Saturday 26th March 2011:

Today, I looked at one of the completed questionnaires and used some of the words listed (which they had been called by a bully). I then noticed that this particular person had been bullied through a website, etc (cyber bullying), and so felt that it would be appropriate to illustrate this bullying incident through the use of technology. I took a photo of ‘texting’ from a bully to the victim with harsh words such as ‘fat bitch’, ‘f***ing slut’ and ‘whore’. I then took a print screen of these same words being said in an MSN conversation. I think that these work well, however, they were just quick ideas and I would’ve changed a few things if they were for the final pieces. They have been quickly edited to remove any names (and this is quite noticeable), and they probably don’t look very realistic/ professional. However, if they were produced to a high quality, I think they would be quite effective because MSN and texting are very popular among teenagers, and these single images will say a lot within themselves. Perhaps I could also briefly look at websites such as Facebook and take print screens of ‘bullying’ on there.

I also looked at another questionnaire (of someone who had admitted to being a bully themselves), and took a description of a time from when they were a bully, to make into a typographic image. I chose the sentence, ‘Some kid made me angry once, so I slammed her into a locker’. This is quite a severe incident and I have tried to make certain words (eg: angry, slammed), stand out a lot typographically in my image to show this. I will then take this image and produce it using the process of screen-printing. I will experiment with different colours and backgrounds to see what works best, whilst remembering the background story behind the words. I think the image works quite well so far just on paper, and perhaps I could experiment with this as well (maybe work into it, etc).

Target for today: Take photos/ print screens of technology and bullying through these forms and create image for screen-printing.

Target for tomorrow: Read more of ‘bullying’ book to see how victims can be affected by bullying.