Zhaoyi Zhong

All my peers have produced unique and fantastic responses to the 3 themes. In this blog, I’d like to discuss an example from each of the 3 categories that really inspired my thinking.

In the first theme evolution/adaptation (diversity), the design by Andra Curta is presented with a clear illustration and description that also left a lot of room for my imagination. I can imagine such a translucent other worldly creature, dragging herself across the face of earth, almost melting as she is walking. She seems fierce and vulnerable at the same time, with an outlandish beauty and elegance. Andra approached the theme very differently from me: she started from a logical projection for the future Earth, which she predicts to be heavily polluted and boiling hot. Then diversity come into such a representation of an alien species that subverts our reception of aliens. She has also given the character a prominent sexuality, which we rarely consider when it comes to alien. I think her design is a very impressive and unusual take on diversity.

Mabli Jones produced a very polished design to the theme ecological balance (sustainability). She clearly thought through every aspect of her design and left very detailed instructions on how to realize her design. What I really admire is given the circumstance of the virus, she fully utilized all the information from the powerpoints on latex/silicone makeup that Steven sent us and employed it in her design. While we are all restricted to practical and hands on learning, I can learn from her imaginative process, by looking at more online demonstrations and possibilities of these techniques we learned.

Lindsay’s response to Identity (social representation) has especially interesting descriptions that gives a lot of personality to the character. Dramatic and witty lines like “her years of smoking has motivated her teeth to leave and find a mouth of their own and lowered her voice about 5 octaves” bring the character to life. The coherent background story gives character depth, and it will help actors understand the tension and exaggerations on the different sides of her identity. I can see a full and believable character that captured the theme Identity in a very clever way. This inspires me to also be make my character designs as logical and believable as can be.

For my project outcome, the theme of diversity drew my attention to scarification. The series of questions that I asked myself in the last blog came down to the final challenge: how do I design a character with scarification?

With Nick Fury as a positive example, I thought of 2 other marvel characters from Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora and Drax. The decoration inlaid on Gamora’s face and the raised tattoos all over Drax’s body can be interpreted as designs of scars as well. Then I looked at more visual references from African tribes, where scarification and body disfigurement is intentionally created as marks of beauty. My final design is a powerful and muscular fire cult priest who has scars from his face to his bare upper body. His scars are marks from the inauguration ceremony in his temple, when he pledged his life to his faith and his gods. He is wearing a skirt, which I took inspiration from a National Gallery VR dance choreographed by Tony Adigun. His 2 dancers wore only black skirts, with upper body unclothed, displaying their strength through their distinctive muscles, in the same time moving with such grace and control. From that performance, I see the masculine elegance in their black skirts that can be applied to my fire priest.

Through this design, I’m trying to evoke diversity on both make up and costume. His scars are designed to appear similar to fire burns, but placed in a deliberate manner. I can see him in a fantasy movie as a fighter, a protector of his temple and his god. He can also be a guru, a wise master or the young apprentice. He can be both a protagonist or an antagonist. Though the latter would fall into the stereotypical “heart of darkness” primitivism portrayal of the “native figure”, the savage and evil plotter, which I’m hoping to avoid. If he were a hero, he might be seen by burn victims as a positive and inspiring representation who looks like them, instead of Freddy Kruger. His skirt is traditional of his religion: all clergy are regulated to wear different forms of dress that match their position, like how Christianity regulate vestments and clerical clothing. Although men wearing dress is common in South East Asian cultures, it is still not mainstream in the west. In my degree subject Costume Design, we are very focused on reproducing western historical dresses. To my surprise, the better lives project has made me steer away from the west and research on cultures around the world. This practice will also help me develop my future projects with considerations and conversations with other cultures, and finally help me understand the background of people from different cultures in the industry so I can work better with them.

From Inclusion to Representation, these 2 lectures in Better Lives Unit pulled my focus to the theme of diversity. They discussed it from both a practical, design process that targets real people thus attracting the largest possible number of people; and the media’s power to represent and reshape the reality thus affecting our perception of different cultures. Both aspects link closely with the practice within my degree subject: costume for performance.

