Police Brutality

After doing some broad initial research I began coming across articles regarding recent cases of police brutality and how shocking some of them were. I found that there was still hundreds of incidents involving the police force (the majority in the US however some cases in other countries) every year and how so few get news coverage and the the amount of injustice to those who are effected. Below is some research on some of the most infamous examples which lead to riots and tension in communities and how it is still going on in the present day.

Rodney King/1992 Los Angeles Riots 

Rodney King was an American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped much of it from his balcony, and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage shows five officers surrounding King, several of them striking him repeatedly, while other officers stood by. Part of the footage was aired around the world, inflaming outrage in cities where racial tensions were high, and raising public concern about police treatment of minorities.

A series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident. They were the largest riots seen in the United States since the 1960s and the worst in terms of death toll after the New York City draft riots in 1863.

Robert Davis 

Robert Davis, a retired elementary school teacher from New Orleans, was arrested and brutally beaten by police on suspicion of public intoxication. On the night of Oct. 9, 2005, just a little over a month after Hurricane Katrina, Davis returned to New Orleans to check on his family’s property and went to the French Quarter to buy cigarettes. There, he was attacked by four police officers who said he was belligerent and resisted arrest by not allowing them to handcuff him. The beatings were videotaped by an Associated Press producer, who was also assaulted that night. The officers were either fired or suspended for their involvement, but many of the charges against them were cleared.

Recent Incidents 

These are just some of the few that have been caught on film over the past months.

26 November 2014

'Tamir Rice: police release video of 12-year-old's fatal shooting' The Guardian

4 December 2014

''I can't breathe': Eric Garner put in chokehold by NYPD officer' The Guardian


29 January 2015

'Seattle police pepper spray teacher at MLK rally' USA Today

March 2 2015

'Homeless man shot and killed by Los Angeles police in skid row' The Guardian

Came up in my Facebook newsfeed as I was writing this blog post.

OUGD505 - Product, Range & Distribution Initial Research

Examine graphic design outputs relating to social, political and ethical change.

Aim to increase your awareness of historical examples plus contemporary practice that is responsive to 21st Century issues.

Be sure to note the relationship between medium and message.

You should then produce a body of research work that explores the connections between these concepts and their respective design outcomes prior to your own practical and conceptual exploration of possible products, ranges and methods of distribution that may be suggested by your preferred content or, indeed, those that reflect your own ideologies, concerns and/or ambitions.

Terrorism 

Charlie Hebdo (French for Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular and atheist, far-left-wing, and anti-racist.

On 7 January 2015, two Islamist gunmen forced their way into and opened fire in the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve and wounding eleven, four of them seriously.

The shootings triggered a response first on twitter of the words 'Je suis Charlie' and was adopted by supporters of free speech and freedom of expression. This is a recent example of how a tragedy can spark a positive campaign where design is at the forefront of linking it together through the campaigning posters and illustrations that followed.    

Following European rallies in support of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after the terrorist attack on its Paris offices, tens of thousands of residents of Russia's mostly Muslim Chechen Republic came out for a government-backed protest on Monday against the "immorality" of the French cartoonists.

The anti-"Je suis Charlie" demonstration was called last week by Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov on his popular Instagram account. Kadyrov declared he would mobilize half a million of his denizens against the magazine's Muhammad caricatures and called its supporters his "personal enemies."

According to Chechnya's interior ministry, more than 1 million people came to the capital Grozny's central square to take part in the protest. Although official counts of state-backed rallies are often inflated, video from the scene showed tens of thousands of people marching and singing near the Heart of Chechnya mosque.

Police Brutality

Michael Brown 

'Witnesses have said that Brown was shot dead while fleeing a confrontation with Wilson after the officer asked him and a friend to move from the middle of the road to the pavement. Police contend that Brown assaulted Wilson, who received swelling to one side of his face and was treated in hospital. St Louis County police and prosecutors are investigating the shooting. ' - Guardian

'While the crowds protesting in Ferguson have been predominantly African American, all but one of the demonstrators showing their support for Wilson were white. A stack of dark blue T-shirts, on sale for $7 and bearing a police-style badge stating: “Officer Darren Wilson – I stand by you,” quickly sold out.' - Guardian

The shooting set off 168 days of continuous protests in Ferguson and nationwide.

