FINSHED!

7,846 words,  46,718 characters,  78 paragraphs, 1 panic-y moment thinking I'd deleted my progress journal,  innumerable rewrites,  3 chapters, 1 intro, 1 conclusion, 73 related tweets, a lot of chocolate, some tears and more panicking = one finished dissertation.

As of Friday 30th November I bid farewell to my dissertation. This also means everything I post and do from here onwards in relation to this project  is purely for the fact I enjoy moaning and won't shut up about because I read a book or two.

Teal Triggs

I recently asked Teal Triggs the same question I've been asking everyone and anyone: where are all the women?! Triggs is a designer, academic and lecturer I’ve long since admired, she's done some great work on fanzines, her book on the subject is currently sat on my desk as I type.  Working at RCA at the moment, she was kind enough to give in to my constant email harassment and answer my questions. (I'd equate the feeling of receiving Triggs' email to that of a 10 year old girl at a One Direction concert.) I'll only be touching upon a fraction of the 2 page word doc Triggs sent in this post and will save the rest for hardcore dissertation-ing and maybe even a 'Part 2' to this in the future. 

Visibility and why women aren't as prominent in design as men is something I've been considering for a while. By a while I mean 4-6 paragraphs of my essay. Why are the most well known designers male? 

Lets do a quick exercise, I want you to get a stop watch, set it to a minute, now list as many designers as you can. (I’m assuming you’re in the design industry, if you’re not, here’s a link to a Wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graphic_designers just play along and spend the minute copying down names instead) Go. Okay, stop. Look at your list. 

Vignelli, Sagmiester, Ollins, Willer, Müller-Brockmann, Lubalin, Scher, Hyland, Pearce, Brody, Shaughnessy, Hunter, Aicher. 

Very good, some nice names, both classic and contempary, top marks. Now, I didn’t have to search hard for these names. These are the sorts of ‘intro to design’ names, the ones you learn on your first day at design school, in the first hour of the first lecture of the first term. They are virtually ‘household names’ in the industry, so why do only three of them (Marina Willer, Paula Scher and Nat Hunter) have a uterus? Triggs makes a good comparison with a journalist’s network and how that “is often limited to who they already know - and, as such, for expediency, it tends to propagate the use of the same names highlighted in design publications." Much like, associative memory; Cordelia Fine explores this in her book ‘Delusions of Gender’. “The principle behind learning in associative memory is as simple as its name suggests, what is picked up are associations in the environment" It seem this is  a  recurring theme in most of these interviews: the issue of visibility. To quote Sarah Maple quoting a feminist: "you can't be what you can't see".  Triggs continues to say how she "often get asked for names of women working in design! Sometimes, for all sorts of reasons, you have to dig a little harder.” 

Graphic Design is an industry which is hidden, we're the sub-conscious image fairies, the elves of subliminal visuals who make signs legible, adverts clever and typography beautiful, all the while the shoemaker sleeps. Despite this appalling metaphor, what I'm getting at is: we aren't always seen, and arguably, nor are we meant to be. Triggs says "graphic design isn’t usually ‘noticed’– unless, of course, it doesn’t work or make sense to the general public." She goes onto give the example of the London 2012 logo and brand. Being such a high profile project everyone had a opinion, but how many know the studio and designers behind it? 20 internet points if you can name them without Googling."There are many other examples, but if graphic design isn’t being recognised as a profession, I would suggest the struggle for women and our position in the public’s eye will continue to be a challenge" Agreed, when an entire industry is almost invisible, what hope do we have for minorities within it? How are we meant to find role models without the need of an industrial-strength shovel to dig deeper? 

Nevertheless, there's a lot we can do, Triggs suggests that "the greatest thing that can happen is to ensure that the specific issues facing women in design don’t get buried." Right in that case I'm keeping the aforementioned shovel. "We need to keep talking and keep the issues out there…lobbying professional organisations to be more aware of being inclusive in the selection of juries and conference panels; and including politically-inspired campaigns which not only raise awareness, but also suggest solutions" There's a bunch of collectives and groups doing just that, and there's plenty of room for more. Lots more. We may not have gender equality in design now but if we keep talking, typing, trying,  surely its only a matter of time?

A little thought

Whether it’s a question of not having enough women, or maybe that there are enough women but only in certain areas, it still remains that education plays a significant role in the reflection of women in the workplace and industry

With over two million students in 2010/2011 (http://www.hesa.ac.uk/content/view/2601/) and for the first time, as of 2010, 51% of young women choosing to enter higher education. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8596504.stm). The demand and need has never been higher.

Now, bearing this in mind lets think about the recent austerity measures and cuts in to higher education in particular the cuts to humanities and arts.

