Saturday 16th April 2011:

I felt that I hadn’t yet explored the bully in my sketchbook as much as I had with the victim, and so wanted to create a double page showing what may influence the bully.

In my peer review, it was suggested that I create a ‘silhouette’ and then fill it with what issues the bully may have. I thought that this was quite a good idea and decided to use the points made in the ‘Bullying’ book to show what could influence a bully. The main things, are: issues at home (and arguing), being bullied themselves and the influences from TV and the media.

Although this image shows what I wanted it to, it’s not as visually attractive as I wanted it to be. I wanted to explore new ways of working and so decided to find images of what I was trying to show and then to draw over them. Perhaps this wasn’t the best piece to experiment with this on, as it seems to be missing the personal aspect which is especially important for a piece like this.

However, in some ways, this piece is quite successful because it shows quite simply what may influence the bully and so the viewer can quickly understand what may be going on in a bully’s mind. I also quite like the use of the black silhouette and the white writing because this shows that although the bully can be anyone, it tends to be similar things which stand out and influence them to bully. The writing around the image is also quite effective because it’s quiet different and could perhaps invite the viewer to look further into the image to answer the question of ‘what may influence a bully?’

After exploring the words ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’ on previous pages, I thought that it would be good to look at the sentence ‘calling me ugly won’t make you beautiful’ and to use typographic styles to create this. I wanted to have a contrast between the delicate type style and the bold type style to show the difference between the victim and the bully. I wanted to also use unique ways to create these words, and so decided to cut out the word ‘beautiful’ and to create the word ‘ugly’ from black material, which I then sewed to more material and made it slightly padded.

This is quite effective because the word literally ‘ugly’ stands out. I like how because the background is also black, the image needs to be in a certain light for the word ‘ugly’ to be able to seen clearly. Although this may not work for something like a poster, this is effective and perhaps something to explore further. This could also represent how even though you can’t see something, it’s still there – perhaps like the emotions felt by a victim or even the bully (eg: if they’re the victim’s friend). The material also gives the piece a tactile quality, which could attract the viewer to look further at the image.

The cut out ‘beautiful’ stands out well and perhaps show that when something is taken away, the pieces are still there to create the same thing. This could show that even when a bully calls someone ‘ugly’ out of jealously and takes away the self-esteem from the victim, they are still beautiful and so really the bully hasn’t achieved anything by calling them ugly.

Overall, I really like this piece because it gives out a strong message (mainly to the bully), and is also visually appealing. I am going to consider using something similar for a final poster idea. Perhaps, if for a final piece, for the word ‘ugly’, I could actually create 3D type out of card, etc, so that it stands out from the poster. This would make it unique, and out of the norm, but would also hopefully make it stand out.

Target for today: Create a double page in sketchbook showing what may influence a bully, and another double page in sketchbook using typography in unique ways to express the sentence ‘calling me ugly won’t make you beautiful’.

Target for tomorrow: Look at why people bully and use this in response to the work of Milton Glaser. Add a copy of bullying questionnaire to sketchbook and create a page, using my own photographs, to show how the victim may feel.