Wilson hasn't faced charges for the shooting despite the protests however the case its still being fought for. It seems from some of the news reports that this is an issue of race as the the protests supporting Wilson were made up of and all white crowd.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/14/detroit-police-officer-retrial-killing-girl-7-raid

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/ferguson-supporters-police-killed-teenager-protest

Eric Garner

After Garner expressed to the police that he was tired of being harassed and that he was not selling cigarettes, officers moved to arrest Garner on suspicion of selling "loosies" (single cigarettes) from packs without tax stamps. Pantaleo then put his arm around Garner's neck and pulled him backwards and down onto the ground. After Pantaleo removed his arm from Garner's neck, he pushed Garner's head into the ground while four officers moved to restrain Garner, who repeated "I can't breathe" eleven times while lying facedown on the sidewalk. Garner remained lying on the sidewalk for seven minutes while the officers waited for an ambulance to arrive. (Wikipedia)

On December 3, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo. The event stirred public protests and rallies with charges of police brutality. (Wikipedia)



Efforts to curb police brutality 'met with more force’ – pepper-sprayed teacher

Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by a police officer in an unprovoked attack, says that what happened to him is reflective of the police brutality that is rampant across the United States. 

Hagopian – an activist promoting black causes in the Seattle area – was pepper-sprayed by a police officer after speaking at a Black Lives Matter rally on Martin Luther King Day. He was walking away from the gathering, on a sidewalk, when he was suddenly pepper-sprayed in the face.

http://rt.com/usa/228271-pepper-spray-police-brutality/

Akai Gurley

Two rookie police officers assigned to the NYCHA Louis H. Pink Houses were conducting a vertical patrol, in which officers patrol a public housing complex from the roof to the ground floor, stopping on each floor to see if there's any crime underway.

Officer Shaun Landau and Officer Peter Liang, were walking down a darkened stairwell with no lights – Officer Liang carrying a flashlight in one hand and his gun drawn with the other. The 28-year-old unarmed Akai Gurley was visiting his girlfriend and getting his hair braided before Thanksgiving. He entered the stairwell about one floor below Officer Liang. Liang was allegedly startled and fired a single shot. He hit Gurley right in the chest who later died

Understanding the deep roots of racism - Where do we stand after Ferguson and Eric Garner?
I recently read a post in Huck magazine which attempts to uncover why there is still racial tension in America and why these shootings are continuing to happen.

'Police violence towards people of colour is just one manifestation of institutional racism, which has been at the heart of the American system since the country’s earliest days. “For over half of the US’s 408 years of existence we had slavery as our foundational economic and political system,” he explains. “This country did not even become an officially free country until 1969. So only for forty-six years have we been close, officially, to liberty and justice for all – to freedom. Essentially for about eighty-three per cent of our history we had a totalitarian system for the people of colour – for blacks, Native Americans, indigenous peoples, Asian-Americans, Latinos. So these recent events have to be set in the context of a foundational, fundamental, extensive, systemic racism.” - Joe Feagin, Huck Magazine

http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/reportage-2/understanding-deep-roots-racism/

Vice 'Rule Britannia' Type and Logo

We wanted quite a hand drawn aesthetic for all the type to co-inside with Jessie's illustrations. While she worked on sketching out some characters from some of the episodes in the series I experimented with the type we would be using. The Vice logo had to be included in the ident so I started there. We couldn't make any changes to it however we could do what we wanted with the 'Rule Britannia' logo and 'A Vice Original Series' text.   

Vice Logo

After scanning in the drawings we decided which one we liked the best and matched Jessie's sketches to link both our work together. 

We wanted to move away from the obvious use of red, white and blue and create something that would make the videos stand out. During the crit a few people suggested that we use colours from the union flag but with a different Hue or twist to them.

Below are colour samples from the union flag adjustments.

Here are some .gif versions to see how they would animate in the video.

A VICE Original Series 

Wanting to continue the theme of British but not obviously British I started looking at what typefaces I could use for the rest of the text we needed. 

