Context of Practice: Study Task 3 - Panoptocism

Panopticism is about social control where visibility was used to control peoples behaviours due an all seeing eye in which they were being watched by. This theory could be said to of been applied to many parts of society today in order control the behaviour of the general public and maintain them into conforming to set rules and morals. The gym in particular is an example of panopticism at work in the current society where 'visibility is a trap' and uses this to it's advantage. 

There is a cult of health which is displayed around us and we consume not only the information and images but the actual produce. This saturation of health related imagery which tells us what we should and shouldn't consume physically in our diets is how the consumer culture control our habits as we are persuaded and manipulated into supporting brands wether they are actually supporting our health or not. This creates a disciplinary society where we are told what our body should look like and what physical attitude we should have towards our image and therefore the power relations have an effect on our bodies. People begin 'self-monitoring' and 'self-correcting' themselves in order to ensure an appropriate and desired appearance. We invest time and money, train and torture our body and force our bodies to carry out tasks which we might unwillingly want to do but feel guilty we don't. Our bodies become 'docile' and we don't question these claims of 5 a day, workout videos or protein powder and we begin to conform in fear of feeling guilty if we don't act up to this image. 

The gym in particular makes us perform in certain ways due to the spacial layout and public use of it. The machines are all placed very close together therefore your work out is very visible to those around you and you feel compelled to go harder, faster and stronger. ‘The Panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that makes it possible to see constantly and to recognise immediately’ but the ‘omnipresent and omniscient power’ of presence everywhere is visible in the use of the space as well as the layout as there are always people around you and you become very conscious of that factor. This creates an  ‘automatic functioning of power’ as the space controls how you exercise and enforces this need to interact with it on a regular basis which in turn leads you to channel money into a membership.  The ‘permeant visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’ is enhanced with the trainers who walk around the location as if monitoring your use and act as almost wardens patrolling the premises as well as the omnipresent of the space. They are made visible by there uniforms and therefore have this superiority above you. The ‘full lighting and the eye of a supervisor' create no sense of illusion as the brightly lit wide open and large space show every detail of your body with no place to hide or exercise in private. The openness of the space maintains the control and the sense of the panoptic visibility as the environment is owned by those who are leading the health cult you are forced to follow. 

This could be explained as a 'generalizable model of functioning' society in order to maintain other parts that are also panoptic or even just controlled by the state. By encouraging self improvement and standards of the body it could be said that it will improve productivity in the work environment as well as social and therefore enhance society in moving forward in a controlled and manageable state in the direction in which those in control want it to move towards. It also means that society remains docile as various aspects are being controlled in the same way through different systems which enforce each others productively even if it is not in the best interest of those controlled.

Context of Practice: Evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I feel a skill that i've really developed since last year is applying the theory into the publication. The theory has been applied to the design and the content and I feel that this is the best attempt of putting a academic theory into a publication which subject is not academic. It isn't obvious and written out to explain and include the theory it's submitted deep into the design without conscious recognition which also is what the theory is about. Applying this skill has improved my other briefs as I've learnt to implement ideas and concepts into the design. It's also improved my layout skills with type and image as I had a lot of layout to do and had to keep the design consistent but different to maintain interest in a repetitive publication. By researching into fashion editorial and look books I was able to apply similar atheistic in order to display similar characteristics like professional, high end and expensive. I also feel in relation to academic writing my skills of referencing and structuring of my essay has vastly improved. I was able to talk about sources without ruining the flow of thought and was able to create sources link in an order that read well.

