This week's research

This idea can be applied to fake news too – 'Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult'.

Here’s what Hans Zimmer says about the shameful agony of creativity

"Today, Zimmer is an accomplished composer who Hollywood directors and producers seek out, but he still believes he must go through “a period of agony and torture” before achieving a breakthrough.

Despite his creative setbacks, Zimmer pushes himself to avoid fixed ways of thinking, and he advises new artists who want to do the same to try something new every day.

How can you find an idea that’s novel and useful, as Hans Zimmer did with the Dark Knight soundtrack? Well, I’d like you to think of your creative project as like a mountain.

At the top of this mountain, you can mine bizarre, outlandish and absurd ideas and at the bottom of the mountain you can extract practical, relevant and logical ideas.

Now, you’re not looking to set up camp at the top of this mountain because conditions up there are too inhospitable for your ideas to thrive. There’s also little point in settling at the bottom of this mountain because basecamp is a crowded place; we’ve all been there before.

Instead, there’s a hidden place between the points of absurdity and relevancy rich in novel and useful ideas. Think of it as like a secret forge where you can combine the novelty of the absurd with the applicability of the practical. Here, you will finally master your inner genius.

Be absurd as possible

The next time you’re struggling with a creative project, try to come up with as many absurd ideas as possible. Push past your point of comfort and cognitive biases and have fun with your ideas, fantasies and daydreams.

… then seek out what’s relevant

Once you have these absurd ideas, work your way down to what’s relevant — move from composing music with razor blades toward the cello playing a single note. The climb down is always easier. Remember, it’s okay to explore hunches, probe new avenues of thought and bring back anything unusual or odd that you find. Later on, sift through these discoveries and figure out what’s usable and what to put aside.
Your creative ideas are never wrong, not even the absurd ones."

Library Fake News talk

The uni library had a fake news talk yesterday, and I was the only one that came along! Subsequently I had a fantastic one-on-one session with the CoCA Librarian, Lauren Deacon, discussing my project and the whole topic of fake news.

Notes:

• Although fake news has been around for ages, through propaganda and false advertising/journalism, it was only picked up widely as an impactful force after the 2016 US election. It affects and impacts our relationship to the media, particularly after the rise of the internet, and there is the temptation to believe the news that you want to be true. Because of this it can facilitate conflicts between groups of people on different sides of a standpoint. It is most commonly fuelled and spread through social media outlets, and can have a big say on global topics of interest from it's online, wide-reaching presence. Articles are targeted to what people have previously viewed online, so that it suits their viewpoint and delivers what they want to hear, says this study in the Cornell University Library.
• People are strangely more likely to trust strangers than friends of family close to them, as shown by this study.
• Facebook's view on fake news has changed from 'not my problem, I only run a system that people use, and policing that would be a violation of free speech', but that viewpoint has changed, and Mark Zuckerberg released this manifesto.
  
  How to combat Fake News:

1. Release your inner skeptic:
   - Places like The Onion deliver obvious satire, poking fun at events in order to bring to light the strange ideas or underlying concepts surrounding them.
   - Trump endorses fake news to seem like an everyman, positioning himself as someone who appeals to everyone and is like fellow Americans.
   - How do you get critical thinkers at high school?
   - Fake news sites often have prominent sharing buttons and often much advertising (which is interesting from a design point of view) because they want to be widely shared and increase their website traffic
   - Huffpost is legitimate-ish. Some articles have vague and clickbait-y headlines.
2. Who wrote it and who owns it?
   - Does it offer you background information and links?
   - Fake news sites often have 'buy' and 'create own content' buttons, and particularly 'create own content' makes the authors virtually anonymous.
   - The Shovel is an Australian satire website, but it doesn't very fake. The header is one of the only indicators that it's not as professional as it seems.
   - Two fake news sites are endingthefed.com and Occupy Democrats
   - Fake news can be life-threatening, like in the case of fake research that was disproven about vaccinations causing autism. Although disproven and discredited by scientists, anti-vaxxers use it as their primary point for not vaccinating their children, putting them and others around them at risk of preventable diseases.
3. Go above and beyond
   - Compare all information, don't read in a vacuum. It's important to always look at multiple sources and compare the information in them to weed out discrepancies.
   - BloombergView.com "Why fake news spreads so fast on Facebook"
   - Psychology of spreading information, such as the reach of a single Tweet on Twitter. A single tweet from a small account without many followers can be seen/have an impact over 1,000 times. The things that we say impact a very large number of people, whether we notice it or not. Facebook accounts for pages show the statistics of people numbers, clicks and views, but individual profile pages don't show these same stats – is this for our safety? People might get caught up on their popularity and sharability values.
   - Is academic language creating a blockage for less educated people to learn about the news without being conned?
   - Tone of voice is lost online. Satire or sarcasm can be taken for truth (or the other way around)
   - Filter bubbles – only encounter what peers share and see.
   - Linguistic element and location of headlines in newspapers and trending stories. Stories in prime places on websites and newspapers get read much more often, and if the headline isn't interesting, people are far more likely to skip over the article.
   - We're bombarded with so much information, and we can't fact-check it all.

• In an age group of 16-21 year-olds, is disengagement a form of self-care? Is it compassion fatigue from being bombarded by so much information with heavy emotions often attached to it, it's easy just to block it out, to read a headline and then move on. I think I fall under this category, being an emotionally driven person means that I generally block out and disregard the news because it always makes me sad. There isn't enough/enough emphasis on positive news.
  
  On T-shirts:
• M.I.A. tour shirts – she was interested in ending unfair labour and production, so people who wanted her merchandise were given the designs and could print their own.
• B.C.I. by Cotton On, the Better Cotton Initiative
• High Snobriety - a collective of internet-famous people, who can promote and alleviate the status of a person online with only one repost. They are trendsetters and path-forgers with a big say in the nature and aesthetic of internet culture and ideas.
• 'Wearables' – wearable technology & fashion crossover. Will promote sustainability in the future through being able to be digitally customisable physical objects. The Apple Watch is one example.
• Partner with a corporate, and create a range printable on demand in any size. This keeps the cost down, and ensures that there isn't extra wastage from unwanted garments.
• Have a recyclability element, like the Adidas 'Partner With The Ocean' campaign that created shoes entirely from recycled fishing nets
• Guerrilla marketing – An element of 'clickish' behaviour made physical, and to bring a positive end.
  
  On the idea of Twitter handles/QR codes on shirts:
• This may be problematic, as it means that people first have to take an extra step, and actually DO something, message somebody, look them up. It doesn't just come to them easily. I'll likely lose a lot of people at this first step.
• People may find that if there's already an online conversation in progress, they don't want to butt in, and everyone may be already saying what they want to say.
• There is potential to localise this to a community, but I don't want to come across as baiting them. There is potential here for backlash in online discourse, which isn't good – unless I want to encourage discursive conversations? Create a stir and have the campaign start from there?

More Fake News Research

1. Football parade or Trump rally?

'News' websites reported that a parade for the Cleveland Cavaliers was a Trump rally, and it caught on and spread like wildfire

2. Scaremongering with an old hurricane

Panicked people bracing for a hurricane are likely to latch on to whatever they read, if it looks plausible. Sometimes it's hard to know what is and isn't fake news – why would there be any doubt about this? Article from Buzzfeed.

3. Fake News as a joke

Twitter comedian Jonny Sun doctored screenshots of Google Search to show that the middle names of a famous celebrity couple were the names of their children. It was a harmless social experiment that he admitted to soon after, but tens of thousands of people ran with it as fact and carried it on, and will likely never know that what they believe to be a cool fact isn't true. People even responded with things like "I've known this fact for forever, why has it taken everybody else this long!??". The experiment was well summed up here.

