Monday Week 3: Interim Visualisations

Here are my four A3 concepts I showed at interim:

For this poster, I wanted to juxtapose a homeless person, sleeping outside in the harsh weather, with a poster proclaiming "experience the great outdoors". This shows the difference between classes and how they experience life. It's also a message about how we present our country and ignore the issues actually present. Contrast is the main design principle used here, in order to highlight the differences. It affects the colour (bright/happy vs dark/dull), scale, and the poses of the individuals. The use of scale also highlights the power imbalance between the two parties.

This is probably my favourite idea, though the layout could still do with some more changes. Particularly, I wanna highlight the sleeping person and maybe play with the sizes a bit more. I'm also still bouncing around with the final style.

For this concept I've shown a bus stop dressed up as a living room. I want the juxtaposition of nice furniture and a grungy bus stop to make an impact and highlight the issue of homelessness in New Zealand. I used contrast in lighting to highlight the living room area, as well as making the colours warm against the dark, cool backgrounds.

This one came out better than expected, but my issue is in making the meaning more obvious. Words could help, but I still want the image to speak for itself mostly.

For this design I've shown a car boot dressed up like a bedroom, with an open home sign out front, referencing the fact many homeless people end up living in their cars. As with above, this design uses the juxtaposition of home furniture in somewhere people shouldn't be living to send a message. The open home sign shows that despite in inadequacy of the situation, this is what's being sold as a good solution, just as the government has been suggesting garages as acceptable shelter in New Zealand.

I'd like to develop this one further; I feel it suffers from a similar problem as the previous design in that I need to make the message more clear in the illustration. I also wanna explore a number of different ways I could present the car, such as in a whole car yard, with a salesperson, etc.

This design is about how many homeless people find themselves living in tents. It subverts the tent, usually associated with camping and holidays, into the dreary reality it is for many people. It also makes impact by placing a tent in a cityscape, where it feels wrong and out of place.

This one is my least favourite and needs the most development. The meaning should be clearer and the text feels clunky.

Homelessness posters

I looked up some examples of pre-existing ads and posters highlighting homelessness.

The main aesthetic in showing homelessness is grungy, brown, blue and green, couples with concrete, cardboard, and rust textures. The areas shown are poorer areas with broken glass and graffiti. This is all done to provoke pity and evoke sympathy. Another common element is juxtaposition (the baby face, dishes, floor plan) to show how things should be verses how they are.

Week 2 Thursday

I've chosen to go with homelessness for my topic, or more specifically the dangerous and vulnerable situations that homeless people are forced to live in (on the streets, in cars, in tents, etc).

Some larger visualizations of some of my concepts:

Next week is interim critique, so I need to draw up 4 A3 poster ideas to bring to class on Monday.

Research: Schooling

"Retired Tauranga principal Peter Malcolm visits schools as a consultant. Travelling between decile two and decile 10 schools, he says, "you would think you had gone from one country to another"."

"When it comes to tertiary education, Malcolm graduated without debt, thanks to plentiful holiday work, and got a well-paid job. Now students pay fees and leave with debts, making further study much harder for the poor.

"Life is much tougher these days," he reckons, "and if you come from a wealthy family with the resources and networks, you're going to find those challenges much easier."

Harding mentions the school decile system and enrolment schemes, the debate around asking children to supply their own tablet computer, and the costs of school camps and concludes "we're more stretched out now".

"When I ask South Auckland principals to tell me their biggest challenge, it is poverty that springs to their lips first."

Are some of us more equal than others?

Research: Homelessness

Blanket Man’s back story – what’s really going on with our homeless

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“Maori are over-represented among the homeless, and Tangata Whenua  experience a spiritual disconnectedness from the land and from whanau,  hapu, and Iwi which adds a further dimension of disadvantage.”

“Besides single men, homelessness affects women, young people, victims of domestic violence, mental health consumers, people released from prison and families experiencing financial crisis. Certain common pathways present a high risk of becoming homeless.”