What approaches to methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
My approaches to methods of design production have really developed with this practical piece as I had a lot of pages and the way the publication was and the designs decisions I made meant I had to bind one way or another. I learnt japanese binding and a bit about perfect binding in the production of my publication. This informed my design development as it meant it effected the way I designed and lay out my pages, I had to consider margining and positioning of pages in the way it was bound. I also had to consider how the fold out would work and fix into the publication. I have been unsuccessful in printing publications in the past but I was really pleased how well this went and although a few lessons were learnt in the binding I still feel that as a first attempt it is good. This has developed my process because I have now have experience in laying out a publication and in binding.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
One strength I have noticed in this module is time management. I have effectively completed the design process and production in plenty of time with little wobbles and mistakes. By coming up with my concept early on and therefore having more time to develop and strengthen it, it meant that when designing in advance it went well and was productive. This then lead to the production which was a bit more complicated as printing took longer than I had thought and the thickness and amount of publication I had quite realised until the printing was complete. This meant that my initial binding wasn't going to be as straight forward as I had thought and I was going need to have more assistance. I didn't manage to have the assistance due this realisation coming about late and the tutors not being around to guide me therefore there was a few wobbles in the production of the binding as I wasn't familiar and things I thought would be possible weren't. However due to my initial time management skills it meant that this was able to happen and not effect me drastically. I can capitalise this in the future as with my dissertation and practical piece I really will need to have a clear process and time management in organising myself.

What weaknesses can you identify in your and work and how will you address these in the future?
One weakness I can identify in this particular piece is the production though as it didn't come out as well as I had thought and even though somethings I considered such as margins to bind there were other things such as trimming down to B5 format which I hadn't really thought through. It wasn't as clean and trimmed as I had hoped as well as the fact that the Japanese bind suffered as it didn't have red string like it was supposed to. These weaknesses can be addressed in the future as I am now aware of the limitations and practicalities of that specific bind and the amount of pages. 

Identify 5 things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from these?
1. Look into binding before hand
This will prevent a bad experience in binding out my depth
2. Extend my publication to other products and appropriate pieces of design so I go beyond the brief and learn to apply the same theory across range of formats
3. Research more for my theory of the publication so that I research beyond my essay and the practical piece and essay go hand in hand
4. Use more processes to develop more knowledge in production e.g. emboss and foiling
5. Ask for help with the academic writing so that I can improve even further on understanding academic texts 

Attendance - 5
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 4
Commitment - 4
Quantity or work produced - 4
Quality of work produced - 3
Contribution to the group - 4

Context of Practice: Final Essay

How has consumer culture and the media objectified people and changed society?

It could be said that people are products of the society that they are born into and with the emergence of consumer culture as old as the first civilisations (Ancient Egypt, Babylon and Ancient Rome) it could be argued to of transformed society into objectifying peoples identity’s based on there consumerism, especially in the current, with a heavy influence from the media. Consumer culture is where the buying and spending of the consumers define the economy; this culture is driven by money and how buying and owning your own property can attain happiness where your wants and needs are met. However consumer culture has become consumption for its own sake through mass media and the promises of consumer culture not being met for consumers. Instead of it fulfilling spiritual or aesthetic desires it creates empty promises that leave the consumers more depressed and insecure. This culture has consumed us and has led to the objectification of people in society where they become a product of consumer culture through there consumerism.

As Kalle Lasn writes in Culture Jam (2000),

‘We are being manipulated in the most insidious way. Our emotions, personalities and core values are under siege from media and cultural forces too complex to decode. A continuous product message has woven itself into the very fabric of our existence.’ (P.xiii)

the culture has become part of us, our coding, and we are no longer in control. Everything we eat, touch and wear has a label attached to it, which is a semantic, so in turn immediately links to an image, a value, a common understanding in which you are therefore judged on. For example the Apple brand, if you are to have a macbook, iphone, ipad etc. the brand connotations are attached to you. You are sleek, innovative, young, good quality, expensive, clean, an iperson: as Lasn wrote, ‘We ourselves have been branded.’ (Lasn, 2000, p.xiii). We have effectively become an object determined by what we wear, what we drive, what we listen to and ultimately what the media and culture say we are.

One of the main protagonists within the media that enforces this nature of society is advertising. John Berger’s 1972 series of 'Ways of seeing' shown on the BBC opens with a very strong representation of the medias creation with a very similar viewpoint as to that of Lasn:

"In our urban world, on the streets that we walk, the buses that we take, in the magazines that we read, on walls, on screens, we are surrounded by images of an alternative way of life. We may remember or forget theses images, but briefly we take them in and they stimulate our imagination either by way of memory or anticipation - where is this other way of life?"

