(WO)MAN UP
Documentation of Media Production Lise Charlotte Lehwald Media Production 15 ECTS K3 – Visual Communication 2015Table of content
Background and Problem ... 3 Purpose ... 3 Target audience ... 3 Sender and distribution ... 4 Delimitations ... 4 Related Media Productions ... 4 How to negotiate pay – a selection of media productions ... 5 F*** girls - #fthepaygap ... 5 Equal Payback Project ... 6 Femininitees– ’You owe me 21 cents’ ... 7 Method and material ... 7 Process ... 8 Text and layout ... 10 Colors ... 12 Photographs ... 14 Relation to Essay ... 18 Result ... 18 Link to Media Production ... 19 Revision ... 19 Sources ... 20 Appendix 1 - Schedule ... 21 Appendix 2 – Result ... 22Background and Problem In Denmark, equal pay has been required by law since 1976 (Dr.dk, 2016). However the fact is that women are still earning up to 14% less than men (Danmarks Statistik, 2018). While some percentage of the wage gap can be appointed to the specific jobs that men and women respectively hold – some jobs simply pay more than others – there is still an 8% gap that can be explained by nothing other than gender. Researching on this subject, I found several articles (e.g. Business.dk, 2016) that blame this gender-specific wage gap on women being less likely to negotiate their pay than men – ultimately resulting in a measurable inequality. While many campaigns focus on creating awareness on the subject and addresses society as a whole, I am more interested in how to reach women on an individual level and both inform and inspire them to negotiate their pay. I have therefore turned my focus to material concerning how to negotiate pay. Where many campaigns use humor or a modern visual language, most of the material on how to negotiate pay is very professional and stiff – i.e. not very inspirational. Purpose The purpose of the media production (MP) is to create a small booklet that • Informs • Inspires • Encourages • Educates … young women to negotiate their pay – giving the individual woman a tool to fight for herself and work towards ending the wage gap. Simultaneously, the media production explores mixing straightforward advice and information with a modern, playful visual approach. Target audience My target audience is Danish women aged 24-27, who have completed a middle-long to long upper education. The gender is given, due to the subject, and the age is based on the median age of bachelor- (24) and masters- (27) graduates respectively – when most Danish women finish their education and enter the job market (Københavns Universitet, 2018).
The media production aims for this specific age group, because I wanted to reach the next generation who is entering (or just entered) the job market, so that they can, hopefully, begin their career with a bit more enticement to negotiate their pay. Sender and distribution While the media production is not created in collaboration with a specific sender, the ‘imagined’ sender of the production is a collaboration between ‘Akademikernes A-kasse’ (a benefits-organization for people with higher academic educations) and ‘Kvinfo’ (an organization that promotes equality and women’s rights). The booklet would be produced and distributed by Danish unions, as an appendix to the package of booklets/magazines and information they send out to new members - specifically targeting female members (most people join a union shortly before or when they enter the job market). The booklet is therefore intended to be free, as the unions have the economy to fund the booklets themselves. Delimitations Had the extend of the media production allowed it, it would have been interesting to not only produce a booklet, but expand the production to an entire campaign. Where the booklet serves as a practical tool for the individual woman, a campaign (with coherent material for outdoor, web and social media) would have been a useful addition, to create awareness on the subject. Related Media Productions For related media productions, I have looked two ways; at media productions that are informative in regards to negotiating pay, and at media productions/ads that approach the subject of the wage-gap. While the informative productions relate most closely to the content of my MP, they also represent the exact opposite of the visual approach that I wanted to achieve. Therefore I also chose to look at and include other types of media productions to understand and illustrate how others have approached the subject in a creative and inventive manner.
