Blog Post 4 – Reflection
For our fourth blog post, we have been expected to analytically review one of our peer’s blogs and to assess how well they met the expectations of reviewing the three main themes of this unit including diversity, sustainability and social responsibility. I felt it is important to mention that peer assessing is highly effective due to its team bonding nature, especially as students at the University of the Arts London where collaboration and communication amongst us is vital for our creative practice. Ella Gunton’s blog took my attention as it would be most beneficial to review her blog due to us both being on the same course – Styling and Production – and choosing the same option being Make Up Breakdown allowing us to compare our work in an instrumental and valuable way.
Within the first paragraph, Ella directly references the three main themes of this unit alongside supporting her statement with ‘Each year… 100,000-200,000 animals suffer’. This is an example of referenced, factual statistics that link to social responsibility regarding animal testing in the make-up industry which adds validity to her work. After this statement, she makes a connection with this information to her creative practice and how she can improve it in order for it to link to the themes of the social responsibility by using only make up products with a ‘logo of a leaping bunny’. This links accurately to what was expected of her when writing this blog in terms of the process side to the brief.
Following on from her first point about social responsibility, Ella dives straight into the topic of diversity with the ability to link It well to her chosen option – Make up Break Down – and she has clearly done some personal secondary research on the make up industry as she well backs up her points about the lack of representative shades of foundation with statistics from as recent as 2019 from the beauty company Fenty showing reliable, in date information. She also states how she will go about her practice to apply to diversity issues in the fashion industry including asking them about “preferences, for example, with hairstyles, textures and colours’. Ella has clearly reflected the diversity theme successfully and further looked into how she will apply it in her own practice here.
Ella goes onto clearly applying the sustainability theme to her blog by using more statistics e.g. how ‘non-biodegradable resources that can take up to 1,000 years to break down in landfills’ to inform the reader of her blog on the dangers and disadvantages of wastage caused by the cosmetic industry. After this she states how she could be more ‘sustainably-aware’, showing she has clearly thought about this theme and again applied it to her own way of working.
Ella’s blog is a great reflection of not only an analysis of the three main themes of this unit but also how she will take what she has learnt and apply it in her own creative practice.