OUGD401 - Sign Up Tutorial [2]

I signed up for a tutorial with Richard Miles, head of contextual studies, in order to asses my progress so far and discuss what I need to do in order to progress with my essay. I explained to him my concept and showed him my initial annotations before discussing elements I could include and emphasise. He liked the concept and felt it would make a good essay,  He reinforced that I should define propaganda and the techniques used which I could then later directly apply to my analysis in order to apply a host of contextual theories. He agreed with the points I made in my initial analysis and agreed that I should keep to two images as this would create a detailed and though analysis. 

He then asked how I would make this contemporary in terms of the accompanying physical body of graphic design. I explained my a vague concept that I have of using the obvious racism present in the American propaganda and updating this creating contemporary propaganda highlighting the anti-islamic narrative that is conveyed to the public by corporate news such as 'Fox'. He thought this was an interesting concept that could work well, I explained I would look at keeping a similar style of image using blood imagery and block colours, looking into the use of screen printing as this would give a more authentic finish. 

I feel this tutorial helped to motivate me to start producing my essay as I now have a good basis to start from. I felt Richard was positive towards my concept which is encouraging as I feel this will result in a good quality outcome both of my essay and physical body of graphic design. 

OUGD401 - Propaganda Analysis

Having chosen a range of sources from the library I then started to look for interesting examples of propaganda that I could use to analyse within my essay. I found Propaganda, The art of persuasion: World War II by Anthony Rhodes the most appropriate source. As the main focus of my essay is the use of American and Japanese propaganda I decided to choose 1 form of each. I chose to only use one source of each to ensure my analysis is detailed and though, Due to the word count being 3000 words I felt multiple examples of propaganda would lead to a vague and generic analysis. 

As well as looking through a range of physical books I also looked online for the most effective uses of propaganda within World War II, I then looked across both formats to see if any images were common within both. I found that the 'Rise of Asia' poster was used within a range of online sources and books I chose this image as it contains key iconography that will form interesting findings when analysed. For the American propaganda I found a range of posters but felt the most interesting was the 'This is the enemy' poster I felt from initial observations there were a range of interesting similarities and differences between the two which could make for a good conclusion and evaluation of how graphic design was used within this time period. 

I printed the images side by side and made some quick initial analysis points in preparation for my tutorial, I would then discuss these points in further detail with a tutor in order to gain feedback as to whether they think my research is reading in the right direction in order to create a good quality essay. 

OUGD401 - Gathering Research Material

To mark the start of my research process I went to the library in order to find suitable sources to use for my research, these would make up a range of my Harvard references included within my essay.

Source 1 - Rhodes, A (1987). Propaganda, the art of persuasion: World War II. Hong Kong: Chelsea House Publishers . p137-177, p241-283.

Source 2 - Husband T. (2014). Propaganda: Truth and Lies in Wartime. United Kingdom: Arcturus Publishing Ltd. 

Source 3 - Aulich J. (2011). War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication. United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson Ltd. 

I felt this was enough to give me some initial in depth reading in to the topic I Later plan to ask tutors for other relevant sources as well as gathering a range of online sources that provide useful information. 

OUGD401 - Harvard Referencing

As part of a CoP workshop I was given further tuition as to how to successfully harvard defence in a range of situations. I was asked to correctly reference the given book in each of the following circumstances. 

• Within the bibliography 
• In the text (when the author is mentioned) 
• In the text (when the author is not mentioned) 

1. Hollis, R (2006) Swiss Graphic Design; the Origins and Growth of an International Style, New Haven Connecticut: Yale University Press 

2. (2006, P.102)

3. (Hollis, 2006, P.102) 

Following this task we asked a range of questions and found that as an average we should include between 6 and 10 examples of Harvard Referencing within our Essay's. 

OUGD401 - Essay Structure/Plan

I took part in a session in which we were given useful advice on how to structure my essay, This helped me with understanding a well device strategy however I feel I am fairly confident at essay writing with an A-level background of studying English Language, I will use these skills to hopefully personalise my essay and tailor it directly to my topic. 

During the second part of the session I was tasked to plan a sample essay structure and plan, It did not require vast details as we were still fairly new to researching our chosen concepts but should include a brief idea of how I was planning to structure my essay. 

Introduction; State the question,  specify a specific research focus, time period, identify why the question is important and state my hypothesis. Within this I plan to set a specific time period, talk about World War II in a fairly general context before narrowing it down to graphic design, specifically the use of propaganda. 

Defining propaganda; Define propaganda as a relevant part of graphic design and state how it was a key form of visual communication during WWII, (potential for Harvard reference quote). Also identify key propaganda techniques and how they have been used. 

Analyse American propaganda; Analyse a range of American propaganda in isolation, look at the key features such as layout composition and subliminal messages. Discuss how it affected American troops, Moral , the country as a whole. Look at racism, power and other potential issues with the use of propaganda. 

Analyse Japanese propaganda in a similar fashion identifying key features however link the evidence back to American Propaganda, E.g; "Similarly to the examples of American Propaganda, Japanese ...." 

Evaluate and Conclude; Show how my research has answered the question, state what has been discovered, avoid personal opinions and use third person to evaluate (and throughout)

OUGD401 - Tutorial

I had a scheduled tutorial with Richard Miles, head of contextual studies, In which we discussed my progress with the module so far and looked at potential topics for my project. We talked about a number of concepts but both agreed the strongest would be to perform a critical analysis of american and Japanese propaganda during World War II. We arrived at this conclusion based on positive feedback from the image analysis task, performed earlier in the year and tailed it to fit the theme I had chosen for my project. 

I have chosen social Political as my topic with a theme of “Discuss the role that Graphic Design has played in Political and/or social change in a specific period in history." We agreed that my specific research focus answered this question as I can discuss the use of propaganda (a form of graphic design) that has played a significant political role within the World War II (a specific period in history)

We then discussed how I can move forward from this point and how this essay would ultimately influence my accompanying physical body of graphic design, this brought me back to my one of my initial concepts looking at Russell Brands views and I could develop my physical body of work to show how capitalist news corporations such as Fox news portrays an anti-islamic narrative, a view to which Russell Brand actively tires to expose through his youtube channel. This would work well as my existing knowledge of American propaganda is there was racist techniques used toward the Japanese something to which I could explore further and ultimately develop into a 21st century relevant body of graphic design looking at Fox news and similar corporations to see if they use any similar techniques to American propaganda. 

I was given some useful sources of information to start my research including researching the actual techniques of propaganda which I found extremely useful to be able to define the techniques used. This tutorial helped me immensely to focus my research and motivate me to start my research.