Weekly Inspiration #5 (WTF Edition)

http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter/telstra-optus-to-begin-censoring-web-next-month/story-fn5j66db-1226079954138


The eminent Christopher Hitchens has said that he likes to begin his days with a distinct sense of 'annoy'; I'm paraphrasing here but it is an emotion that acts as his motivator to write and to challenge the stupidity that goes on in the world.


This post of "Weekly Inspiration" is unique in the sense that I have done this segment with the intent of it being largely positive and a means to direct people towards links that instilled in me a positive inspiration. Well I am now breaking the mould as I, agreement with Hitchens, have felt that negative inspiration is just as constructive.


If this linked story turns out to be true, those of us who are concerned about individual freedom and the government's innate desire to subdue it will all collectively feel the distinct sense of annoy. This is a sense beyond shock, as we've known of government intentions to 'filter' the net for some time; this is more a sense of dread, disgust and dismay. The issue of censorship had faded away as more immediate (deliberate perhaps?) government-instigated disasters began to flood the news-space, but it now seems to be cropping up once again.


What I'm unsure about with this development is that it seems to be a voluntary initiative by Telstra and Optus, both whom I was under the impression that they had been attempting to make the push to censorship difficult for the government. But now if it turns out they are now pioneering a policy of censorship, I can imagine some mass-emigration to begin occurring with those ISPs. I wonder too what will the state of Australia's 'filtering' be when the entire country is supplied Internet services entirely from a monopoly company umbillically linked to the government.


I write this as I am forced to resubmit an advertisement for a bunch of movies to be released in August. The reason is that one of the titles briefed to me was rated R18+ and as you can imagine in the milquetoast society that Australia has become, certain publications cannot advertise movies rated as such. I suspect that the nature of film distribution in South Australia has something to do with it but in any case, I stand by the same principle... No government imposed rule should be able to prevent a population that is statistically made up a group of law-abiding, self-determinant, intellectually-competent adults from consuming media that does not directly, in its production, cause explicit and deliberate harm to anyone.

Design by Bureaucracy

As a person with a strong Libertarian inclination, I found myself recently considering the impact of Government interference in my own industry of work. Perhaps despite my better judgement, I'm going to have a crack at a socio-political discussion about Design - could anything be more cringe-worthy?

What set me on this particular train of thought was a talk-back discussion regarding a cigarette company that was seeking compensation from the Australian Government for the claim that the mandatory on-pack health warnings had affected their branding and subsequent sales. There are understandable intentions on both sides of this story, but like many similar stories that have circulated over recent years, I am convinced that the Government is in the wrong.

As introduced, I have a strong Libertarian inclination, that is, my opinion is that the role of Governments in society should be strictly limited from infringing on individual freedom. They of course have a role to play in law, justice, defence, diplomacy, health, infrastructure and education and resultantly their influences do bleed into people's lives through such provisions. However, it seems that Governments can easily over-step their bounds when they begin to interfere in people's choices.

Now, before this becomes an unwieldily broad topic, I am going to bring this back to the cigarette packaging. The intention of the Government with mandatory health warnings is to advise consumers of the known health risks of smoking and as noble as it may be, it's my opinion that the Government has not only infringed on the cigarette branding but also the work of Designers. And now busy-body bureaucrats are moving forward with laws dictating that cigarettes should only be sold in plain packaging, akin to less than a 'No Frills' branding. In effect, this would decimate any local Design studio that serviced the tobacco industry. That this was even proposed raises serious concerns about the arbitrary way the Government can affect the work of Designers. 

I know nothing about Design for tobacco so any further comment would clearly be speculation, but I would like to take these concerns and transplant them to an area of Design more familiar to me. In my own niche of the Entertainment Industry, there has been considerable Government interference which has directly affected the practice of Graphic Design. The greatest area of Government influence has been in their policies on the ratings classification of films. In around 2005 the OFLC revamped the classification system, not in any substantial way, but in a rather garish 'rebranding' - it is the same letter-based rating system, with the same points of consumer advice. Unlike the old ratings however, the new ratings device makes no concessions to integrate into the artwork it accompanies. Sitting there, in it's intrusive bureaucratic fashion, the large white device ensures that the Government's rating is the primary feature of the artwork. 