I need to prepare myself for working with a diverse crowd of people: performers from different cultural background, with variable body shapes that are suited for manifold performance contexts and ever moving life events. For example, sometimes actresses for stage plays choose to stay on the performance after they get pregnant, then we must make a design decision on whether or how to conceal or adapt her pregnancy in costume; opera singers might find corsets restricting or supportive to their singing lungs, so we can design around that decision… I can see a parallel between the “user-centred” inclusive design that research on the real person and emphasize on how the real person use their designs, and costume design. When we’re designing costumes, we are also designing for characters whose backgrounds we need to research on, and we need to consider the theatrical effects our costumes will bring: does it make sense and corresponds to the story? If so, do the costumes help us understand or tell the story? Furthermore, how will the costumes look in a theatre or film setting (including lights, props)? Realistically, how will the cameraman or live audience see our intended design elements? The discipline of inclusive design helped me consider my costume designs in a holistic way.

As costume design is closely linked to media, including TV, film, or stage, I also need to consider the representations my designs will intend. Media is such a powerful express and reinforce ideologies, that without critical evaluations, audiences are rendered unconscious of how their perceptions of reality is shaped by the media. Why do we associate boldness and scarification with villains? While there might be a specific historical context where scars are linked primarily with a violent and criminal past, is that really a true representation of the reality? What of burn or acid victims that are mocked of and associated with famous film villains such as Freddy Kruger? What of African cultures where scarification is considered beautiful? How do we engage with scarification critically? Scars can mark a stage of growth, like Tyrion Lannister and Kylo Ren, in both cases are logical character developments. It can also be a distinctive and mysterious feature that subverts this stereotypical association and sparks curiosities like Nick Fury in Marvel, whom I initially thought of as evil, and couldn’t wait to find out the story of how he got his eye injured. Joker is a lively villain who is not created ugly or scary for the sake of it. His acid burns and facial scars are complemented by his clown makeup, without which his appearance wouldn’t look complete. While his burns and scars tell us his backstory, we remember him mostly by the strong, stylised visuals of his makeup and costume.

What the Better Lives theme diversity has taught me is that, I need to strategically design for my characters and be mindful of the representations my designs mean, if I want my future career practice to be of value.

Before the start of the better lives unit, I didn’t think of inclusion in Fashion as anything more than a diverse media representation of ethnicity or body sizes, since the fashion industry has always been criticized for using tall, white, thin, and underage models that put women in an unrealistic beauty standard. However, the lecture Inclusion by Laura Salisbury changed my view. Inclusivity can start much earlier: from the conception of design.

The first concept that subverts my view of the Fashion norm is the extreme user circle, a model established by Jeremy Myerson from Helen Hamlyn Centre. This model explains how the fashion industry is always designing for the average consumer in the target of the circle—white middle-aged male with a salary of 100000 pounds. They are not the sole members of the society, yet the diverse greater range of population on the outer ring: pregnant women, elderly people, differently-abled people, and so on are overlooked. Why aren’t we designing for them? Indeed, it will be more difficult to design for people who have special needs, but at the same time all the inner circle would be automatically covered. The question “Who are they designed for” put the criticism of mainstream fashion industry under a new lens: the exclusivity does not only lie in how fashion images are presented, but also in the root of the design. It creates fashion that people desire but cannot choose, while inclusive designs enable the consumer with more choices.

So how do we design with inclusivity as a purpose? Laura showed us examples of adaptive clothing, such as magnetic strip replacing buttons for disabled children. But with more consideration, this is not a truly inclusive design. 1. The branding is targeted: adaptive clothing for disabled children to look normal. Why not just say easy to wear so it automatically includes all children? In the same way that new parents, people with arm amputations or temporarily injured arm all need something that frees their hand. Another good example is the soundshirt that helps the deaf to feel a concert, while the non-deaf people also want to experience that. 2. It limits the choices for the wearer as we don’t usually button all the way up, but the magnetic strip prevents that freedom. She continued to explain that when we design, we should step back from the brief to dig around the target: Who is it for? What influence this target and why? Then we can expand our scope and really understand the context around our target. Observation is how we gain knowledge in the next step, without our interference. To my understanding, great designs are empathy-driven, the designers must understand in the full scope how their product will act in a target consumer’s life; to achieve that, they should first understand the context the consumer is in. This relates to me in the same way my discipline costume design needs to analyse the script and background of a character before we design for him. After this phase, gather the information and find out the gap of knowledge, then rediscover our focus. The next step prototype and testing on the participant will inform how we can design better because designers can’t dictate how people use their products, we should test the reactions out.

Laura’s design process enlightened me, for I see a practical and positive influence that her work is bringing to her audiences. That is why I wanted to study design in the first place, and where I want to be in the Future.