COP3 Proposal

COP Practical: Final Designs

Overall the final design (see figures 1- successfully answers the brief as by showing male and female products next to each other within the same platform the redesign aims to create a more gender neutral representation of football, in regards to Adidas's branding. This is further enhanced through the minimal use of colour with the only colour being those within the products which have then been colour picked to highlight the range you've clicked on when exploring the website. This allows the colours used to relate to the products rather than gender allowing for minimal connotations to be drawn. This idea could be pushed further by removing the shop men and women to just shop now however I felt this might not encourage/ showcase that Adidas do sell products for women, therefor the design might not improve the current perceptions. Furthermore the removal of blue from the website and the use of geometric shapes works well to reduce football and Adidas brand association with masculinity whilst still retaining aspects that appeal to men. Throughout the redesign Circular Std has been used as the curved aspects to typeface and modern aesthetic allow the typeface to appeal to both men and women, reducing the masculine association with football as there are feminine elements to the typeface too. In addition to the use of product photography I've incorporated a get involved section featured at the bottom of each page which allows customers to find out about the latest training days for boys and girls, find out the latest news about professional football (men and women) and to share how they style there Adidas clothing by incorporating Adidas's #styleyour3stripes. This addition to the website looks at the social issue surrounding the separation of men and women's football, therefor by including a section within the website where people can find more information and opportunities the separation is reduced as both boys and girls are given the same opportunities. Overall the the final outcome works well to change Adidas's strong association with masculinity in relation to football branding by removing professionals and focusing on the products themselves which are sold to both men and women.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

COP 2 Project Statement

Throughout this project I've explored how societies perception of gender influences branding and consumer perception of brands. Initial research involved content analysis by looking at how brands are perceived by consumers by looking at brand personality traits, a set of traits associated with a brand by the consumer. This links to gender as brands tend to have specific associations with masculinity and femininity, these associations are important as by targeting certain traits such as masculinity and femininity a brand has greater chance as they can help target a certain group of people as ‘greater the congruity between human characteristics that consistently and distinctively describe an individuals actual or ideal self and those described by the brand, the greater the preference’ (Aaker, J 1997). However due to developments in gender roles society no longer classes masculine products as exclusively for men and vice versa as masculinity and femininity exists in varying degrees within most individual according to Bem (1974). This lead to the exploration of brand who have changed their brand personality traits to reflect the change in gender roles within society. Nike where one of the first sports brand to change their perception from an overtly masculine brand to one that speaks to women as well. This was difficult for Nike due to the masculine associations with there iconic the line "just do it" as it can be very difficult to change an existing brands associations as exiting traits are ingrained in the consumers perception of the brand. In contrast Adidias have had some difficulty in changing there brand associations over the years from there original connection with male professional footballers. Although there mainstream clothing/brand has successfully targeted men and women in recent years there masculine association with football has been difficult to change. This analysis of Adidas development over the years has influenced the practical element of this brief as the designer aimed to create a more gender neutral representation of football within Adidas's website. Once this had been established the designer looked at women in football in order to see how best to showcase their involvement within the sport in a bid to normalise women's football and reduce the separation between men and women in the sport. However once initial practical experiments had been completed I felt this avenue was limited by lack of availability to relevant imagery, leading me to focus on the products sold by Adidas to show they sell ranges for both men and women. This approach allows the design of the football section of the website to focus on the products rather than professionals, allowing for a more gender neutral aesthetic to be created. Furthermore the addition of at 'get involved' section allows part of the website to address the social issue of lack of opportunities for girls in football. This issue has been solved by showcasing training days for both boys and girls as well as a news section which includes news about male and female professionals on the same platform. Showcasing men and women next to each other throughout the whole section allows the split between the two to be reduced, normalising women's football whilst not alienating men from the website.  This outcome showcases the idea that men and women don't exclusively respond to masculinity or femininity but both which needs to be transferred to branding. The outcome also works to further Adidas progression to become more gender neutral as established within my written essay.

COP Practical: Initial Ideas

In order to further develop my initial ideas I've explore the idea of creating a poster campaign backed by Adidas to help boost participation in football at grass root levels, particularly amongst teenage girls. The use of secondary imagery allows the poster to show how much fun football can be and to normalise participation in the sport for girls (see figure 1). Furthermore the posters would link to training days that  children/ teenagers could participate in by going too, by looking for more information of the Adidas website. I've experimented with including boys training days (see figure 1) too as I don't think focusing the campaign would be as effective as including boys too. This helps normalise participation for girls by including everyone within one campaign as well as getting equal attention and opportunity as boys football as they are shown together. The use of Roboto within these experiments compliments the Adidas logo without overpowering the iconic logo, as I wanted the logo to be the main focus in order to attract attention as Adidas have limited advertising centred around women in football. The additional type communicates the idea behind the campaign, showing Adidas are working towards helping young people of all genders get into football. Initial experiments looked at the use 'get involved' however I felt this was too obvious and created less intrigue as it fully explains the campaign, meaning people are less likely to investigate further (see figure 2). Overall these experiments are successful however I feel re-designing the football section of Adidas website would have a greater impact as this is easier to implement and would reach more people interesting in football, rather than a poster campaign (see figures 3-4) as others that I've research during this brief have had limited impact as they don't require much interaction.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

COP 3 Brief

Brief:

Create a personal care brand tackling main issues of self care by creating branding and packing centred around different issues such as sensitive or dry skin rather than focusing on gender. Throughout this brief the designer should aim to explore different aspects of gender neutral packaging in order to identify what aspects are most important to the consumer. 