I came a across post on the website Font Deck Celebrating British Type which featured common typefaces created by British designers and used in the UK (Gill Sans in tube stations for example). 

Gill Sans

Eric Gill took inspiration from Edward Johnston’s typeface for London Underground. Gill Sans is described as having absolutely legible-to-the-last-degree letters by Gill himself. The typeface works well for both text and display work and has been used by British Rail until 1965, Penguin Books in the 1930’s and is currently used by the BBC.

Transport

Another British typeface associated with transportation is the appropriately named Transport. Created for the Department of Transport by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, this highly legible, sans-serif typeface is used on road signs throughout the UK. This typeface works great for bold and clear headings.

Calson 

In 1720, the English gunsmith William Caslon turned his hand to typeface design, and in 1722 designed a typeface in his name. The typeface took cues from Dutch Baroque types, which were then used extensively in England. Because of their remarkable practicality, Caslon’s designs met with instant success. Caslon was the Helvetica of it’s time; a legible and all-round typeface which saw widespread use. And three centuries later, this typeface is still as popular as ever.

These typefaces become popular because of their versatility and legibility which is important to consider when choosing a typeface for the ident as the information will need to be communicated as clearly as possible.  

Above are some British designed typefaces which can be used for the titles. 

Vice 'Rule Britannia' D&AD (Collaborative)

We decided to choose the brief Vice has set as it allowed us to incorporate animation into the project which both of us had little experience with before but would like to expand on.

To start we did a little research into what Vice was and particularly the subjects it featured in its Rule Britannia series. 

Most of the subjects they tackled were serious and often about criminal activity - which made the 'Rule Britannia' title seem satirical and a lot of the articles had a tongue and cheek tone of voice. The tagline 'The best of Old Blighty' is ironic as the articles are exclusively negative. 

We started by linking words that related to 'Rule Britannia' and then Vice's version of the term to generate some ideas and themes. 

Vice's current 'Rule Britannia' ident

The current ident used by Vice uses stop motion to make a flag ripple, referencing the song 'Rule Britannia' which was sung by the navy at sea. I feel it is a bit too literal and doesn't really communicate what the channel is about   

Animation/Film    

We looked at some existing idents to get an idea of what was already being produced and how they linked to the channels/companies content.

Film 4 

Taking shots that could be found in the films that Film 4 put on these simple idents are a good introduction to the channel. The repeated rolling of the images relates to the roll of film used to project in cinemas. I like how the type gradually comes together as the film speeds up and that it looks as though it has been placed into the scene.   

   

TWDY | New Topia

Artwork & animation by Sam Leyja, Victoria Cook and Andrew Weiler, lilfuchs.com

Music video for This Will Destroy You's song. Like how the animation flows with the song and hypnotises you into the video. The clean and simple abstract shapes and vibrant colours also help to fixate you on the animation with creative effective transitions to move from one image to another.

Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards  

Artwork & animation by Joe Pelling and Becky Sloan, beckyandjoes.com

The animation for Tame Impala's video has been created using plasticine which works really well as a material for stop motion as it is incredibly versatile and can be re-sculpted and adjusted to make smooth transitions between shapes.  

Swindle - Moodswings  

Artwork & animation by Mr. Tit (Karimo & BDID), ilovekarimo.com

Unusual animation to fit an unusual song. I like the digital illustrative aesthetic to the video and the bright bold colours used. The repetition of the images fits with the repetition in the song and 'flows' really well.   

ONE.org 10 years

Animated by Studio AKA, studioaka.co.uk

I picked out these images from this animation because they used the technique of drawing out the same text over and over to make it move. While this is commonly used in hand rendered type animation I think it is appropriate for this project to give it a natural human feel. 

     

FEATHR Initial Concepts (Responsive)

Marius Roosendaal

Geometry is the theme I want to explore for this brief so I started to look into existing artists for inspiration. Roosendaal creates illusions out of isometric shapes making them look as though they are in a 3D space. 

Part of the FEATHR brief was to create a piece of artwork specifically which also works as repeat as they were looking for something different from the usual wallpaper designs. Images that make the viewer look twice such as these would be a good place to focus my project on.    

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