                                                                                                                           

He explains that the culture in which we live in is constantly challenged by a fantasy displayed in the media that we aim towards by participating in consumerism. The door to this fantasy we long for is the object we desire and the media fool us repeatedly into thinking that object will transform our identity and we can become those we envy in the images through consumption of the products. As a result our identity is branded by what we own in the life we do live in and we are constantly judged on them against the images in the media to place our gender, age, sexuality and in particular our social status in society. Lasn’s theory wrote in 2000 on consumer culture expresses similar views as what Berger could touch upon in 1972. We have now become so immersed in consumer culture that ‘Most of us are now fully detached from the natural world’ (Lasn, 2000, P4) and it has caused this knock on effect where we brand ourselves by what we buy unconsciously and consciously. The media has made us want more through manipulative advertising and ‘We embrace the value of More to compensate for lives that seem, somehow, less.’ (Lasn, 2000, P11) with gratitude to the images Berger states surrounds us of the alternative way of life and encourages the fantasy of the ideal of gaining the life the false image in the media portrays. Lasn explains that ‘the most powerful narcotic in the world is the promise of belonging.’ (Lasn, 2000, P.xiii) and that this is best achieved by conforming to the prescriptions of society. With the narcotic of belonging numbing the lives that appear somehow less to those we witness in the media, being on every corner for the right price there is a ‘manipulative corporate ethos’ (Lasn, 2000, P.xiii) driving our culture. It’s highly addictive and short-lived but it is indispensible and endless.

Lasn focus is on America but his theory speaks for consumer culture in general when he writes ‘culture is no longer created by the people.’ (Lasn, 2000, P.xiii). It is no longer what stories are passed through generations that create our culture and whom we are but we are now told by corporations with ‘something to sell as well as to tell’ (Lasn, 2000, P.xiii), a story. Are culture is now the spectacles that surround the production of culture such as brands, celebrities and fashions and we are to listen, watch and based on that, to buy. There is no room for authenticity or spontaneity; the media and consumer culture have tamed the human spirit to be an object with an identity to project an image that you are told to have, feel and behave like.

Dittmar has a very similar viewpoint on advertising in consumer culture and she explains what it is that’s causes this effect on people:

"Through the advertising and fashion industries, consumer culture presents individuals with images that contain "lifestyle and identity instructions that convey unadulterated marketplace ideologies (i.e look like this, want these things, aspire to this kind of lifestyle)" (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, P875). The symbolism inherent in consumer goods can be defined as the images of "idealized people associated with [the good]" (wright, Claiborne & Sirgy, 1992), and the message is that buyers not only consume the actual good advertised, but also its symbolic meanings (successful, happy, attractive, glamorous) thus moving closer to the ideal identity portrayed by media models."

Dittmar in the 2008 edition of Consumer Culture, Identity and Well-Being talks about how advertising and in particular the fashion industry within consumer culture tell people what they should do, feel and look like. She adds that the symbolisms within the goods are seen as ideal and the individual think they will consume when having ownership eg. successful, attractive, is through the idealized people that advertise it. The fantasy portrayed in advertising, which Berger comments on, is therefore closer because of the opportunity to gain this good the character has and to gain this ideal identity you witness and want. The significant impact this has on individuals is linked to the ideal identities that are portrayed. Advertising doesn’t just promote the products but the lifestyle and identity instructions with it, providing cultural ideals of beauty, success and happiness. The adverts present the problem that produces the self-doubt and negative emotions but also present you with a solution: buy this and it will enhance your sense of worth, in better words ‘because you’re worth it’. The productions of our culture have tapped into our emotions and from this a ‘material self’ is identified. The identity of a person is expanded beyond the body to include material goods and those are what determine the identity of a person, not themselves. The goods ‘have become modern means of acquiring, expressing and enhancing your identity’ (Dittmar, 2008, P12) and generate your social status and personality where you are constantly trying to improve yourself with hope of a better identity.

