were you already consumers of these products?

Reflection:

Look around the grocery store. How does the junk food aisle differ from the produce section?

What are some of the marketing techniques you see in the grocery stores?  Are they efficient?

What restaurants are you attracted to at a food court and why?

How do you think things are different today than they were when ads were only in print, display, radio and television?

Chip Kidd: Designing Books is No laughing Matter

I enjoyed watching this talk for two reasons. First, Chip Kidd's jokes were very witty therefore it wasn't necessary to try too hard to be funny. Second, it was like watching a book cover in action. The way he dressed and how he moved gave us an idea of what to expect to see and hear. Stories need a face and book covers do just that. It gives the book a face whose expression we can decode. Chip Kidd mentioned that "a book designer gives form to content but manages a very careful balance between the two." This is especially true when we, human beings, naturally make connections to what we see. I personally respond immediately to an image by making interpretations upon seeing it and then I read whatever text comes with it. The way we respond to different stimuli depends on the emotions it arouses. It is then very important for a book cover  to tell us a story or provoke us to discover the story. After all, we do judge a book by its cover!

I love it when he said, "a book cover is a haiku of a story". It definitely is. I believe that a book cover is like a poetry, a collection of a few, carefully selected, intense  and thought provoking words that tell a story. And even if Ipads and Kindles are very convenient to have, there is nothing like the comfort that the familiar sound of flipping pages in a quiet room gives to an avid reader. 

The book cover of the "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk presents a challenge to the mind. It provokes the readers to figure out what the page would result to if folded along the crease. It makes me think that the story would require some intellectual challenges to solve a mystery or maybe it can even be how to survive higher level Math!

The book cover of "The Mind's Eye" by oliver sacks uses an image of something very familiar, an eye test chart. It serves its purpose 100% because it fools the mind into thinking that your eyes are actually blurry by staring at it. I think this is a book explaining how our minds based from what we've experienced interprets what we see or it can also be a story about misinterpreting people or situations.

The book cover of "Exit A" by Anthony Swofford makes use of an app calles "Unblock". It is a game where one figures out how to arrange certain blocks for "THE" -usually red- block to exit. The level of difficulty increases as you advance. Considering that there's a picture of what seems to be a teenager in one corner, I think this book is a story about one boy's struggle to get through middle or high school. The blocks represents all the challenges he needed to overcome to get out of unpleasant situations.