Graphic Design & Globalisation

When finding examples of graphic design to do with globalisation the first thing I thought about was how people are now aware of global warming and deforestation, so there is graphic design out there to encourage people to look after the planet and alert them to the need for sustainable development. Here are some examples of graphic design that is encouraging people, or graphic design that is being green in some way.

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lovelyasatree

How to be an environmentally friendly graphic designer:

Think Green

A range of printed materials, including stickers, posters and postcards were also produced to reinforce the campaign messages and, in line with the environmental nature of the campaign, all the items were produced using the most environmentally friendly techniques and materials such as vegetable inks.

Thomas Matthews

Ten ways design can help fight climate change - A6 brochure from waste make-ready sheets, french-folded and printed on the plain side.

Hudson Powell

Brochures, menus and business cards for restaurant, Canteen, in London. Although designed more with aesthetics in mind than the environment, all items are printed on off-white recycled paper using a minimum of ink for a beautiful and sophisticated effect that keeps the environmental impact to a minimum.

Composite Projects

- The compact size of the booklets makes optimum use of the printing sheet. The guides have three sections defined by alternating coloured (100% recycled Sugar Paper) and white paper.

- Report on green consumer behaviour

- No excess packaging, self-packaged, the cover wrapping around the contents to become the envelope.

- Recycled paper

- Colour-set is manufactured from 100% recycled pre-consumer fibres.

Tickets - From D&AD New Blood exhibitor [harrysmithdesign.co.uk] So many train tickets must be wasted everyday as they have no use once the journey is over, but this is a great idea, to screen print over the ticket to turn it into a new ticket. This idea stood out after the exhibition from all the others as it looks good, but is good for the environment too.

These very modern type focused designs are to promote a traditional village green festival. The problem is that an event needs advertising but the organisers and designers wanted the promotion to be environmentally friendly in fitting with the event. To solve this problem, the designers used 100% recycled materials, including the t-shirts, which are old T's with the new logo printed over them. The typical audience may be older people, but the new modern design of bold typography and simple imagery representing bunting will also draw in younger crowds as they are 'cool' designs. The audience will interact with the pieces by using them, visiting the event and then re-cycling the designs.

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Another effect of globalisation is: The sharing of ideas, experiences and lifestyles of people and cultures. People can experience foods and other products not previously available in their countries.

And this relates to graphic design as well, as designers from all over the world can influence each other. An obvious example that came to mind was how this poster, by the Russian artist Rodchenko, later influenced the album art for the Scottish band, Franz Ferdinand. 

  

It has inspired some more unusual examples too, such as this:

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A less positive effect of globalisation is that:

Globalisation is viewed by many as a threat to the world's cultural diversity. It is feared it might drown out local economies, traditions and languages and simply re-cast the whole world in the mould of the capitalist North and West.

This example shows a Coca Cola billboard above a store in Kabul, as the Western brand seems to be taking over the world, along with McDonalds and Shell and others...

After the lecture I've decided to find out a bit more about what is globalisation? And is it good or bad?

Wikipedia:

Globalization (or Globalisation) refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people, and economic activity. It is generally used to refer to economic globalization: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import quotas and the reduction of restrictions on the movement of capital and on investment. Globalization may contribute to economic growth in developed and developing countries through increased specialization and the principle of comparative advantage. The term can also refer to the transnational circulation of ideas, languages, and popular culture.

Critics of globalization allege that globalization's benefits have been overstated and its costs underestimated. Critics argue that it has decreased inter-cultural contact while increasing the possibility of international and intra-national conflict.

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Found this gcse bite size really useful for making it all really easy to understand!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/globalisation/globalisation_rev1.shtml

We now communicate and share each other's cultures through travel and trade, transporting products around the world in hours or days. We are in a huge global economy where something that happens in one area can have knock on effects worldwide. This process is called globalisation.

What is globalisation?

Globalisation is the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of massively increased trade and cultural exchange. Globalisation has increased the production of goods and services. The biggest companies are no longer national firms but multinational corporations with subsidiaries in many countries.

Globalisation has been taking place for hundreds of years, but has speeded up enormously over the last half-century.

Globalisation has resulted in:

• increased international trade
• a company operating in more than one country
• greater dependence on the global economy
• freer movement of capital, goods, and services
• recognition of companies such as McDonalds and Starbucks in LEDCs

Although globalisation is probably helping to create more wealth in developing countries - it is not helping to close the gap between the world's poorest countries and the world's richest.

The animation shows how wealth is distributed. Click on the income brackets to see where the richest and poorest countries are located.

Reasons for globalisation

There are several key factors which have influenced the process of globalisation:

• Improvements in transportation - larger cargo ships mean that the cost of transporting goods between countries has decreased. Economies of scale mean the cost per item can reduce when operating on a larger scale. Transport improvements also mean that goods and people can travel more quickly.
• Freedom of trade - organisations like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) promote free trade between countries, which help to remove barriers between countries.
• Improvements of communications - the internet and mobile technology has allowed greater communication between people in different countries.
• Labour availability and skills - countries such as India have lower labour costs (about a third of that of the UK) and also high skill levels. Labour intensive industries such as clothing can take advantage of cheaper labour costs and reduced legal restrictions in LEDCs.