Not only does the media in consumer culture have this power of leaving us constantly wanting for a better life, identity and status but also has the power to manipulate what we in fact desire. Its power of manipulating us is through our emotions where we can be persuaded into feeling and thinking differently which inevitably leaves us not only being defined by objects we own but also subconsciously being told what objects we should and should want to be defined by. Advertising alters what we want, what we belief and what we value in life by encouraging emotions when selling objects which John Berger states in his four part series:

"Emotion is a factor in persuasive advertising that aims to change viewpoints and not simply to demonstrate the logical implications of data. In the grip of an emotion, a person not only feels differently, but also tends to think differently. Advertising that resonates emotionally stands more chance of inducing a change in beliefs and values/motives/wants/desires than one based on logic alone.” 

The emotions that would once define a person’s state now are associated with brands and objects: "Hunger equals Big Mac. Drowsiness equals Starbucks. Depression equals Prozac." (Lasn, 2000, P41). Depending on what brand you relate emotions to and react upon determines what kind of person you are and begins to define you to the rest of the world. These brands have now become forms of communication for others to acknowledge, process and judge you upon.

In modern society communication has changed, "material possessions provide people with information about other people's identities." (Lury, 2001, P8) and there is now an ‘“importance ascribed to the ownership and acquisition of material goods in achieving life goals" (Richins, 2004, P210)’ (Dittmar, 2008, p22) as a prime indicator of success to others. The key to happiness and self- definition is through your material goods as your self is made up of what you own. What you own then indicates your life achievements and how successful you are, providing the rest of society with your identity. Consumer culture has become the key to happiness and the answer to solving our emotions as well as telling us what they are. Individuals start to feel depressed by their status in society and the constant need of achievement with new possessions changing what defines success. As a result ‘You buy a house with three bathrooms. You park your BMW outside the double garage. When you grow depressed you go shopping.’ (Lasn, 2000, P55) because the only way to solve your emotion and lack of worth is through the promises the media give, people want to believe what the media believes, that you are in fact worth it. These aren’t delivered so you keep shopping in hope of happiness only for it to be short lived and disappointed.

Lasn writes how consumer culture has control of our emotions and how the constant determination to enhance our status and identity in society has also affected our social culture. Our social culture once defined individual’s identities but it is now that the consumerist cults rituals that defines them:

"The cult rituals spread themselves evenly over the calendar: Christmas, Easter, Summer Olympics, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Halloween. Each has its own imperatives - stuff you have to buy, things you have to do." (Lasn, 2000, P55)

Due to the media encouraging consumer culture every aspect of our lives is ruled over by this degradation of being a mere object to be manipulated to consume. The narcotic of belonging is relevant again, as if you aren’t to celebrate through the products of consumerism and as the media tell you to then you are outcast as strange and are somehow unfortunate and lacking in life. What used to be events and rituals of culture from tales and history that defined us have become points of contact with even more mass consumption and economic booms for the spectacles producing culture and it this new consumption ritual that now defines us. A prime example of the mass effect of consumer culture and the medias influence is Christmas. A once religious holiday based on love and family has been transformed to one where you are to ask and receive without question to still not be satisfied and shop in the discounted sales immediately after to try gain contention. The traditional generation of culture has now been lost through the media as they dictate what beliefs, memories and activities that make up your culture should be through highly publicized imagery which people copy instead of set. People of the culture have now lost control and now ‘[The] family trip to a shopping mall is the present-day incarnation of the sacred’ (Bauman, 2004, P71) leaving the true origins of our identity and culture built over centuries being lost to consumerism.

This can be shown in particular in an advertising campaign combining of Selfridges, a high end department store that transformed the shopping experience from the early 1900’s, Mother, a massive advertising agency known for it’s ‘anti-advertising’ and a feminist, conceptual artist Barbara Kruger. Kruger created a series of work which attempted to reflect the pressures of consumption on women and to expose and challenge the notion of identity construction through acts of consumption using phrases such as ‘I shop therefore I am’. Her work was a materialistic version of René Descartes "cogito ergo sum", translation ‘I think, therefore I am’, which supports Lasn’s theory that a person is defined not by what they think but what they own through there consumption. Kruger’s art was then used as part of a three-year collaboration campaign for Selfridge’s January Sales (see Fig 1 and 2).