One night possibly even early morning, Arts and Humanities were sauntering back home only to be confronted by the Tory Government, beaten to an inch of their life, left in some alleyway in the middle of London without a phone, robbed of every penny and their credit cards. Friends of Arts and Humanities, blame themselves, ‘I should have walked back with them’, ‘we could have shared a cab’ ‘why didn’t I call to check?’. It’s all crying over spilled milk now, those two won’t ever be the same again and sadly the trauma will last a lifetime.

Quite simply: less money for educating creative’s means less creative’s.

Where does that leave us? 

Planning and more to come

I've just planned out the next 3 months of my life and Dissertation is at least a good 80% of it. Also an interview with Teal Triggs is to follow,  watch this space.

Noel Douglas

Noel Douglas is a designer and lecturer; a lot of his work has some brilliant politically sharp messages slicing through with a dash of satire to boot. My personal favourite being a poster of the ever-wonderful Mr Brown, there are also a few mocking Brown’s predecessor hanging about on: http://www.noeldouglas.net/, definitely worth a visit.

Noel is also organising a movement called Occupy Design born out of the tents of St Pauls last year, it has been thriving ever since. I definitely recommend giving this a visit: http://occupydesign.org.uk/ 

I’m a firm believer of ‘designing for the revolution’ and all that jazz. In an industry which is seemingly built upon selling dog food to the poor *nods towards the First Things First Manifesto* it’s time we see that with great power and over use of corporate Helvetica comes great responsibility and kerning. 

I asked Noel the same question I’ve been asking all my interviewees, ‘where are all the women?’ For some time there has been a little voice in my head saying: 'Some of them have kids, they set up a family and they’re too busy doing the school run to fix that baseline grid anymore’ although, it might be true for some, but is it necessarily true for the majority?

After some serious thought I realised I was too focused on trying to find a reason, any reason, expect the most apparent one, I was avoiding the obvious. Noel pointed out, brilliantly so might I add, that “saying women are affected because of kids, is not to be sexist and to presume women look after kids and men don't: it's acknowledging that in our sexist societies things are structured to make it as difficult as possible for women to escape these pressures.” This would go fittingly in the chapter of my dissertation entitled: Screw You Society You Oppressive Bastards.

According to my research so far and general chats with strangers, it seems that society has a lot to answer for. Society and culture: studio culture to be more precise. In the majority of the studios I’ve worked at, men have outnumbered women, that’s just an observation not an accusation (I promise). The women in those studios were fantastic and ‘gave as good as they got’.  Noel pointed out how there’s “very much a lads culture in a lot of graphic design which again doesn't allow for quieter or less confident/loud voices which also adversely affects women” Agreed, this ‘lads culture’ becomes more apparent in the really competitive work environments, we’re talking about those in top 5% of their profession.

But there’s also the working culture. Every designer here knows those 3am panic deadlines. Those endless cups of coffee. The technical-end-of-workdays at 5.30pm, which actually end somewhere closer to 9:30pm. Constant checking emails in case that arsehole from the printers has gotten back to you with a quote. Having lunch over a keyboard. Laptops also becoming multipurpose pillows. Re-touching that logo for the 7^th time halfway through dinner despite the fact you’ve told your client you were only going to do the one revision. This culture, in the words of Noel, “mitigates against people when they have children or caring responsibilities. These cultures are bad and stop women from being able to work and develop careers, the 'design industry' is very unprofessional in this sense (and the same goes for internship culture) and that is, in part, because it is made up of smallish studios dominated by strong characters; who are usually men.”

Oh and don’t even get me started on the pay gap. Having a uterus has become even harder under this coalition. Noel also commented on how the “lack of childcare, lack of flexible working patterns, and the fact that in most relationships the man will still be paid more (often for the same work) mean many people have no choice, especially financially, but to break the woman's career not the man’s”. Now multiply that by the cuts and these ‘austerity measures’ we’ve had cooking up as of late and you’ve got yourself a recipe for some lightly salted patriarchy poached with a side of braised capitalism (celeriac puree is optional).

Before I head off, the above metaphor has left me rather quite peckish, I think this ponder-rant leads me nicely onto the next. It’s not just women. Bad studio culture? How about stay-at-home dads affected by it? Lads culture? Needing to be shouty to get anywhere? Can we still realistically pursue a career in design with today's economic climate? A lot of the above mentioned isn’t just affecting women. There’s a whole chunk of minorities who are being under represented in design industries because of this. Where are the women? I think it should be 'Where is everybody?'. 