How to negotiate pay – a selection of media productions Here I will present a small selection of the many types of informative media productions that I have come across throughout my research. I am combining them into one ‘type’ of media production, as they are all very similar in both their visual language as well as in their content. Their approach is very professional and clean cut and somewhat uninspiring. The three examples below show a video (lederne.dk), a website (Dansk Journalistforbund) and a book that (Lønforhandling for kvinder, Solveig Schmidt) all three work to give hands-on advice on how to approach a negotiation about pay. From left: cover of book, still from video and image from website While the content of these media productions is informative and helpful, they are also great examples of the ‘professional’ visual language that I wanted my MP to counterpart. An interesting thing to also notice about these productions are, that they all require the user to seek out the material themselves, meaning that the individual woman should already have decided that she wanted to negotiate her pay, and thus addresses a much smaller demographic. F*** girls - #fthepaygap On International Women’s day 2017, London based advertisement agency J. Walter Thompson created an provocative outdoor campaign that used clever wordplays to highlight the wage gap. The campaign played off the insight, that taking away 25% (which is the wage-gap in England) of a woman’s salary is an insult, and applied this concept to text; hiding 25% off their text with pink, translucent lines, that created the illusion of provocative and sexualized statements. Using a bold font, and a bright pink color, the campaigns ‘less is more’ approach is strikingly simple and to the point, and I have drawn inspiration from
Three of the images from the #fthepaygap campaign Equal Payback Project In a video ad created by the Equal Payback Project, the American comedian Sarah Silverman explains the wage-gap in America, and draws specific attention to the irony of people being paid more or less based on their gender. As the project explains Silverman wants to fix the wage gap and pay back every woman for the money she has lost simply because of the genitalia she happens to have. But until that happens, she figures it’s easier to just get a penis’. In practicality, the Equal Payback Project aims to crowd fund the wage gap and fund organizations working for equal rights. While the approach used here is obviously humoristic and sarcastic, it does work to inform and educate on statistics, as well as illustrating how women can affect legislation on the subject. In relation to my project, I have drawn inspiration from the lighthearted tone, and the hands-on approach that the video takes to the wage-gap issue. Also, I liked how the production approached the viewer directly – a method I incorporated when writing the text for my MP.
Femininitees– ’You owe me 21 cents’ While not a classic form of media-production, these t-shirts still sparked inspiration for my media production. The company ‘Femininitees’ have created a t-shirt with the text ‘you owe me 21 cents’ embroidered on the front. This text refers to the 21 cents that American women are paid less for every dollar a man makes – and the profits go towards NGO’s working for equality for American women. While a t-shirt is not a media-production in the most traditional sense, I was inspired by the idea of creating something physical that women can wear (or have) that not only informs about the wage-gap, but also serves as a physical reminder that encourage them to take up the fight. The spatial aspect of the production relates to my printed booklet (rather than having created campaign, or images for social media) - the idea of giving women something physical to hold onto and use that not only raises awareness and educates, but also works to empower her. Images from Femininitees Instagram account Method and material The media production consists of an A6 booklet that gives women short and tips on how to negotiate their pay. While being informative, the booklet is also supposed to be encouraging towards doing a negotiation, and its visual language is supposed to be appetizing and pleasing.
The choice of creating a physical booklet originated from my own fondness of printed material, while there are also certain benefits to print. Firstly, it has an intimacy that we can’t get through online or social media (where much material like this is today). Secondly, where we are likely to quickly scroll through Instagram-feeds and websites, the spatial aspect of having a printed booklet/book is in many ways much more engaging for the user (Forbes, 2015). Also, studies show that physical elements connect much better to memory, because it engages with our spatial memory networks – an aspect that is beneficial, as I would want the reader to remember the tips, especially in a stressful situation, e.g. when negotiating pay. MOODBOARD Process Knowing I wanted to create something in print, I started brainstorming about what subject I wanted to work with. Quite unrelated, I happened to read an article on how the wage-gap is still an issue in Denmark which sparked the idea behind my MP. Before starting the creative process, I approached the subject from a technical point of view, researching statistics that
related to the wage-gap, to gain an understanding of the issue in numbers and percentage – using this information to build a base for the production, and to pinpoint my target audience. After deciding the target audience, I researched possible senders and a specific format for the media production – settling on a small (A6) booklet that would work as a tool to inform and inspire women to negotiate their pay. Moving forward, I spoke with a group of women (within the target audience) to gain a broader understanding of their relationship to negotiating pay and what hesitations and questions they might have. Here, we also spoke about visual preferences, and I began looking into colors, font and content for my media production. From here I gathered inspiration online (as shown on the previous and next few pages) – and started cutting out images, printed my portraits and wrote out the different texts, and created a physical collection of content, which I tested putting together in a variety of ways. When getting to an overall idea of the booklet, I started importing everything into Adobe InDesign, and worked more on layout from here. Test prints, color-cards, inspiration and layout-tests Since my MP consists of many different elements, I will go through the process and decisions of respectively text, images and colors separately in the following sections.
