OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Sea Shepherd

In my peer feedback I was advised to look at Sea Shepherd. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a marine conservation organisation which uses direct action tactics to protect marine life. What I like about this website is that it tells the 'mood' of the campaign by just looking at it. The website itself uses very dark, dull black colours to show that this is an expressive campaign. This is a campaign that I would like to relate to most. Throughout my campaign for overfishing I am focusing on making it interactive however, expressive. 

In my opinion something like Sea Shepherd or Overfishing should use expression to bring awareness to their campaign. I believe this because they are not well known enough to rebel globally and in my opinion rebellion is the best form of publicity, relating back to the May 1968 posters. What I like about Sea Shepherds is that they have a blog on their website that updates regularly and keeps you informed. I also like that their images and their actions speak for themselves; in the blog you can see how Sea Shepherds are exploding fishing boats that are illegal and shouldn't be there. Campaigns like Sea Shepherd use very dark dull colours to reach out to a target audience that want people to join them and help them bring down illegal fishing and other 'things' relating the sea and making it safer.
What I can use for my own designs is to create something that is going to be expressive and informative. Sea Shepherd do everything in a more dull manner, like their logo is very aggresive and minimal while their website is very dark showing how serious they are in this campaign. I also like how there is a place for everyone to blog their ideas as well as there being news and commentary being updated on the regular.

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Animal cruelty campaigns

Looking at other similar causes and campaigns. 

After looking at overfishing, I decided to research further into other causes and campaigns that are more successful in reaching a global target audience. I decided to tie together overfishing with animal abuse and neglect. From the images in my previous research you can see how sharks and other sea animals are trapped within nets and how this is affecting the food chain. 

I decided to look at the RSPCA as it is a campaign that is well reknown on the United Kingdom. RSPCA is a campaign to end animal cruelty and to protect animals from being abused or used in dogfighting or cockfighting. 

It is clear that from a young age the RSPCA are trying to make sure that animal welfare is something that is taught within education. By helping out teachers and justice professionals to help reach out to young people into preventing animal cruelty. It is also clear that campaigns to change laws towards animals have been put in place. Previously before the Animal Welfare Act in 2006 the RSPCA would have to wait for an animal to suffer before being able to take action however, now there is act that could help prevent that suffering to an animal. 

I decided to research a few posters that campaign against animal abuse. 

Looking at this poster you can see how time counts. This seal is being squeezed within the seconds and minutes handles and shows how each 60 seconds a species dies out.  The image is very expressive and aggresive showing how a minute is very key and could be the difference to saving an animal. What I like about this poster is that it instantly grabs your attention. It is very aggresive however, it definetely caught my atttention when looking through past campaigns. 




This poster puts a message across that animals are not clowns. Animals have always been targeted when new products come out and by showing a monkey as a clown it shows how much it is experimented on. The poster is again very expressive and I question whether I should create something that is expressive as I am doing my poster on overfishing. Overfishing is something that a lot of people choose to ignore because they are not aware of the potentials that could lead to having no fish. Therefore by creating an expressive poster I would get people to stop and think which would be informative towards my campaign. 

This is a poster that relates most to my campaign of overfishing. Although it is horrifying to see a shark, it would be more horrifying if there were no sharks. WWF is trying to get a message across that by exploiting the ecosystem it is also threatening human lives. This could relate to overfishing too. If we don't do anything about overfishing there will be no fish therefore the foodchain being broken and affecting us. 

This is a campaign that uses a rhino in the space of a car. It shows how extinction can't be fixed like a car might. This is something that I can take forward into my campaign showing that once 2048 comes (predicted year of the end of fish if we continue to overfish) there will be nothing that can be fixed.

The evolution of tigers and how it has evolved into an item of clothing. This shows how an evolution can be stopped because of animal abuse. I really like the simplicity of this design and how it shows an evolution of animals however it stops right after the tiger showing that there won't be many more tigers if we continue to do this. What I could show within a design is an evolution of fish only for the last image to be blank showing how overfishing is affecting us and the world we live in. 

This is a campaign to stop shooting animals. A child who is wearing a tiger outfit with the caption 'imagine if it was yours' instantly makes an impact on you. It puts you into a place where you can not shoot the child therefore why would you kill someone else's child? 

