TRASH & TREASURE
As a group we decided that our chosen output would be a Newspaper. We chose a Newspaper so that we could reach a larger demographic audience, to understand the implications of Consumerism. The power of photography brings to life current affairs that affects the public and the world at large. By using just one photo, one image, it can inform the reader of a situation without having to read the story. Because our brains rely strongly on their senses, by using a visual aid, this will help the viewer to understand the current issue of today’s consumption and the growing affect it has on society. A Newspaper is a great platform for photographers to connect with the public on important issues’ such as, consumption in today’s society. Our consumption has had far reaching effects on the world, more than we care to know.
The waste in Western society has increased over years, portraying us, as a disposable, wasteful culture. Examples of this are cheap clothing, relying on the latest trends, leading to a bust and boom society. People leading selfish lifestyles, no understanding of money, has led to the decline of the high street, leading to more individual shops closing, portraying deprivation. Consumerism fulfilled lives, the need to keep up with the celebrity culture and the fascination of gossip. However, society has to understand the implications of a ‘I want’ lifestyle, by becoming more aware of sustainable living, through the power of photography, media, and education. Examples of widespread change, companies, using commercials to show they are ‘green’ by donating second hand clothes. Our target readers for this newspaper are people from around our own age, 19-20, and up to around 45-50. We are of the opinion that this group of people are the most affected of the issues we are raising, as well as the most keen to make a change and improve the situation.
Visual Reference & Editorial Choice
50 Photos Dictionary – Fanny Wacklin Nilsson
For the layout of our newspaper, we chose to analyse 50 Photos Dictionary by FannyWacklin Nilsson (printed by Newspaper Club). This is, because we found the idea in terms of the simplistic layout useful, leading to applying it to our own newspaper. What also caught our eyes was how Wacklin Nilsson had used the text, rather than having column after column of text like a regular newspaper would, it is just a couple of paragraphs or quotes.
The reason we chose to use this newspaper as a guideline and inspiration for our own publication as we like the relationship between the amount of writing and the images. We didn't want our publication to be too text heavy like newspapers such as ‘The Guardian’.
From our reference, we have adopted a scrapbook style layout, rather than placing multiple articles on one page, as would be found on a conventional broadsheet.
This means that we have used variations of image and headline scale and have used blank white space as a visual device so as to appear minimalistic, creating ease of reading and appealing to the younger end of our audience.
Similarly to the reference, our images relate directly to the stories around them and do not stand alone as an article. Also our paper is divided into sections of their subjects.
Rather than being personal to one person’s experiences, the issues raised in our publication relate to a nation of people’s experiences.
When sequencing our images we built upon the idea of creating a journey through the realms of consumption, starting with the idea of us throwing away everything without a second thought and ending with a glimmer of hope.
When finding pieces of text to place along with our articles we decided that firstly we wanted specific bits of text that related in the best way possible to the images it was placed with, and we also decided that we didn‘t want long winded articles, we wanted to keep to a couple of paragraphs on a page, this refers back to us not wanting a text heavy publication.
Roles & Responsibilities
Throughout the process of building our newspaper publication we each took responsibility for finding articles, quotes and other images relating to our work. After we had found these articles we all read through them as a group to ensure we all agreed on what was being placed in our publication. After all the articles were finalized we all went away and put together the pages based on our own work. After this Michelle put all of the pages together into one document and rearranged certain elements to complete the newspaper. Once this was completed we sat down as a group and went over the finalized document in order to make sure that everything was as planned.
Throw Away Culture, how we are forever wanting more
E-Waste and Technology, and how we rely more and more on a world of phones, laptops and kindles.
The British high-street and how its slowly disappearing.
Celebrity Culture in todays modern society and how it leads to consumerism.
Second Hand Shops, looking into the good side of waste, how waste can be recycled and not just thrown away.
My Pages, the final layout (page 3 & 4 out of the four i designed)
When putting my pages together my main influence camer from 50 photos, so in my pages I wanted to create lots of white space around the text and images, so that they didn't become too cluttered within the page. I want people to concentrate on the images more than the text as I feel the images are stronger and really explain the idea of celebrity culture, which was a strong point I wanted to get across to the readers.