Text and layout While our education focuses heavily on visual communication, I find it interested in how images and text work together to enhance one another, and I wanted to create a media production where I could work with both elements. During my internship (fall 2017) as a journalist at a Danish magazine, I also wanted to include the skills I had learned there in this project. Text Most of the text is written in an uppercase, bold, sans-serif font (Bebas Neue) and is center-aligned to keep the overall layout clean and simple - inspired by protest-signs to emulate the fighter-spirit that the wage-gap issue has seen throughout history. While I tested a variety of bold fonts (in different colors and styles – as shown on the image on the next page), I consciously avoided fonts, such as a cursive, or handwritten, to avoid the text being overly ‘girly’ in connection with the colors. Inspiration for typography and layout of text As will be explained further in the section ‘color’, the text is either one of two shades of pink, white or black. Because the booklet is fairly simple in its layout, the color of texts and background change to maintain visual interest throughout the booklet. Layout When putting together the booklet, I experimented with a variety of different layouts and visual elements – framing the text, inserting colored shapes as backgrounds as seen on the next page) – but in the end, I didn’t feel that they contributed with anything to the visual effect of the booklet, and decided to keep the layout very clean and streamlined.
As we haven’t worked a lot with graphic design or layout in Visual Communication, I chose to contact a colleague, who is a graphic designer, to discuss my MP, and gain a basic understanding of the ‘rules’ of layout’; spacing between uppercase characters, what to consider in relation to color choices and overall the importance of ‘keeping it simple’ when it comes to communication, rather than creating bells and whistles that has no purpose nor productive effect. Three variations of layout for the pages with text. Content The media production consists of a short introduction to the purpose of the project, and 7 tips on how to approach negotiating your pay. The text is written in Danish, except for a few titles, that are in English – a fairly common practice in Denmark. The tone of the text is very casual and approaches the reader directly, using ‘you’ and ‘we’ to create an informal and personal sense to the subject. The main inspiration behind the tips is found in Othega Uwagba ‘Little Black Book – a toolkit for working women’ – a book that sets focus on any and every challenge that the working woman may encounter. While I didn’t want the book to be heavy on facts, statistics and graphs, I did want to include one element that served as the ‘selling point’ for negotiating ones pay. On the center spread, I have therefore included the fact that women earn upwards of 14% less than men for the same work – inspired by the #fthepaygaps campaign, using a simple, bold font and bright colors to make a clean-cut statement.
Quotes Each of the portraits is accompanied by a small quote, as well as the girls name and education/profession. The quotes are all centered around personal experiences with or thoughts about negotiating your pay, and are included to show a more personal and vulnerable side to the subject. The quotes stem from conversations that I have had with the girls in the images and have been edited for clarity and length. The quotes are written in the font Futura Italics, in lowercase letters as to emulate the soft quality of the quotes and are shown on small translucent pink squared. This visual element was inspired by a text-feature from the app Instagram, as I needed something that would highlight the quotes. I thought this would work as a nod to social media, which the target audience use frequently. Here, I also tested out a series of variations (shown below) before settling on the final design. Left: A screenshot from Instagram stories Right: Test of font-style and layout of quotes Colors As with many other things, we assign certain connotations and meanings to colors in our society – so when choosing the specific colors for my media-production, I knew the color-choices I made would highly affect the overall mood and sense that the booklet would have. Brainstorming on the subject of my media production, the color pink quickly came to mind – more specifically, the shade ’millennial pink’ that has become widely popular during the last
couple of years. Where, for decades, the color pink has been a ’girly’ shade that connoted to Barbie-dolls, ballerinas and had a childlike innocence, the color has adopted a new meaning during the new feminist movement, as girls and women have reclaimed the shade to stand for girl power and a new, strong and independent sense of femininity. Above, Left: some of the pink shades considered. Right: the three accent-colors Below: a test of using additional accent colors As accent-colors – for both text and visual elements – I have chosen to use white, black and a bright pink color, where the white blends with the millennial pink, and the black and pink work as bold contrasts of color. I also tried out other accent colors, for example using yellow as an eye-catching accent – but again decided against it, as I didn’t feel it added anything to the overall project. While I have tested a variety of shades of pink, I haven’t experimented with using other colors as the bearing element, as I was sure that I wanted this social relevance and connotation that ‘millennial pink’ has at the moment.