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Causes of Overfishing

The main problem of overfishing is the “open access” nature of fisheries. Because there are no or few property rights there is a lack of incentive for fishermen to leave fish in the water.

Another problem is the lack of management. The government does not have strong enough regulations to limit ships and people to fishing. There is also a lack of evidence that fish are actually being caught legally therefore, fish are not caught in a sustainable way and retailers can not ensure this.

A big problem is that alot of the fish are caught illegally, unregulated and unreported. This also means that people could fish from a small scale to a large scale illegally. The cost of illegal fishing within pirate fish products is estimated between $10-23.5 billion annually. This is massive market to pirate boats that fish illegally and get so much money back. I can only imagine how many fish are caught in a year with the value of $10-23.5 billion.

Governments still financially support their fleets therefore allowing overfishing to occur. Today we catch 2 and a half times more than we need to catch. There is also a lack of protected areas. 1.6% of the worlds oceans have been declared as marine protected areas whilst 90% of existing marine protected areas are open to fishing. This means that things like corals are being destructed and affecting how fish are being produced. Protected areas allow food security for people who rely on the ocean for their everyday need and livelihoods.

Targeted fishing of top predators (such as billfish, sharks and tuna) eventually disrupts marine communities, causing increased abundance of smaller marine animals at the bottom of the food chain. This in turn has impacts on the rest of the marine ecosystem, such as the increased growth of algae and threats to coral reef health. Overfishing is also closely tied to bycatch, another serious marine threat that causes the needless loss of billions of fish, along with marine turtles and cetaceans. - worldwildlife.org

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Research into WWF overfishing

This is what Worldwildlife.org (WWF) said about overfishing.
Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction. Gathering as many fish as possible may seem like a profitable practice, but overfishing has serious consequences. The results not only affect the balance of life in the oceans, but also the social and economic well-being of the coastal communities who depend on fish for their way of life.

Fish are constantly being caught to be sold to fish stalls, supermarkets and many more and were not very aware how many years left we have of fish. It is predicted that if we carry on fishing constantly that the end of fish could be in 2048.

People rely on fish for protein and in certain parts of the world people rely on fish so that their families can eat. In the past 50 years unsustainable fishes are being pushed to the point where they can not replace them through natural reproduction. More than 85% of the world fisheries have been pushed to their biological limits and now something needs to be done before it is too late. What I like about the WWF is that it works with stakeholders to reform fisheries management globally, focusing on sustainable practices that conserve ecosystems, but also sustain livelihoods and ensure food security.

A shark being caught in a fishing net.

Piles of fish on Kayar beach, Senegal







Even by looking at the past two images it shows how unaware we are of what is happening to fish and our economic well-being. People rely on these fish to provide protein and without these fish in the water it would mean the end of fishmongers and business'. Throughout my campaign I want to inform people on what they can not see but is happening right infront of them. 

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Research into social, political and ethical change

We live in a world shaped by the work of graphic artists. The logos, images, signs and symbols that surround us has a powerful impact on many of our decisions. 

Political Issue:

Politics is something that I have learnt in the past however, it is something that I do not find interesting in the design world. However, something that I did find very interesting in college was the rise of Obama and the rise of the 'hope' poster created by Shephard Fairey. This shows a poster that consists of American colours blue, red and white to help promote the rise of Barrack Obama. With the use of the word 'hope' alongside a strong iconic image of Obama it is easy to say that this poster easily recognisable, eye-catching and minimal.  The word 'hope' is there to give you belief that there is hope in this candidate (now president). By using a strong, bold, easily legible typeface it is an iconic image and also very expressive. The poster became a structure to express political stands. 

Social Issue: 

Looking at Amnesty International I have chosen to look at freedom of speech. Here is what amnesty said about freedom of speech: 

"Communicating with each other and expressing ourselves freely is central to living in an open and fair society."

We forget being in the UK that we have freedom of speech, this is not so much the same in different countries. People have been thrown into prison if not worst. People have tried to stand up for themselves even backing to the 1st of December, 1955 where Rosa Parks refused to stand up on a bus  to Khadija Ismayilova who is an award winning journalist. It was her work on the corruption of Azerbaijan led to her seven and a half year prison on spurious charges only last year.  We are very unaware of freedom of speech in other countries and it would be interesting to create my own campaign much like Amnesty on freedom of speech. 

