Activity 5

Part A

After reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell I choose to study more in depth the story of Bernie Goetz and communication within family relationships and how if effects the overall running and functioning of the family, particularly that of parent-child relationships. To help aid with my studies in this specific area, I used mind mapping and brain storming within my tutorial group and I found these methods to be very effective and I would use they again. However, after completion of semester two’s assignments I believe that the technique of observation would be my next step and the most successful approach if I was to pursue my studies any further.

One of my main focuses in this topic was the idea of people seeing the family as two separate units, one ‘the parent’ and the other ‘the child,’ and not placing them together to see how they work and communicate as a whole. This particular problem I believe would benefit the most from the method of observation, it would allow for someone like myself or a professional to assess the situation and discover for themselves what they truly believe to be the problem. Because talking about and answering questions on close family relations within an interview I think people would be selective with the information they give you, and not always give the honest truth. Observations in this instance would allow for a 3rd party to monitor the situation and analyse it impartially without making assumptions relating to the pre-existing relationship.

Change is a constant thing within a family, whether it is as simple as a change of location, family home or the growing up of children, it all affects each individual member of the family differently and at different stages, sometimes causing strain on relationships resulting in break down of communication. This is another area in which the method of observations would be effective, as it not only allows for monitoring one single situation it can allow for monitoring over a period of time and gives the chance of reviewing the findings and analysing the changes. Interviews may be successful in this particular incident, because you would not need to directly ask a parent or a child what their relationship with each other is like, you could indirectly ask how things have changed around the home over the years, how they feel they have grown up and adapted to taking on responsibilities and such like, which hopefully would give you an idea of the relationship and input from each party. This would avoid the problem of getting answers directly linked to what each party believes their relationship to be like, and let the interviewer interpret their results as they see fit.

One very interesting fact I found out during my research is that not only do parenting skills differ from person to person they also differ depending on the gender of the parent, and the stereotypical roles of the mother and father. This again would be another area for successful observations, as you could assess both parents with the same child, or completely different families and see what similarities and differences occur using this for your own primary research to see if your results co-inside with recent studies. Interviewing in this instance, may possibly be an effective method, as you could give each parent, at separate interviews, a small scenario to see how each parent would handle it differently and also how their answer would change depending on elder or younger children.

More commonly in today’s society we are seeing families been torn apart through divorce, and this has been said to have a major impact on children involved, especially that of younger children. It can leave children with a bitter feeling towards either both or one parent, as they may accuse one as being responsible for the break up. It is also common for children to sometimes blame themselves. Divorce causes for relations and communication between both parents and child to be broken, and leaves the task of building of new relationships singularly with each parent. Also if step-parents and/or step-siblings are brought into the picture, then the foundation for new relationships has to be made, possibly causing more strain on existing relationship or more hopefully making things easier if all parties are to get along. For all potential outcomes I again believe the method of observation would be most favourable, as watching how each child interacts with each biological parent after the separation would help to single out what parent, if any, the child blames or is having problems communicating with on their own. Also monitoring children who have step brothers and sisters and those who don’t would allow for you to see the differences in the child’s behaviour and interaction and how this then in turn effects their relations with their parent. This particular study I think would be very interesting, to see if children moved after divorce into a family consisting of other children, handle the situation better and reignite the lost close relationship with whatever biological parent is absent with children or indeed another father or mother figure.

Visual experiments is the only technique I studied in semester two that I feel would be of no use if I was to pursue my studies further, as I feel they would offer no benefit to my desired findings. The technique itself proved to be very successful in semester two, when used on the right project, however in this particular instance the methods of observation and interviews would be most profitable in me gaining the right results to aid with my research. The preparation and construction of interview questions can take some time, and to ensure I got the right results I piloted my interview in semester two with a coursemate, so if I was to continue with this experiment I would pilot my questions on my own family giving me time for amendments. The producing and filling out of consent forms is another crucial part of undertaking interviews and has to be taking into consideration when asking people to participate. Consent is another main issue with the method of observation, and this may pose a problem because if people know they are being observed they may be unlikely to act as they would naturally, therefore corrupting the results and not giving a true reflection of the situation. This problem unfortunately cannot be overcome and has to be taking into account when writing up the final results. After putting these previously stated methods to the test in semester two, I believe if I was to use them for this particular topic I would be positive in obtaining my own successful primary information allowing me to take my results to the next level, combining them with existing findings and creating an excellent final outcome.