Transnational corporations

Globalisation has resulted in many businesses setting up or buying operations in other countries. When a foreign company invests in a country, perhaps by building a factory or a shop, this is called inward investment. Companies that operate in several countries are called multinational corporations (MNCs) or transnational corporations (TNCs). The US fast-food chain McDonald's is a large MNC - it has nearly 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries

The majority of TNCs come from MEDCs such as the US and UK. Many multinational corporations invest in other MEDCs. The US car company Ford, for example, makes large numbers of cars in the UK. However, TNCs also invest in LEDCs - for example, the British DIY store B&Q now has stores in China.

Factors attracting TNCs to a country may include:

• cheap raw materials
• cheap labour supply
• good transport
• access to markets where the goods are sold
• friendly government policies

Positive impacts of globalisation

Globalisation is having a dramatic effect - for good or ill - on world economies and on people's lives.

Some of the positive impacts are:

• Inward investment by TNCs helps countries by providing new jobs and skills for local people.
• TNCs bring wealth and foreign currency to local economies when they buy local resources, products and services. The extra money created by this investment can be spent on education, health and infrastructure.
• The sharing of ideas, experiences and lifestyles of people and cultures. People can experience foods and other products not previously available in their countries.
• Globalisation increases awareness of events in far-away parts of the world. For example, the UK was quickly made aware of the 2004 tsunami tidal wave and sent help rapidly in response.
• Globalisation may help to make people more aware of global issues such as deforestation and global warming - and alert them to the need for sustainable development.

Negative impacts of globalisation

Critics include groups such as environmentalists, anti-poverty campaigners and trade unionists.

Some of the negative impacts include:

• Globalisation operates mostly in the interests of the richest countries, which continue to dominate world trade at the expense of developing countries. The role of LEDCs in the world market is mostly to provide the North and West with cheap labour and raw materials.
• There are no guarantees that the wealth from inward investment will benefit the local community. Often, profits are sent back to the MEDC where the TNC is based. Transnational companies, with their massiveeconomies of scale, may drive local companies out of business. If it becomes cheaper to operate in another country, the TNC might close down the factory and make local people redundant.
• An absence of strictly enforced international laws means that TNCs may operate in LEDCs in a way that would not be allowed in an MEDC. They may pollute the environment, run risks with safety or impose poor working conditions and low wages on local workers.
• Globalisation is viewed by many as a threat to the world's cultural diversity. It is feared it might drown out local economies, traditions and languages and simply re-cast the whole world in the mould of the capitalist North and West. An example of this is that a Hollywood film is far more likely to be successful worldwide than one made in India or China, which also have thriving film industries.
• Industry may begin to thrive in LEDCs at the expense of jobs in manufacturing in the UK and other MEDCs, especially in textiles.

Anti-globalisation campaigners sometimes try to draw people's attention to these points by demonstrating against theWorld Trade Organisation. The World Trade Organisation is an inter-government organisation that promotes the free flow of trade around the world.

Globalisation & Media

Aim:

The impact of globalisation on the world and the environment and the medias role in perpetuating this unstable globalised system

Notes:

- Media is a propaganda device 

- Globalisation as a concept as the whole world coming together in a unified system - a concept shared by socialists and capitalists for different reasons

- For capitalists globalisation increases the amount of markets

- For socialists globalisation is desired for people to share resources and redistribute wealth, unified and working together

- Globalisation - another definition - dominance of one culture over other cultures, like the westernisation of all cultures

- Expansion of communication technologies such as the internet, so we are connected more than ever, theoretically unified

- In fact we are on the verge of 'Mcdonalidization', not so much a shared culture as a model of culture dominated by America, as their interests get forced on to the rest of the world

- Increasing all different cultures start to think and act and operate businesses in the same ways

- Extending our senses with technology - we can see further hear more

- We can now quickly see events on a global scale

- We can now see images of our forces bombing villages - doesn't integrate us, distances us

- The media can de-sensitise us but also brings us together

- We are still an individualist society, still not independence between first and third world businesses for various political reasons

- We are moving further away from a unified culture everyday

- America wants to spread capitalism and its values to the rest of the world largely so it can dominate the global market

- Causing a split that is tearing the world about

- Anti-capitalist ideology is emerging

- People aren't working together

- Who controls the global system? And why should they be allowed? Do we lose the idea of difference and community and national identity?

- Does globalisation make people more alike or more different?