The campaign brought the art into every day life but only with the price of having to have a company logo and sponsorship deal along side. Aiming it at a cultured middle class consumer the ‘edgy’ campaign openly expressed the emptiness at the core of the capitalist lifestyle with the joke being on the customers of Selfridges. If they aren’t to laugh along and be seen as in on the joke like the ‘educated’ and ‘cultured’ then they fear to not appear sophisticated, post-modern and media-savvy. What once was fine art that was an incorporation of phrases on the distortion of desire and corporate capitalism has been fed into the consumer culture to boost the culture for further profit and gain and actually mocks us at the same time. This is a true example of how deranged culture has become through consumption and mass media advertising. People have lost the control of culture as the media and corporations, in this example Selfridges and Mother, dictate what the culture is and places people in positions with only one direction to follow in order to stay in a status of society, laugh along with us. People aren’t to think for themselves any longer, the natural way of living is lost beyond the manufactured one and comes with waterproofing, breathable, adjustable fit for all day comfort. Every connotation of life has features and fittings to make life more ideal to live but happiness always comes with a price of consumerism. This is a depressing factor of the transformation of society and people due to consumer culture and its media but even the depression benefits them as stated earlier: ‘when you grow depressed you go shopping’ (Lasn, 2000, P55).

In general, ‘having more things means enjoying life less’ (Benson, 2008, P5) as acquiring objects fill our lives and end up consuming us. Like the advertising campaign, communication has been confused and the identity of things distorted. We spend all our time and money making decisions about pointless objects to attain an identity we’ve been sold into believing we’ll gain, in the pursuit of happiness when in fact it’s in pursuit of things which won’t. Therefore as a result we miss things that will as we attempt to satisfy ourselves with material goods. However through this miscommunication and confusion we now have from over saturated media and consumption culture we don’t realize that we are in this cycle and continue to solve the issue with more pointless objects, and in turn it in fact feeds itself and replaces the things that can achieve happiness and satisfaction completely. ‘We are pushed, prodded, programmed to purchase’ (Bensons, 2008, P3) and essentially what are social, psychological and spiritual needs we attempt to fill with material possessions. This is no surprise when messages of anti consumerism is used to promote spending at a massive department store, as how can we define and respond appropriately and functionally when even anti consumerism is telling us to buy.

As Bauman states in Consuming Life there is a ‘society of consumers’ that ‘promotes, encourages or enforces the choice of a consumerist lifestyle and life strategy and dislikes all alternative cultural options’. With this then comes a support for consumer culture and the acceptance of advertising campaigns such as Selfridges ‘I shop therefore I am’. Due to the lack of education and miss communication society begins to laugh along to appear post-modern and media-savvy because they support the consumer lifestyle as they feel it benefits them, they’ve been that manipulated and there identity has become so warped. They are a product of the consumer culture objectified into being a part of the culture and are therefore a society promoting and encouraging it.

Not only has this loss and control of culture objectified people but also it has in fact changed society, ‘our culture has evolved into a consumer culture and we from citizens to consumers’ (Lasn, 2000, P63). Consumer culture and the media have changed us from people into an object to be aimed at to sell something, feeding our insecurities for profit and manipulating us for self-system gain. It is a violent system that seduces us and gives us a sense of security in society as ‘It is in acquiring, using and exchanging things that individuals come to have social lives.’ (Lury, 2001, P12). Without this system we would merely exist and therefore we can’t help but be controlled by the consumption. With a significant impact on individuals linking to the ideal identities that promote lifestyle and identity instructions displayed in the media and advertising it would be hard to escape the system.

Lasn doesn’t see any evidence of this changing as now there is an Americanization of the world. American culture has been imperialized and forced upon other cultures until the cultures unify and adopt American cultures ways of thinking even when it’s not in the cultures best interest. This globalization has meant that this culture is produced to benefit and feed consumer culture and the nature of this becomes part of an individual, as it is now there culture. America’s values are broadcasted in every area of the world not only in fashion trends and design but also the media. You can be this person that the culture is saying to be and the media demonstrates this through images that tell you, you can be whoever you want to be by buying. The domination of the culture means that you want to be what you see everywhere and what you see everywhere is America. America is who lead the world in showing western values as they have control of mass media whether that is in fashion or film, the propaganda is surrounding cultures and molding them to fit the right attitudes to support consumer culture.