Here on the poster you can see the impact a design can have, which uses tape across the persons mouth on the image showing no freedom of speech. From this research, I want to create something that will be beneficial to my campaign and will be something different than a usual poster like Amnesty have done within this poster using tape to keep a poster up whilst covering his mouth. 

Ecological Issue:

Fishing is something that I myself do and a campaign that I was not very aware of is overfishing. Although I fish very rarely I researched that due to the amount of fishing that we do it is potential that if carry on fishing then there may be no fish left in 2048. This is a massive problem as fish is a source of protein and something that everyone eats around the world. It also means interrupting the food chain which could potentially affect us. 

Although this is a campaign that a lot of people wouldn't really know about I would like to create everything for this campaign. It is a campaign that is on a very low scale and doesn't even have a website to inform people about. I would like to take this small campaign and see how far I can take this campaign and to see if people would be more aware of overfishing with my designs and research. 

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Group research

At the start, a lot of people including myself were confused with what we had to produce for the brief. Therefore, collectively as a group myself and others within my group got chosen the topic of ecological change. For this task, we had to come up with as many ideas as possible that would fit in our topic of ecological change.  We came up with various ideas including; littering, oil spills, global warming, deforestation, overfishing and many more. One idea that I particularly had in mind was overfishing. Overfishing is a topic that is not known worldwide and this brief is about learning and helping a campaign gain awareness. Therefore, I decided to pick something that wasn't very obvious and would need a lot of research and commitment to raise awareness of overfishing. 

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Concept

My concept
To create a campaign in an expressive way to inform people about overfishing. 

What my initial ideas are:
I will be producing various different outcomes to support overfishing:
Posters - Bring awareness to students and people aged 18-60
Booklets - Bring awareness to the elder target market aged 30+
Stickers - Bring awareness to the campaign. Guerilla advertising 18-60
Website - Bring awareness to the campaign and information to anyone interested. Mainly targetted towards a younger audience 18-30

Target audience:
I have selected the target audience to be between 18-60 year olds. I have decided to target a younger audience between 18-30 because you become more aware of the world and want to create a change for better. By focusing on my target market of 18-30 I can focus on a website as we live in a digital world and people would tend to use the internet to find out more information about a campaign. 

However, I have decided to create a small booklet which informs people of the causes of overfishing. The target market for this audience would be 30-60 as they are less aware of the internet and would prefer to have something physical rather than seaching the web. 

The guerilla stickers would be to bring awareness to the campaign. Overfishing is something that I myself had very little information about and without looking into it for this campaign I wouldn't know anything about it and what I could do to help. 

Here I was on a train and noticed the difference between two different generations. It shows the gentleman reading and doing crosswords whilst the other two younger woman who were constantly being on their phone. 

Why have I chosen overfishing?
Being a fisher myself therefore, I am curious about the dangers that could happen with overfishing. I would also like to challenge myself and create a successful campaign out of something that is very unheard of. 

Quick overview of what I was considering. 

Peer feedback 1:
Comments on research: 
'Has the potential to be quite strong design based'
'An independent campaign to raise awareness could work really well'.  

Areas for improvement: 
'Think about what root you want to be go within this issue - positive or negative'.
'Zines and posters are probably the best solutions to be informative'.

Peer feedback 2:
Comments on research: 
'This is an issue that doesn't get much attention so it's a good route to go down'.

Areas for improvement: 
'Look at it from a more positive perspective and encourage people to buy from free range fish'.

Peer feedback 3:
Comments on research: 
'A really good idea for research'.
For a negative campaign look at the Sea Shepherds. I feel like some sort of guerilla advertising might suit this campaign'.

Areas for improvement: 
'Think about whether you want to raise awareness in a positive or negative light. Think about words likes hooked, caught netted etc'. 
'Look at more expressive campaigns'.

Peer feedback 4:
Comments on research: 
'A more unusual issue that still needs tackling'. 

Areas for improvement: 
'Maybe could teach people how to fish sustainably'.
'Try not to make it too shocking as it may put people off, especially kids and families, however, if you're targeting businesses maybe scaring them is the best way'