- Expected to live up to these cultures

- Cultural imperialism - creating an empire, dominating other countries through cultural terms not by a military, making them think in the way that you do and making them value the things that you do

- The most powerful tool is the mass media, the vehicle for cultural imperialism, it legitimises it and allows it to develop

- Increasingly the global village is not a unified culture, other countries are turning into 'western' countries

- Every single media organisation is effectively one part of a giant part of an oligopoly - ultimately lots of magazines and newspapers are owned by just a few companies, such as Timewarner owns hundreds of companies such as AOL; HBO; New line cinema; Time Inc; magazines such as NME, Instyle; Warner Brothers; CNN

- These media oligopolies divides the world in to importance based on the amount of money they can make 

1. North America

2. Western Europe, Japan and Australia

3. Developing economies and regional producers (India, Brazil, Eastern Europe)

4. The rest of the world

Link everything back to American companies

- Media power can be thought of as a new form of imperialism
- The dominate culture of America forces its way of life on other societies that can't afford it

- Spreads the message of capitalism and perpetuates that in societies where people could never afford it, so they have this idea that that is what they should be doing

- Big Brother - the idea that to be on tv and be a celebrity is desirable and how you can get money by doing practically nothing - is a western programme that is now spread across the world and repeated in different ways

- Western culture imposed on places like Africa, from the reporting of the news, magazines, internet, sitcoms...

- The effect of that is cultural assimilation

- Skin whitening cream is sold in India very popular, because they are bombard with images of the west as the culture that they are aiming for

- This media system functions like a giant system of propaganda for western capitalism

- The news is not neutral, even the BBC, and Chomsky & Herman write that there are five categories you can compare to companies which proves that they aren't completely honest and there is an agenda behind them 

1. Ownership

2. Funding

3. Sourcing

4. Flak

5. Anti Communist ideology

- Rupert Murdoch is one man who has taken it upon himself to start influencing governments, famous boast that it is the Sun that choses who is elected by who they write about, this seems to be true

- He owns many companies across the world, and this means he can reach many of the world through the newspapers and tv channels he owns

- One man can set the agenda

- News stories aren't screened on air if they contradict the gender of this person

- Owner has an agenda so he is biased

- Government secretive, only allowed to know certain things, the public take, flaw in the neutrality of the news

- Most media organisations are funded by advertising and need to keep companies happy 

- Media organisations are subject to flak 

- US based global climate coalition - pressure group funded by Exxon, Texaco and Ford to 'cut through the myth that we are destroying the planet' - directly try and contradict 

- These videos to protect the interest of these corporate companies at the expensive of our planet

An Inconvenient Truth

- Al Gore says this isn't a political issue but a moral one 

- Al Gore's solutions: 

1. Release less CO2 Plant more vegetation

2. Try to be CO2 neutral

3. Recycle

4. Buy a hybrid vehicle

5. Encourage everyone you know to watch this film!

- The solution to this problem seems to be to buy more things such as a new car and this film!

- America and China refuse to limit carbon emissions - still ruining our planet no matter what the rest of the world is doing

- How can you meet the needs of the present (businesses) and the needs of the future generations (sustainability), seems to be contradictory

- Capitalism is a system which needs profit to keep on going

- The world is not infinite - only so much space and resources

- Sustainable capitalism example - biox diesel factory created, for pollution free diesel - but factory is polluting - air, noise, water - so actually this factory is causing even more problems for the people who live around the area especially

- Greenwashing phenomenon - companies brand themselves as caring and eco friendly to get themselves a good public image and improve sales, using the media to promote this

- Mcdonalds rebrand to make them seem like a greener company

- A sustainable system is impossible under a capitalist model, as by its nature, capitalism is unsustainable as it has to keep expanding

- Environmentalism - want to save the planet but keep the system as it is

- Ecologism - the only way to save the planet is to totally overthrow the worlds system that we have

- Socialism/communism 

- Most things are not designed for the needs of the people but for the needs of the manufacturer

- Interesting activist group who understand how the media works and are organising protests - the internet in a peculiar way has brought people together who want to resist

- No one controls the internet

- We are the 99% slogan that makes people understand about the average incomes

- The media is a system we can use for ourselves as well such as with the extension of social media - people tweeting about protests etc...

- The media skews events so need to read things with a pinch of salt

Sign Up Lectures... Globalisation, Sustainability and Ethics

I think attending this lecture helped me to realise that it is the issue of gender and identity that I want to write my essay on, however, it was still interesting and things I have learnt may be useful for future essays, as ethics is something which interests me.

Notes

- Commodity fetishism makes you forget that a thing you buy is the product of someones labour - you don't think about someone making a product with clothes you buy from a shop as you would with buying something from a craft fair
- A system with the ultimate drive for profit can't really ever be sustainable. For a business, profit is always their first concern and the environment comes after this
- Brands create a new market for their products with re-branding and greenwashing

First Things First - A Manifesto (1964 - Ken Garland)

- Because you have skills you have a decision to make: put your talents to use to influence the world for good or use them to advertise random objects
- How simple/possible is it to actually stick to this? People still need to earn money, especially students with all the debt they will be in. Why do something that won't help you?
- You should design things that promote education; culture; and the good of the world
- Graphic designers waste their talent when they could be doing something better

First Things First - Manifesto (2000)

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.

Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.

There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift 
away from product marketing 
and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.

In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.

- The items that described are luxury items that define a person, they are carefully chosen as there is an ethical dilemma between each one

- Would you be comfortable marketing those?

- This manifesto has a different focus: anti-capitalism

- There are lots of differences between the manifestos

- Do you agree? Ultimately your ethics are what you can afford them to be, the designers who have signed the manifesto are all already rich and successful