At the beginning of the year I was concerned about the dissertation proposal as I had not yet made a decision on what topic I wanted to choose for my paper. I was also apprehensive due to my usual struggle of writing these essays and finding references. I have always been familiar and confident with the analysation of studies due tothe fact that I used to study ALevel English Literature. This is why I have never been one so shy away from extensive academic writing, but since having to study ‘Constellation’ in University, I have always felt intimidated by written work.
During the beginning of the year we were divided into groups which were led by different lecturers. This was done in order for us students to have a lecturer around for help with our essay. This was great as I was given a lecturer I was familiar with and had written Constellation essays with before. We were able to meet on and off over the first couple of months but unfortunately the Coronavirus spread quickly and the university had to close. This really effected myself and my work as I felt completely unmotivated and I was unable to have usually meetings of support from my lecturers and peers. My work completely came to a halt due to these factors as (like many people) I was unable to properly function with the drastic change in lifestyle. The lack of university presence meant that help from lecturers became almost non-existent (as they too were adjusting to the big change), which ultimately made me feel lost and confused during my design and constellation work. It was difficult when writing my proposal as I would often wonder whether what I had done was correct or what was required of us. For the most of is I was guessing and that seemed to be the same for my peers as they too were unsure of their work. Before quarantine I was unsure of what I wanted my thesis question to be. Quarantine elongated this time of confusion as I could not focus and had less guidance than before. I left university without a proper start to help me begin my research which made things very difficult for me.
For most of my time in quarantine I still had no idea what I wanted my thesis question to be based on. But after a month or so of getting accustom to quarantine, I was able to find a topic I was interested in. I have always been one to argue against the representations of body image ideals throughout media and design as there are so many and the majority create negative effects in our society. It is a subject I have always been passionate about as I have never understood why they exist and why they are enforced so much by the media. After further research into the subject, I decided that my question would be “Does the design industry have a negative impact on society? An investigation on how the design industry displays body image ideals”. I liked this question as it could be easily incorporated with my area of study which is Graphic Design. I believed it would be interesting to further investigate the ways in which the design industry represents these body ideals and how they can affect the public in a negative way.
From my research during the writing of this essay, I have discovered that body ideals do appear in society. These issues occur in a variety of ways and appear in ways that I never truly realised. With the information I found on ‘Body image’, I discovered that the ideals can effect both men and women. This is something I could use to my advantage in my paper as it will allow me to fond more references and I can discuss I wider variety of ideals by using both genders. Through my research, I managed to find a significant amount of references, which is unusual as I normally struggle to find academic studies on my topics. The fact that I found so many made me feel confident with my question as I knew it would be a topic I could discuss in depth with plenty of backing to support my statements. I have become much more aware of academic writers who discuss these topics and how they perceive the ways ‘Body image ideals’ effect society. This variety of references should allow me to have a more well-rounded response to my question, which should also support me with attempting to have a clear and direct answer. In future, I plan on using the information I have collected on ‘Body image ideals’ to argue that they do exist in society and come in a variety of forms.
Along with searching for ‘Body image’ specific references, I looked for information on how the design industry has a connection to these ideals. Again researching into this topic specifically has allowed me to find more references which will help me later when writing my actual thesis. Due to the fact that I have read an extensive amount on this topic, I have been able to familiarise myself more with the discussions around it and that they can be interpreted in a variety of ways later in the process. With the information I have found, I should be able to argue that body image ideals can occur in a variety of ways in the design and that they can effect society in a significant way. As I have found information regarding both genders, I will be able to argue that these ideals displayed through design effect both genders and age categories. This is something I intend on exploring in more depth in my paper. Through my discovery that the body image ideals represented through design effect different races, genders and ages will allow me to create a non-bias and versatile claim.
The final topic I looked into for this proposal was ‘Society’. I did this in order to specify how the public are effected by body image ideals, which would help me when attempting to answer my question better in my thesis. With the information I have found, I have discovered that body image ideals can affect the public in a range of ways. Some of which are positive and negative. Negatively, I have found that they cause health issues such as anorexia and bulimia, confidence and self-esteem issues, mental health problems, abuse and many more. Positively, I have found that many artists create designs in protest of these ideals as they display body positivity in their work. Along with society fighting these ideals, for example, the creators of Barbie have re-designed the doll’s figure in many ways to allow her to represent average body types.
The information I have found I am very interested in and passionate about which I believe will help me create a better result of work in my thesis. I am happy with the question I have chosen and feel much more confident in writing it after the creation of my dissertation proposal. If I were to change anything in future, I would perhaps refine my question to appear more academic and specific. I would also include more of the positive results of body image ideals in order to include more of an argument in my work.
Holly Anderson's Design Journal 