Photographs I quickly decided that I wanted to take portraits, as the visual element in my media-production, as these would be able to create a sense of identification with the reader. Based on time and the length of the booklet, I settled on 5 portraits, portraying 5 women from different educational backgrounds, who all fit into the target audience. Portraits The main purpose of the portraits is to create identification for the user, by presenting real-life women who, through small quotes, share their thoughts and concerns on the subject of negotiating pay. The images are taken in black and white to create a visual cohesiveness throughout the material. I opted out of taking the photographs in a studio, and instead took them at my home using only natural lighting to create a relaxed and informal atmosphere. They are all taken in front of a white wall to create cohesiveness, although you can see parts of a chair, or the edges of a bed in some of the images – small elements that enhance the casual feeling, I wanted the pictures to have. Inspiration for portrait-photos
I took a set of test-shots with two of the models, to get a sense of what would work in the layout. One of the things I edited out in this process was the idea of having images of two girls together. In creating a sense of identification, I felt that the individual portraits were much more inviting for the reader, than images of two girls together, which quickly felt more excluding. Images from the test-shoot At the test-shoot, the images were taken as very traditional portraits, and came off looking a bit stiff. Also, having the faces of the models so close-up became very dominating when put in the layout of the booklet. Taking this into consideration, I aimed towards taking images that showed more of the models bodies and also seemed more casual in their settings and postures. In selecting the
Images from second photo-shoot I edited the images in Adobe Photoshop to adjust the lighting, and turn them black and white, whereas I purposefully haven’t edited anything on girls faces. All in all, these images should work to create an informal and open space for the conversation of negotiating pay. I wanted the women in the photographs to be relatable, down to earth and the images to balance between seeming staged and candid. Cover and other images For the cover of the booklet, I wanted an image that gave a fun element to the MP and made the cover eye-catching. Wanting to include some statistics on the subject, I came up with the idea of creating a creative take on graphs that are often used when explaining the wage-gap. Playing off the Danish saying of ‘at gøre noget mere spiseligt’ (making something more edible), which simply means ‘making information more approachable/understandable’ I wanted to use food to illustrate the statistics. The specific choice of a donut was made, due to its current popularity in pop-culture and the fact that it’s iconic in shape and therefore easily recognized and visually deciphered. Initially, I wanted the booklet to contain more images using candy and sweets to illustrate statistics as a visual element throughout (see images below). However, when working on the overall layout, these images seemed more childish than clever and were edited out.
Test-shots of donuts, and images that were edited out After one of our seminars, the cover with the donut was questioned, both in regards to it’s relevance (as the ‘candy-theme’ was no longer in motion), and as some felt it might create connotations to American culture. After this, I tried both incorporating the donut throughout the booklet (which seemed out of place), and created different alternatives to the cover. Not being entirely sure which way to go, I once again spoke to a graphic designer, to discuss the role of the cover on a booklet like mine. At this meeting, we discussed the project from a more commercial point of view. Were the project to be expanded into a campaign, the donut would work as the bearing visual element in material for print/outdoor/social media – maybe even creating a series of different types of donuts, to represent how women are all different. While the more graphic approaches might be more clean and cohesive with the overall layout, I didn’t feel that they sparked the same interest as the cover with the donut did. At the end of the day, the purpose of the cover is to catch the attention of the reader, and give a small clue about what the booklet is about, which I felt that the visual aspect of the donut along with the informational aspect of the ‘graph-element’ did best. Two alternative options for the cover, and a test of including the donut elsewhere
Relation to Essay While my two projects (media-production and scientific research) aren’t directly related, the themes that I have explored, researched and discussed in the essay have affected the choices I have made with the photographs in my media production. In the essay, I have researched racial diversity and representations of models of color in fashion editorials, both from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, to be able to identify and discuss how the media creates and maintains a hegemoncially white beauty-ideal. The images are highly stylized constructed, mostly portraying girls with white skin, a thin waist, long hair and legs for days – unobtainable ideals that subsequently affect the self-esteem and self-image of girls and women. When it came to my own media-production, it was therefore very important to me, that the images of women I produced were much more relatable than what is seen in magazines. I prioritized using real women, took the images using natural lighting, didn’t use a studio, and finally didn’t edit anything on the girls themselves – just like they are photographed in the clothes they