4. How Fake News influences elections

A video interview from Newshub on how fake news can manipulate voters and sway them to vote a certain way, as 'cyber propaganda'. Finding a way to stop it's spread can have a physical, global impact on the futures of nations, and even as far as the planet.

5. Human-Centered Machine LearningCould we fight fake news with it?

"Machine learning (ML) is the science of helping computers discover patterns and relationships in data instead of being manually programmed." writes Jess Holbrook for Medium. He goes on to describe the ways in which machine learning is advancing and will interact with our online environments in the future. I'm interested in what it can do for inhibiting the spread of fake news.

Supercrit Feedback and Reflection

A piece of my display wall. Some of the posters and the t-shirts weren't up when I took this picture.

Here are the notes I took from today's supercrit about where to go and what to do next:

Talk to the Toystore about using augmented reality for the posters - could you make them even more immersive?
Virtual reality is certainly immersive and impacting, but I'm not sure how I could use this on a street poster – they aren't that accessible. If I moved my space from physical posters to a virtual form it could work, but where and how would they be viewed, and how would that relate to the other aspects of my project?

Look at the Starbucks Race Cup promotion, an epic fail.
The-inside-story-of-starbucks-race-together-campaign
Starbucks was attempting to weigh in on the racial conversation happening at the time, by having their baristas write 'Race Together' or a number of questions on the cups, with the aim to start discussions around race and equality for the positive. Unfortunately it was seen as a thoughtless act weighing in on an issue from a privileged white point of view, and the company got a lot of anger for it. They had created the widespread discussion they were aiming for, but not in the way that they expected.

Actual shirt, just one symbol, key word, hashtag, QR code. Twitter handle? This way the people become the posters, which starts conversation.
This could be a good way to start discussions with people anonymously – perhaps if people knowledgeable on the topics on their shirt also had hashtags or Twitter usernames displayed, then people could tweet them questions and create an online discussion database through physical medium of clothing. It's a good way to spot local people in your area who you could discuss things with, either in person after arranging a catch-up through Twitter, or in an online environment.
I'll need to make the shirts more interesting and eye-catching, they also need to be appealing for people to buy, and if this idea written above goes ahead, personalised for each person with their Twitter handle. They'd also need to be verified somehow that they're knowledgable on the topic. Perhaps a hashtag would be simpler because it works for everyone.
I like the idea of people becoming the posters. There's something interesting in that.

Mon - Friday t shirts for each day
How many people actually do that? I'm not sure if that idea would fly so well.

Why will they wear it?
They will wear it because it looks cool and they're passionate about the issue. Can we make them more passionate about the issue through educating them, or through cool-looking t shirt designs, perhaps?

Do you want to make it political? Remove Trump from them, perhaps. Having politics in there makes it an argument.
This does make it a bit easier when talking about overseas problems or tapping into the US market. He was my favourite first illustration though! :)

How can you use them to start conversations?
Make them engaging and original through designs on them, and perhaps the way that they interact with their environment?

Needs a label name.

For now it's this little guy, but I think the designs on the shirts will influence the final label name.

Ethical (local?) fashion vs Fast Fashion?
This is a tricky one. The issues are current and have a quick turnaround, but clothing these days is favouring slower fashion that is worn and lasts for longer, as this benefits our planet (and I agree). Particularly when talking about issues such as climate change, it makes sense that the shirts are ethical and sustainable with a small environmental impact. How can I make them sustainably while still having a fast turnaround, or do I have to sacrifice one of those options? Could I make shirts that work across a range of different topics (and does this lose the cool factor of current and in-the-know)?

Change the background colour of the t shirt. Make hundreds of iterations.
I've got some books out to help me with doing creative and different ideas for t shirts. It's a simple and often-used medium, so I want to make it stand out as best I can. Here's an early example I've found by Fed-Ex.

Patterns can hide the information.
Patterns are a current trend that means I can get a lot of information in there at once, and people can use the pieces to get an idea of an overall topic, but I tend to agree. I'll look harder at other options.