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Thank you to Noel Douglas for answering all my questions and also all his fantastic work with Occupy Design (another shameless plug: http://occupydesign.org.uk/) 

Sarah Maple

I carried out a little interview with Sarah Maple and she threw back some really interesting responses. Here’s a round up:

Sarah Maple is an artist, not a designer, but I feel that this idea can extend to all creative disciplines. (Also I’m quite a fan of Maple, so any excuse to knock on her inbox, I’ll take it.) Maple’s work is fantastically feminist, what I really love about it, is how she boldly takes on taboo. You just have to take one look at ‘Menstruate with pride’ to see how she’s sticking a finger up to, by which I mean intellectually challenging and visually debating, preconceived notions of women’s roles within society. Screw you tampax, you oppressive bastards, or something to that effect. 

If you fancy drooling over her work too, take a look at: www.sarahmaple.com, also I picked up this print about 5mins ago on a whim: http://bit.ly/TMDz12 considering sticking this to the front door, because doormats are sooo 2011.

Now onto the serious stuff:

Where does this gender divide begin, I personally suspect it starts in education. Maple noticed by her third year in Uni men were treated differently to women, she says “I found that the men were immediately taken more seriously and the girls got a lot more of a harder time in crits. It was as if the guys had automatic respect for their ideas and the women had to fight harder for any recognition at the same level”  

I completely agree, I’m fortunate enough not to experience this in my educational institution, but in a broader sense it bugs me that I have to work twenty times harder than my male counterparts. Not because I dislike hard work (I love hard work), but because my hard work would never be valued in the same way. Arguably if you’re a heterosexual white guy with a middle class background, then things tend to be in your favour most of the time. They could produce the same work and be just as competent as me but are considerably more likely to succeed due to the way society is set up.

At this point a few of you might say  ‘Whoa, back up now Soof, take a chill pill that’s just you seeing the world like some sort of feminist Matrix’ I wish it was, I really do. Maple makes a brilliant point about when she went to a talk at the Tate  “I saw the statistics in the differences in the number of shows given to women and the number given to men. On the majority of big galleries it is at least 75% male” What’s more is when you really start getting all heavy with the numbers this imbalance is happening across the board from art, to design to architecture.

It’s not just a few of us kicking up a fuss over nothing. Women are seemingly hidden from mainstream art and design. Yes, yes, there are a few names but why only a ‘few’? Surely the world is 50/50 (well technically 48/52: men/women) gender wise, why isn't that reflected everywhere, naturally? Where are all the women?

You could argue actually forget this whole 50/50 split thing, there aren’tenough women going into design education which in turn means there are probably less female designers out there to get the numbers you’re after. Good point, well made, *falls to knees with hands in the air in a dramatic fashion* but WHY?!

As mentioned before its seems harder for us to get into and also it might be because there aren’t enough role models and if there are, they’re little known, so we assume there aren’t any. Maple agrees: “One of the most inspiring quotes I heard from a feminist was 'you can't be what you can't see.' And i think it is as simple as this, like the way advertising works. You emulate what is around you. I think if women do not see other women living successfully as designers subconsciously they will choose another path.” The woman is a god-damn poet, I tell you!

So far this has just been me throwing around ideas and questions at strangers. I still don’t have a definite answer and I’m reluctant to pin this down to one thing. Everything here is just ponderings and should in no way be considered as an answer or fact. I suppose this is just a big exercise in pondering and pondering I am. (Lovely word: pondering)

I’d like to end this ponder-rant (coining this term for everyday use) with something said by Maple which makes me think ‘all is not lost’: “We need to get more female creatives out there and cause a viral affect to inspire more women.” To which I say: Let’s go Fenton on this shit. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU)

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Thank you to Sarah Maple for taking her time to respond to all my questions and hopefully for not suing me for stealing the above picture from her site. 

Reading and research

Reading, researching, thinking, procrastinating, reading some more, thinking again. Sentences, paragraphs and chapters in the making, (allegedly).

Sarah Maple

I've had some fantastic feedback from a wonderful artist called Sarah Maple. I'm going to fully review her answer in the coming week, so watch this space. In the meantime I recommend having a little look at her work: http://www.sarahmaple.com/main.htm She's brilliant.

Hello

I'm currently about to dive into my 3rd Year studying Graphic Design, for my dissertation I asked "are women underrepresented within creative and design industries?"

Many of you may have stumbled across of this blog because you're currently in possession of the leaflet below (the leaflet also doubles up as a poster, nifty) or because you excessively stalk me on twitter. Whichever, I'm glad you're here, take a seat, grab a drink, sit back and watch me pester designers, feminists,  activists and strangers by asking them 'Where are all the women?!' This blog catalogs my research, thoughts and eventual mental breakdown as well as The One Poster Project.

The One Poster Project is a project where I've sent the aforementioned poster out to a range of designers, feminists and generally awesome individuals to stick up and photograph in situ. It's about changing the world with a single poster and raising awareness. All these photos will be posted up here, (you'll receive an email when your photo 'goes live'.)