My Libertarian sympathies are greatly offended by the fact that my profession - to make the most effective artwork for DVD packaging - is impinged by the Government deciding that consumers in a free market need to be overtly educated on what content is appropriate based on whatever arbitrary age/maturity group they want to divide us into.

My Design sensibilities are also offended, mainly by the visual ugliness of this Government intrusion. Perhaps it's a lack of budget to alter the artwork, or perhaps truly no one gives a shit, but the horrible ratings device is usually slapped on in it's mandated position - like the intrusive bureaucratic fingerprint it is - with no thought to the composition of the keyart or what might be covered.

What's worse is the notion put forward that R18 rated films should be only displayed in plain packaging, not unlike with the cigarettes that got me started on this topic. No! No! No! No!!!

DVDs from the US are classified in their own system, however it is displayed on the back of the sleeve, given equal weighting to the rest of the important information about the content of the disc (running time, audio formats, aspect ratio). This is how Australia should label it's film classification, the Government does not need to step in for the Entertainment Industry to ensure films are skewed to the correct audiences, there are people employed by the film companies to do that very thing - it's called marketing. 

As a Designer my function is essentially as a branch of marketing; to visually convey a film in a way that corresponds with the desired direction chosen by the marketers. There are subtle ways in which tone, colour and composition can inform a consumer if a film is right for them, ways which are much more effective than a colour-coded categorization. The Government should not be in the business of marketing because, unimpinged, we professionals will do it better every time.

Star Wars Blu-ray Key Art (continued) The Original Trilogy

The first thing that can be said for the key arts for the separate trilogies is that they are certainly more dynamic then the artwork for the Saga collection, which I've already talked about in my previous post. Overall, I quite like the art that has been created although it's not without its problems, both separately and as a whole. I am again glad that some level of artistry was implemented over the style (or lack thereof) of the DVD key arts.

I'm going to begin with the Original Trilogy, mostly because I am strongly of the opinion that this is where the experience of Star Wars MUST begin. Without the original films, the Prequels would have even less resonance. The Star Wars Prequels were written, designed, filmed and marketed with the original films very much in front of mind; the full intended effect of those films is inextricable from the iconography of the Original Trilogy. After all, the main hook of a prequel story is that each progression in the story foreshadows what we already know is to come. But back to the artwork...


Like with the Saga boxset, this artwork utilises a style that pays homage to the 1977 posters for Star Wars, but unlike the Saga box the artwork is dynamic, detailed and employs a colour pallet that identifies Star Wars more successfully. In fact, the dynamism of this artwork is so far removed from the Saga box that the 2 seem visually divorced from one another, I count this as a mark against the Saga Collection key art. What I like most about this style of artwork is that it embraces it's hand-painted artistry, it doesn't try to disguise the painting but instead uses bold strokes and spatters, although I think it does over-do this effect to a degree.


Featuring Vader in this artwork is almost an inevitability, and it's actually surprising that an image like this wasn't used for the Saga Collection artwork; Vader is after all the most recognisable and iconic character from the films. The only problem with this choice I find is that the concept introduced by the Saga box is at odds with what the separate trilogies are telling us about the films. The Box key art tells us that the Star Wars films are about the mirrored journeys of Anakin and Luke. It would then seem to make more conceptual sense that the Original Trilogy featured Luke as its focal character, in fact Luke is given hardly any prominence in the collage of characters and I think that is a big misstep.


While I'm on the topic of the missteps of this artwork, the biggest problem with this key art - the one that stops me from finding it as a poster and framing it on my wall - is the artwork's general lack of structure. I like the concept of 'hiding' characters within the image of Vader as it were, but it has been done without a real sense of layout and we really just have various key characters filling in the empty spaces that happen to occur in the Vader image. If the collage of characters had a layout that better fit the available space, then this artwork would be almost faultless.


Before I move on, I'm going to make a prediction (see below) that if this artwork sees the light of day here in Australia, Lando, Leia, Han, Chewy and a third of C3PO will be skillfully and with the greatest of finesse omitted from the front in favour the crucial consumer rating that defines the superior packaging design available to Australian Consumers.*
(*please read sarcasm)