10/5 Reflection Document

After class we were tasked with writing a quick summary of what we learned that day through critiques, amongst other things.

What critique experience you found useful and why:
I found it useful to get multiple perspectives on my work from people doing a variety of topics. The different things that they were doing for their major projects meant that they approached and problem-solved my work from various different angles, giving me new ideas. I also found it helpful to get ten minutes of un-interrupted lecturer critique and next-steps so that I know how far along I am, how on track I am and what I should focus on in the next few weeks.

What you intend on doing and showing after the break:
I’ll be showing lots more t-shirt designs – I’d like to explore how to make a t-shirt design unique, fun, and original, as they are so overdone and need to be interesting and new to be effective. I might also show any new ideas I think of for spreading the reach of my project in an experiential way, because I don’t think that my current idea has quite hit the mark. There’s nothing particularly special or exciting about it right now.

A short summary opinion of what you saw at the supercrit:
The supercrit showed that people were at all different stages of their projects, but those whose projects seemed to be the most successful and the furthest ahead were the people who had done the most experimentation and iteration. I find that so difficult to do, so another holiday goal is to do a new iteration every day for a week, and see how it goes. Likely the answer to unlocking this puzzle that I’m currently stuck in is to create, create, create.

Making a Poster

I started with a QR code generator, and the website address of 'newsbusters.com' from here: www.qr-code-generator.com

I've found some examples of QR codes being used in really effective ways to elevate the level of experience and interaction that viewers have with the poster. It takes them from being passive 'viewers' to active 'explorers/advancers' of the digital space that is created, giving them a sense of wonder, discovery and satisfaction.

This video CV is of particular interest and inspiration to me, the talking mouth shows fun, personality and makes a memorable piece of media that certainly won't be overlooked or forgotten by potential employers.

Incorporating the image into the QR code

Incorporating the QR code into the image

I took my template for a plain white shirt from www.ascolour.co.nz.

The idea with these posters is that scanning the QR code will start a video playing in the background, behind the shirt. The video will show fiction vs reality on the world issue related to the shirt on the poster. The t-shirts on the poster will be real shirts, stuck on at the corners, that people can grab off the posters if they are the first one to find them. Underneath is a photograph of the shirt, so the posters will still make sense.

Option 1: This first option has a bottom bar that stays fixed throughout the video, and focusses entirely on the shirt with it's white background. On a crowded wall of broadsides, or simply in city life, there isn't much white or empty space to look at, so although it's simple, in juxtaposition it is bold and eye catching.

The video plays behind the shirt, and the bottom banner stays fixed to anchor the information.

Option 2: Having the text of the poster on the empty background space. This does mean that it needs to be moved/removed when the video plays though. The answer is a top-of-the-page banner, which might have headlines related to the video scroll across it as the video speaks. The video itself is split down the middle to juxtapose the fiction from the reality about the issue.

These videos would be about a minute in length, as people on the street do not have much time as they pass by in which to engage with advertising.

Of these two options so far, I prefer the first one, because it is more cohesive, but I like the idea of the split video in Option 2. The poster still needs work, but for tomorrow's showing this gives a good enough idea.

T-shirt and marketing trends research

This article from Social Media Week shares what it believes are the biggest tips for marketing to Millennials. Although the language is rather opinionated, the ideas are largely correct, and I'm happy to see that my campaign will cater to all of these factors that they care about.

Marketing to Millennials

Millennials Express Themselves Through Brands
Millennials express themselves through brands and want brands to have much more than a just a logo. They want brands to have a personality that they like and can relate to.
Millennials use brands to show who they are, particularly the younger Millennial. It is important that Millennials either want to be like your brand or already are like your brand. Half of millennials aged 18-24 years feel that brands say something about who they are, their values and where they fit in. Forty percent are even willing to pay extra for a brand or product that reflects the image they wish to convey about themselves.