“Australian study of 103 homeless households identified five typical pathways into homelessness;

•  mental health pathway

• substance abuse

•  domestic violence

•  housing crisis

• youth pathway”

Homelessness in Aotearoa: Issues and Recommendations

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The University of Otago study, which is based on Census data, said one in 100 were homeless in 2013, compared with one in 120 in 2006 and one in 130 in 2001.

The study used the Government's official definition of homeless, which is people living in severely crowded houses, in motels, boarding houses, on the street or in cars.

Between 2006 and 2013, the rise in homeless people outstripped population growth.

New Zealand's population grew by 4.8 per cent over this period, while the number of homeless grew by 25 per cent.

The total number of homeless in 2013 was 41,075, or 1 per cent of New Zealand's population. In 2006, the number of homeless was 33,295, or 0.8 per cent of the population.

"Homelessness is worsening in New Zealand in terms of both numbers and as a proportion of the population," researcher Kate Amore said.People living in night shelters were excluded from the research.

"If the homeless population were a hundred people, 70 are staying with extended family or friends in severely crowded houses, 20 are in a motel, boarding house or camping ground, and 10 are living on the street, in cars, or in other improvised dwellings.

Homeless numbers rising in New Zealand

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"He is one of the 41,000 people in New Zealand who are severely housing deprived.
The paths to homelessness are complex. Anything from unemployment, poverty, illness, housing, addiction issues, abuse and family or relationship breakdowns can contribute towards people becoming homeless."

"Researcher at Otago University Dr Kate Amore says, as with Samuel, personal crisis can be a major push into homelessness.
Some people have been on the streets since childhood, leaving their families in order to escape terrible abuse.
For teenagers and adults chronic mental illness, sudden physical illness, relationship breakdowns and loss of employment are all factors which can contribute to a person not having a stable place to live."

"For women and children who end up on the streets the most common driver is family violence.
She says, however, that the biggest reason people end up sleeping rough in New Zealand is unaffordable housing - particularly the poor and vulnerable.
Even if they find a place to live, homeless people do not make for attractive tenants, Amore says."

"Lifewise chief executive Moira Lawler says for particularly vulnerable people, such as those with existing mental illness or difficult to diagnose conditions like head trauma, anything giving way in a person's life can lead them over the edge.
"Big life events happen to people all the time - but if you're already in a vulnerable place it's going to make things that much harder." "

The Complex Paths to Homelessness

Research: Economic Inequality

“One measure of inequality compares the incomes of those near the top (the 80th percentile) with those near the bottom (the 20th percentile). In 1980, someone near the top earned 2.4 times what someone near the bottom did, after factoring in housing costs. Now, they earn 2.97 times more.

Even when inequality by such measures isn't increasing, the nominal gap between high and low incomes continues to rise.

Since 2007, the pre-tax incomes of households at the bottom increased by $4000, on average. But at the same time, those at the top had an average $43,000 rise. Despite this, the ratio between the two stayed roughly the same.”

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“Recent studies suggest that inequality isn't just bad for those at the bottom - it affects people all along the income scale.

One study by the OECD suggests rising inequality was responsible for wiping a third off New Zealand's economic growth in the past 30 years.”

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“Max Rashbrooke , editor of Inequality: A New Zealand crisis, says a growing income gap causes people to "lose their sense of what life is like for people in the other half".

"They trust each other less, and they care about each other less and so they're less likely to extend a helping hand and feel like they've got something in common with everyone else," he says.”

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“Increasing numbers of New Zealanders under the age of 25 are falling into lower income brackets, while there are very few over 65 at the bottom of the heap.

Despite this, government payments to those over 65 have increased dramatically while those to young people have hardly changed. Since 2007, transfers to those over 65 increased from $252 to $319 a week. Average government payments to 20 to 24-year olds went from $56 to $61 per week over the same period.”

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“For some young people, higher education is not helping much. The proportion of people with bachelors degrees in the lowest income brackets has steadily increased.”