In conclusion there has been a clear transformation on society and the people who live within it due to consumer culture and its constant growth in the media. People have become an object of the culture as it steadily transforms every aspect of life into an object to sell and they become fully detached from the natural world and immersed with the images surrounding them instructing consumerism. Consumer culture has affected our identity, emotions, social communication and our values. It is a powerful and manipulation system which has accessed our self and been exploited for profitable gain. This system has created a constant need for wanting and an unreachable promise of satisfaction through idealized and manufactured imagery displayed in a variety of media. The world has been westernized for economic excess but in this has actually objectified people and lost the creation of culture that allows people to define themselves. Instead a replacement of depression and mass product consumption has formed as society struggles to survive amongst all the mass communication. The line between fantasy and reality has been disguised and society has begun to feel it possible to achieve their desires that are only manipulated and artificial images leaving society in despair with an unattainable goal. This is a constant fight people have in society today as they try and maintain an identity and ride the wave of consumer culture. What is more of a challenge to comprehend is how can we confront it when it’s controlling every decision we make.

Bibliography

Kalle Lasn (2000). Culture Jam. New York: Harper Collins.

Helga Dittmar (2008). Consumer Culture, Identity and Well-Being - The Search for the 'Good Life' and the 'Body Perfect'. East Sussex: Psychology press.

Celia Lury (2001). Consumer Culture. Oxford: Polity.

Zygmunt  Bauman (2004), Identity, Unknown

David B. Clarke (Editor), Marcus A. Doel (Editor), Kate M. L. Housiaux (Editor) (2003). The Consumption Reader. New York: Routledge. 

April Lane Benson (2008) To But or Not To Buy. Boston: Trumpeter Books

Zygmunt Bauman (2008) Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press

John Berger (1972) 'Ways of seeing - Advertising', Parts 1-4, BBC (www.youtube.com) 

Available from:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmgGT3th_oI>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q0JvXiZw7o>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbebPdXv70w>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAJovNjXMTs>

Fig 1:

 

Fig  2:

Context of Practice: Theory

 Using my research into the introduction of fashion look books I used similar phrases and words to introduce the purpose of the brand and the idea of what it's about so that when you look through the actual images it contradicts what it said eg. it says it's innovative and original when the clothes are the opposite.

 I used a quote that I used in essay which is a good introduction to the theory right at the beginning of the publication. It introduces the idea that people take on the symbolic meanings attached to the good advertised aka the clothes and the models advertising style, happiness, sex appeal and beauty. The text is placed below the models eye line so stares over the comment doesn't acknowledge the manipulation taking place in the industry.

I used images of the same model, in the same colour and in same format of clothing, a dress. This was to show the repetition of clothes, styles and mass images being put before us to consume. I ordered the photos to create a flow and to show the similarities. The first dress is a long dress with across shoulder neckline, this then goes to a short dress with the same neckline, which goes to same bottom of a short dress with a halter neck and again to a dress with an adapted halter neck. 

 I used phrases I found online on clothing websites that contradict the imagery. This one suggests it is fashion forward styles but it is plain and simple dress.

 I used phrases from pop art images of Roy Litchenstiens in the well known speech bubbles from his comic strip art. I then adapted it to the dress being named instead of a person so the clothing is a character and has a personality. This is then placed next to a model with her back to the reader and head facing the side to represent the absence of the conscious being aware of the manipulation and also to show guilt of conforming to this consumption.

I used this quotes next to this image as the women is 'wrapped' in a material self by the style and fit of the dress. Then opposite is a picture of the same women in the same dress turning her back on the reader as if she is turning on her real identity and trying to acquire a new and better one by the consumption as she expresses herself in her face and body language in the larger image. 