Bibliography

Gladwell, M (2000) The Tipping Point London:Abacus Little, Brown Book Company

Part B

A current studio brief I have been working on this semester was The Shipping Forecast and the aim of the brief was to take your allocated in or off shore location and publicise and brand it and you saw fit. I was given the off shore region of Rockall, located over 180 miles from the nearest land. After doing some research into the area I came across an interesting fact that Rockall is known as ‘The most difficult island in the world to sleep on,’ which gave me the inspiration for my final outcome. A great deal of people have tried to land and/or sleep on Rockall but no one has every tried to rock climb on it, so I thought of targeting extreme sports fans and creating the ultimate extreme outdoors sports centre. With my main attractions being the option of septathlon or octathlon of events and the one of a kind human catapult. My final output was eight posters, advertising for my extreme sports centre and all its unique selling points.

To complete this project I used some of the secondary research methods I acquired in semester one of Design Studies, such as Library Research. I looked into the area of Rockall itself, unfortunately I found little information therefore turned to the method of online research. As I am aware not all information gathered from the internet can be reliable so I was careful and selective with where I got my information from. I also looked up some old and current newspaper articles on Rockall, as I was very fortunate with my topic being in the The Press, Monday 1st March 2010, and on the BBCs Website, Tuesday 2nd March 2010, the week I started to do my research.

If I was to go back and redo this project I would definitely use this method of library research in looking into extreme sports, to understand the people deemed to be the ‘type’ connected with these sports, how would be best to attract them to my advertising campaign and to see if there is already a desired and common theme of advertising linked to this specific area. Through using cross search and the general library search I may have been able to find some examples of extreme sports magazines and posters to help me get some inspiration and a feel for the overall look of this style of advertising. After collecting all of my information I would be sure to record all my references, how, where and when I obtained the information I used and for what purpose I used them for.

From the list of primary research techniques I used in semester two I believe the method of Visual Experiments to be the most successful approach if I was to take on this project brief again. The way I think this technique would work best would be to mock up several posters all advertising the same thing, my extreme sports centre, but all to be designed in a slightly different style and ask people interested in this area of activity if they would be more inclined to go after seeing a particular poster. I would also target people not interested in this field to see if they could select the posters they believe to send out the right vibe and feel towards my target audience. I could also use the means of a visual experiment after producing my final outcome to see if people could understand the language of the poster, who it is aimed at and if they think it would work well to attract not only regulars of the sports but also those who are interested in starting such sports.

The method of observation could be another possible route to go down, as I could visit a centre, similar to mine, to examine the surroundings, merchandise, posters and means of advertising to see the specific style used and how people interact and take notice of certain announcements. There is always the issue of people acting unnatural whilst being observed, when people know they are being watched they tend to act differently and feel like they cannot go about their business as normal. In this case I would be more interested in the surroundings and the environment of the centre rather than the behaviour of the people, although it may come into it slightly. I think this technique in this instance would work quite well, as it would allow for me to get some inspiration for ideas, themes, colour schemes and also if I was to go along and observe after I had completed my posters I could compare them with others and imagine what they may look like in situation amongst other competitive posters.

Interviewing was the final primary research technique studied in semester one and I don’t think on its own it would be as an effective method for this project, unlike the previous two, as I would be looking for peoples reactions towards the aesthetics of my campaign and how they then act upon what they have seen rather than how the posters make them feel. However, interviewing could coincide with Visual Experiments and Observations and I could possibly use these combined techniques to get some insight into an area that at first I hadn’t taken much consideration into and that in the end may effect my final outcome.

Looking back over the diverse range of skills I have acquired from Design Studies I now understand how I can connect and relate them not only to my work within design studies but also my work in the studio. Although part is theory and part is practical it is all design and no matter the field of design or the production of final outcome you have to go through the same process of research and analysing information to get there. I will definitely take these skills with me into my third and fourth years studies and then on into the workplace as I know they will allow for me not only to undertake smaller studio based projects here at the University of Dundee but they will stand me in good stead for tackling any sort of design problem thrown at me when I am a part of the commercial world of Graphic Design.