Income inequality: How NZ is one of the worst in the world

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“Rising housing costs are affecting people on low incomes, certainly. The international standard is that no one should spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs, otherwise there just isn’t enough left for other things. But the percentage of New Zealanders spending more than that on housing has risen from 11% in the 1980s to 27% now. Most of these will be the poorest New Zealanders.”

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“One of the big things that has probably happened in the last decade is a major increase in wealth inequality, in terms of the assets that people own.

Fewer and fewer people own their own home; those that do have seen the value of those homes increase sharply. Since half of all our assets are held in the form of housing, this (along with other things) means that wealth inequality has almost certainly been increasing (although we haven’t been measuring, so it’s hard to be sure).”

Bill English on housing and inequality

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Choosing a topic

I've chosen to focus on economic inequality for my project. There are a number of directions I could take this topic and I haven't decided which I like yet. The main branches I'm looking at are:

• Housing inequality/homelessness
• Schooling
• Pay gaps

I'm going to pull together some research in all of these areas before deciding on which to pursue and how to focus my ideas even further.

Week 2 Monday - Class Exercises

We started the lesson with a lecture on citizen designs, and lots of examples of how posters have been used to express ideology and social issues, such as human rights, the environment, and war.

In class we looked at symbolism and semiotics, and how they can work together to display ideas. We were assigned icons and tasked to mix them to make meaning. Then we got a phrase and thumbnailed poster ideas relating it to our chosen issue. I still hadn't decided my topic at the time, so I went with gender inequality as I had researched it for the debate last week.

Rhetoric Image Studies

I've been collecting a bunch of images (mostly advertising, some posters) for class and breaking down their use of rhetoric and FAPDs.

Week 1 Thursday - Debate

I'm talking during this morning's debate, mainly about sexism in the work place and the pay gap between men and women.

^^My speaking points^^

Our team ended up winning the debate! I feel like we did a good job of thinking on our feet and rebutting the other team.

^^Notes from listening to other teams debating^^

^^Notes from during our debate.^^

Sexism in New Zealand (Debate research)

Perceived Discrimination:

41% of people think women are face discrimination "some of the time", with 8% thinking they do "a great deal of the time".

[Source]

Education:

The number of women and men who have NZQA L4 education levels is now roughly equal.

[Source]

Careers:

Women lawyers believe gender will count against them

• Two out of three female lawyers believe their gender will adversely affect their career prospects, new research has found.
• Although female law graduates have outnumbered male graduates since the 1990s, as of August last year, only 27 percent of partners and directors in New Zealand law firms were women.
• The women thought a lack of female partners and directors at law firms to provide support and act as role models would make it harder for them to advance. They were also concerned overt sexism from some male colleagues would work against them.

Damning sexism report reveals road blocks for NZ's junior female lawyers

• Law Society figures identified 35 per cent of directors were female and 24 per cent of the 1951 partners were female, as at February 2016.

Why does the gender pay gap persist?

• The gap for median weekly earnings is now 11.8 percent, up almost 2 percent from a year ago
• National Council of Women president Rae Duff said jobs predominantly done by women were undervalued. "Sixty percent of women leave with a tertiary qualification, so we've got women who are more than capable, but they're just not getting into the higher management and pay positions." 

Gender pay gap balloons to almost 12%

"Caregiving, school support work - all those caring roles that women tend to be in aren't being valued," she said.

[image source]

Do you get paid fairly? Pay gap worst it's been in almost 10 years

"Another factor is almost half the women workers in New Zealand are in occupations that are more than 80 per cent female, and female-dominated occupations are lower paid, according to 2009 research by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment."

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We got together as a group to combine our research and decide on speakers. I'll be speaking alongside Sam and Adeline.

Week 1 Monday

We had an introduction to ihi/wehi and rhetoric, and went through some images in groups, breaking them down and discussing them.

We then as a class discussed our main topic: is New Zealand equal?

Then we split into teams preparing to debate for or against the issue. Our group is against, focusing on sexism in educational dnd careers.