themselves chose to wear. I wanted the images to be as natural and informal as possible, rather than constructing picture-perfect portraits that my audience couldn’t relate to. Result Overall, I personally feel that my media production has been successful in merging a modern and young visual language with a more traditional type of content. Where the professional text informs the reader on how to go about negotiating her pay, the portraits and quotes work to guide and support the reader through a subject that, for many, might seem a bit overwhelming. Time-wise the project has gone completely according to plan (see appendix 1), which, in all honesty, isn’t usually my strong suit, but I’m very pleased that I set myself very strict deadlines. While I ended up taking quite a lot of photographs that weren’t included in the final product, I still felt that the process of creating and reviewing content again and again was a very organic way of working, constantly trying to better the content, while also being critical to the relevance of each image. One of the biggest advantages throughout the project has been speaking to girls in the target audience, and getting personal opinions on everything from color-choice, font-sizes, text and images. While I have enjoyed the creative freedom of the project, it would have been very interesting to have made the media production in collaboration with one of the suggested (or
any other) organization, having to take their needs and requirements into consideration, and adhering to a specific visual profile. Not having any visual or contextual guidelines has, however, also had it’s challenges, as every little bit of the production has been completely free to interpret, create and consider. As I mentioned in ‘delimitations’, I feel that – had the time been there – the project could have benefitted from being expanded into a campaign, adding elements for outdoor, print, social media or web-advertisement, and giving the project another dimension with raising awareness of the subject. As the final project at MAH, it has been interesting to see much of what we have learned throughout the last three years come together in a project that employs many different creative aspects. From practical skills in photography, to color-theory, communication-methods, and writing experience that I got from my internship at a Danish magazine – It has been fulfilling to be able to pick and choose between our different skills and let them work together to create a whole and finished product. Link to Media Production Follow the link to see the final Media Production https://issuu.com/lisecharlottelehwald/docs/mp-indesign-med-rettelser-revision Revision Following the last seminar, the Media Production has been subject to some revisions. In regards to criticism towards the target audience, the age-delimitation has been revised to a smaller age group – now concentrating on age 24-27, as this is the peak-ages of the statistics introduced on page 3. Also, one of the imagined senders has been updated, to an organization that fits better with the target audience (‘LO’ à Akademikernes A-kasse) While it has been argued that the selection of occupations is fairly narrow, the specific models (who all have long, academic educations) were purposely selected in accordance with the target audience. As mentioned on page 3-4, the target audience is women with a middle-long to long upper education (bachelors, masters or above) – which is exactly who these women represent. The ‘narrow’ selection is in no way to neglect that wage-negotiation is relevant for every job-sector, but rather a delimitation for this specific project. If this project was to be employed in
On a more practical level, the pink hue has been substituted by a more saturated color to make the contrast between pink and white more clear, just like the grids have been adjusted. The layout has been narrowed down to three levels of typographical hierarchies (body-text, informative text and quotes) to make the visual experience simpler. As the choice of fonts (bebas and futura) was also critiqued, I have tested different options, but finally decided to keep the initial selection. It was important that the folder featured two different fonts, to differ between ‘informational’ and ‘inspirational’ content, and in the end the specific choice of fonts was selected based on feedback from the target audience, and personal preference. Sources Dansk Journalistforbund, Lønforhandling når du er ansat https://journalistforbundet.dk/lonforhandlingen-nar-du-er-ansat (2018-03-02) Danmarks Statestik (2018) Ligestilling i Danmark, Løn https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilling/ligestillingswebsite#4 (2018-02-24) Dansk Journalistforbund, Lønforhandling når du er ansat https://journalistforbundet.dk/lonforhandlingen-nar-du-er-ansat (2018-03-02) Femininitees (2018-03-12) http://www.femininitees.com/aboutus/ Hyltoft, Vibe (2016) Kvindelige ledere får 9.000 kroner mindre pr. måned end mænd https://www.business.dk/business-kvinder/kvindelige-ledere-faar-9.000-kr.-mindre-pr.-maaned-end-maend (2018-02-23) J. Walther Thomas (2017)#FTHEPAYGAP https://jwt.co.uk/work/25-missing (2018-03-12) Københavns Universitet, Tal og Fakta, studerende http://velkommen.ku.dk/tal-og-fakta/studerende/ (2018-03-11) Lederne.dk, Lønforhandling med Malene Rix https://www.lederne.dk/faa-hjaelp-og-svar/loen/loenforhandling/ (2018-03-02) Silverman, Sarah & Equal Payback Project (2014), Sarah Silverman closes the pay gap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3khtAdwXo&t=2s Uwagba, Othega (2017) Little Black Book – Toolkit for Working Women. London; Harper Collins Publishers
Appendix 1 - Schedule
Appendix 2 – Result Link to booklet: https://issuu.com/lisecharlottelehwald/docs/mp-indesign-med-rettelser-revision