 I used the information of the clothing's qualities, care instructions and models measurements to represent how clothes appear as if they have characteristics and how the images carry connotations of  forming an identify of being a tall, skinny, attractive. Phrases like 'look after me' and 'about me' are similar to that of a person or living thing and also the categorising of information about a person.

 I layout images of the same model in similar dress of the same colour so it looks like its the same dress  and model in different poses and she is just rotating when actually it's showing two different dresses. This is to show the similarity of clothes and how the same thing is produced and just altered slightly to sell again to the same consumer.

 Throughout I use images of the model posing showing emotion in there face and body language to show them expressing themselves in there new identity given by the clothes and then turning there back on themselves and the manipulation. I also used product codes of the clothes at certain points one to show how there are mass amounts but also as the models are being labelled as a number and are a product of societies consumer culture.

 The faces and poses of the models are used parallel to each other to show how they are avoiding eye contact as if they are avoiding the truth about consumer culture especially in fashion.

Her facial expression could be seen as her being jealous onlooking at something or someone alongside this phrase. This shows how the culture never makes us happy and always leaves us wanting more and more. 

 I used words such as 'confident' and 'features' as words which give the clothes a personality and characteristics like there a living identity in an item of clothing.

 Repeating phrases like 'fashion forward styles' to show the repetitiveness of consumer culture

 The idea of similar clothes and the same models rotating into each other so it merges as if it's the same item is used again.

 This phrase completely contradicts the image and the dress. People is lead to believe that is because they get told it.

 I described a very simple dress in a very complex sentence to show how they over glamourised clothes to make them seem a lot more than what they are.

 I used the same atheistic as Barber Kruger's text inclosed boxes across the models eyes for the obvious reason of them being blind to consumerism manipulation and it being hidden to the eye of the consumer.

Again I used a quote from my essay about how people are under siege from media and culture. I chose to put it next to this picture as the it talks about the 'fabric' of our existence and 'woven' and I thought that dress with it's long, flowy and transparent material worked well with what the quote was suggesting..

 I did another speech bubble of Roy Litchenstiens comic strips as the phrase suggested them giving in to consumerism and purchasing in this context and is often said when deciding wether to buy or not. The models facial expression as well matches the giving in but not reluctantly as from the culture people believe it will make them happy and different to who they are.

This is parallel to this model as her face and body language is like a docile body with no emotions like a doll.

 Again this model looks like a doll or mannequin which has been moved into different positions due to the shine on the skin and stiff body language.

 I did the same as I did across the eyes but to the mouth as people loose there voice and there own identity and opinions and are made to conform to what consumer culture want. I used words to describe the dress which again have connotations to that of a living thing, 'playful'.

 I described the jeans as a 'hero' because it gives the item a sense of supernatural and a saviour which is an extreme exaggeration on a piece of clothing.

 I faced the sunglasses in at the models so it was like there were being looked, or  you could say gazed at, as well as the fact that consumer culture is all about identity and how you are defined by everyone else by what you own and wear.

 The sunglasses on the left look directly at the reader almost like an uncomfortable stare and the model and other image look in different directions. This is following on from how are identity is perceived by others and how consumer culture is constantly in our face but even if we try to look around the manipulation and avoid it but there is no way of avoiding it.

 I lay out this bag in multiple colours in various ways on the right hand side but did the large scale close up on the left to instigate that even though it may be presented in a different way effectively it is the same thing being consumed again and again.

'wrap up and buckle in' is an exaggerated term i've used to over excite a simple thing such as a belt as they do in adverts and online

 I used these names of the colours instead of pink and green as it's one way they dress up the same thing or a simple thing as something more than that like using normal things as colouring such as lime or buttercup yellow.

 I copied things from fashion articles to get the right atheistic 

This close up of a sock which is effectively is just a sock shows the over exaggeration of consumer culture in order to sell things to us.

I chose to do a look book for the brand but made it as much as the amount as more of a catalog to show the true saturation of the consumer culture as this is just a 'look' into the brands range even though there is an extensive amount of things. Therefore the quality is that of a look book but the quantity is that of a catalogue. I feel this also demonstrates the theory into my publication and the subject it is representing.