Research focus/Background considerations:

• Explore examples of gendered packaging to identify why they are necessary. 
• Explore the idea that gender is a social construct to see how this influences branding. 
• Counter stereotypes within branding about masculinity and femininity 
• Identify why gender neutral branding is needed and what impact this can have on consumers.

Deliverables:

• Branding for a self care brand
• Range of packaging outcomes as part of the branding.
• x6 design boards documenting design process
• Blogs 

Mandatory Requirements:

• Highlight the need for gender neutral packaging
• outcomes must be finished to a professional standard, must look like a cohesive brand. 
• Final outcome must relate and be influenced by the supporting theoretical research. 

Research References :

• It's Nice That. (2018). Gender-less or Gender-more? Addressing gender in product branding. [online] Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/gender-in-design-130917 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].
• Grosz, E. (1990). Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. London: Routledge.
• Lorber, J. and Farrell, S. (1990). The Social Construction of Gender. Sage Publications.
• Connell, R. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Storey, J. (2008). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 5th ed. Routledge.

COP Practical: Website Animation

In order to visualise the final website designer more effectively I've animated basic aspects of the website to show how the design would work within the website (see figure 1). Throughout this process I used After Effects to show the movements and button clicks, which are shown then words/section turn bold (see figures 2-3). The only issue when producing this video was the inability to add an accurate curser to move effectively show the movement, if more time was available to become more familiar with the software this could be added. The lack of curser creates some confusion when looking at the Predator section of the website as it was difficult to show the idea that if you hover over the images a description emerges but if you click and focus on either boot you can shop men and women (see figures 4-5). Whilst producing this animation the main aspects that have been manipulated have been position and opacity as this allowed to show the infinite scroll within the website allowing access to the get involved section at all times (see figure 6). Despite these issue the overall animation shows the design of the website effectively, allowing the concept to be shown by animating on small section as this allowed all the features of the design to be showed. Furthermore if more time was available to become more familiar with the software an additional curser could of been added in order to more effectively show certain aspects of the website. 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Cop Practical: Design Experiments

In order to explore other initial ideas I've looked at incorporating both male and female professionals within the football section in order to make the site more gender inclusive. Throughout these experiments I have used secondary images in order to gain an idea of how they could work within the layout of the page. Whilst experimenting with these images it was difficult to balance the imagery and text to allow all elements to be visible on one screen (see figure 1). The use of 'lets celebrate 18.1' creates an inclusive tone to the page as all player celebrate the same no matter the gender. Furthermore celebration is a very inclusive act and gives a positive message as well as promoting the new ranges of football attire by Adidas. However when developing this idea I felt it was too difficult to incorporate the whole phrase so experimented with shortening (see figure1-2) which I felt worked well but still wasn't as visually effective as other experiments. Overall although this idea does showcase both genders creating a gender inclusive representation I think earlier experiments focused on the products rather than professionals/gender where more successful in creating a gender neutral representation of football. Upon reflection of both ideas I decided to see how I could subtly incorporate colour within the designs using product photography choosing to take colours from the images featured on the page to identify each range once the customer has clicked (see figure 3).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

COP Practical: Initial Ideas

In order to respond to feedback gained based on my idea to redesign the football section of Adidas's website I've brainstormed some initial ideas to help the design processes (see figure 1) based on how to make the page more gender inclusive. I have identified some of the most interesting ideas below:

Initial ideas:

• Move away from overtly masculine aesthetic
• Include both men and women
• Concentrate on sport
• Don't include images
• Communicate common associations:
• skill
• strength
• power
• Remove imagery from Adidas's website see how looks
• remove gender completely
• Replaces faces with skills, actions, rather than people

Figure 1

COP Practical: Initial Responses

Upon reviewing the existing football section of Adidas's website I started to think about how to make the page more gender neutral/inclusive. Initially I thought to include both men and women in football however when analysing the website further I felt the whole design of the page was very masculine. This lead to experiments looking at how to showcase the existing information and products in a gender neutral way by making the products the focus rather than the professionals, as lots of the collections are inspired by male starts so by removing their faces I wanted to see if this would create a more neutral aesthetic (see figures 1-6).  Throughout these experiments product photos have been used, taken from the Adidas website in order to create a more realistic representation of how the site could look. In addition throughout these experiments I've looked at the use of colour (see figure 1) as I think this can be a main indicator as to the implied gender of a piece of design or product, choosing to use black and white as the main colours as this is very gender neutral whilst also fitting in with Adidas's existing brand/ aesthetic (see figures 2-6). Furthermore the only colour comes from the products themselves which for these experiments are the different boots available, with both male and female products being used where possible, as some lines only feature boots for men. When designing the different layout options (see figures 1- 3) I considered keeping the design quite simple so no gender associations could be drawn from the design, leading to the use of Circular Std for the typeface as this is quite an even typeface which is bold enough to show the power and dominance behind the products but no so bold that it alienates female customers. In relation to the design itself 18.1 has been used as the intro page as previously 'deadly strike pack' has been featured to introduce the different ranges, however I felt the use of 18.1 (see figures 3-4) had less of an aggressive undertone but also includes each sub-range, which are featured below the images (see figure 4). I've also experimented with different ways to show the explanation of each sub-range choosing to feature it over the photos as this created a cleaner finish (see figure 5-7). Furthermore if this was to be coded customers would click the photos to shop and hover to read the description. 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7