Millennials Want To Be Your Friend
Friends are hugely important to Millennials, and they have a large circle of friends. Millennials have more friends online and probably offline than any other generation. They also look up to their friends and marketers should develop their brand in such a way that Millennials would like to befriend it.
Millennials most of all want friends who are trustworthy but also genuine, sociable, mature and humble. Brands should bring these qualities across in their brand when marketing to Millennials.

They Want To Experience Your Brand
“Spend money on experiences, not things” – is true for Millennials more so than any other generation. Millennials love experiences, after all they are the ones attending the parties, concerts, festivals, shows and sports games. Nearly 8 in 10 Millennials say some of their best memories are from an event or live experience they attended or participated in.
Based on recent studies, 78% of Millennials are more inclined to become part of a brand if they have face-to-face interaction with it. This signals that brands should engage more in experiential marketing when targeting Millennials.

Millennials Love Word Of Mouth (even from strangers!)
Most customers trust word of mouth but Millennials in particular love online word of mouth more than other generations. Eighty-four percent of Millennials say that user-generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy, compared to seventy percent of Boomers. In fact, there are many purchase decisions – big and small – that Millennials won’t make without user generated content.
When it comes to recommendations from friends and family, Millennials value their opinions much less than boomers. While Millennials still value friends and family considerably, they trust strangers just as much – in fact slightly more. Fifty-one percent of Millennials trust strangers compared to only thirty-four percent of boomers.

Millennials Don’t Like Traditional Marketing
I feel the biggest challenge in Millennial marketing today is that Millennials don’t like traditional marketing. The marketing industry is changing to keep up with Millennials. For example, Millennials did not like Facebook advertisements, so they introduced sponsored posts. Marketers realized Millennials were doing research online before they buy, so inbound became popular, and HubSpot was born.
I don’t want to see a traditional advertisement for a Travel Agent that reads: “Cheap Holidays For Spring Break”. Instead, I want to see a sponsored post for “The Top 10 Destinations For Spring Break”. Millennials love native advertising (which is far from traditional). According to AdWeek, fifty-seven percent of Millennials are willing to check out sponsored online content, as long as it’s interesting.

They Want You To Care
Millennials are loyal to brands who listen to them and care about them. When you look at the top fifty Millennial brands, you will recall most of them doing just this. They care about their customers and listen to what they say.
As the inquisitive and opinionated people millennials are, we question why brands collect our thoughts. The majority of Millennials (71%) say companies care about customer opinions simply because they impact how other consumers will view the brand, rather than genuinely caring about what they think. We want you to care.
Also, both Millennials and baby boomers believe consumers care more than brands. This might suggest why we don’t hold back on sharing our thoughts about brands and products on social media.
Brands should care more about their Millennial customers and take into consideration what they say. Engage in social listening, respond to Millennials positively and do what they tell you.

Millennials Need To Be Marketed To
Millennials must be considered as a target market for the majority of brands today. There are now as many Millennials as there are Baby Boomers and Generation X. While they are all given the one label ‘Millennials’, they vary in age quite a lot. That said they have a lot in common. Millennials are the social generation and founders of social media. They should be marketed where they know best through social channels.

Ethical t-shirts

This company (Living Staff Living Wage) creates ethical t-shirts that care about the worker, with proceeds and labour being traced back to each individual person.

Interactive experiential Coke ads

Coca Cola's recent campaign to promote their soft drink involves using a music-identifying app called Shazam as an auditory QR code to display a video of the pouring drink on the television filling up a glass in the video on the viewer's phone. It's an unusual and memorable experience from one's own home, without leaving the sofa.

Ads that make you forget they're ads

Volvo released a series of inspiring short films that are so immersive and emotional that people are forgetting they are advertising, and it's reflecting positively on the brand. The morph from car brand to entertainment studio brand is a strange one, but the experiential and impacting approach is working wonders.

A paper on Product as Self

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n16/john-lanchester/you-are-the-product