Research

Research to be used for the Flux presentation....

The changing roles of women.

One cultural shift that has impacted Graphic design is the change in how families function. Before the war, women were expected to stay at home and look after their families, so any advertising targeted at them would have been food or cleaning related. The men would have been the ones in control of the money so everything else would be targeted at them rather that at women.

A shortage of men in the war and later the feminist movement led to the expectation that women should also go out to work rather than stay at home. As a result they had income of there own and more say in what was bought in their households. This led to advertisers adapting to these changes by targeting women more. Also the presence of women in the workplace meant that many would start to work in the design industry, influencing designs and portraying themselves in a different way.

Increase in products which require advertising

During the 1960s another cultural change was the increase in the production of white goods and leisure items due to people wanting to save time on housework and have more fun.  As people started to have more disposable income and their standards of living improved, the market for these items increased.

Mass production meant goods were relatively cheap so people could afford to buy things that they couldn’t previously. All of this resulted in there being more things needing to be designed and advertised. Adverts changed from showing products that you actually needed, to trying to encourage you to buy something you didn’t really need at all.

Bans on advertising certain products.

More recently advertising certain types of products has been banned or the content of adverts restricted. An example is smoking. Cigarette advertising was banned in 2003 and banned from sponsorship deals such as sports teams and events in 2005. In the 1950s, cigarettes were heavily advertised and were widely used and the brands were very well known. It took the government a long time to acknowledge what a hazard to health smoking is, so it’s only now has that the advertising ban has come into place. However British tobacco companies are still allowed to advertise in other countries that don’t have a ban. Now, cigarette packets have to have a health warning on the side, and a lot of health organisations have created campaigns to stop smoking.

A recent product that has been banned from advertising is junk food, which isn’t allowed to be advertised on TV at times when children are most likely to be watching. Also, advertisers are not allowed to make claims for the healthiness of food or drink, particularly alcohol.