The Brief

Create a response to rebellion

For this brief, I will be creating messages of rebellion (taking
slogans and phrases within my dissertation) through the use
of clothing and accessories.
Fashion design that is, a reflection of how we think, behave,
the values, beliefs and lifestyles we associate ourselves with,
has the ability to contest and challenge class and gender
identities (Barnard, 2002: 6).
Fashion has been used as a mean of rebellion for hundreds
of years and can challenge dominant authorities and be used
as a form of rebellion against socio-cultural norms. This brief
will answer how dominant ideologies have been constructed
and I will be creating a response to this through meaning
(typography) on fashion (clothing).

PLEASE NOTE: That words that are in italic have been taken
directly from my dissertation to cross reference the practical to
the dissertation.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Research
Signs as a meaning
Saussure (1974) says a sign is created
through the union between a signifier
(the sound-image) and a signified (the
concept it represents). Signs are units of
representation that stand for something
else. The connection between them is
arbitrary and relies on conventions, but
it is only through their union, i.e. shared
understanding of these codes in a
community, that meaning is constructed
(Saussure, 1974)
With the rise of fast fashion items are
quickly produced and consumed and
then quickly discarded. Consumers
are therefore forgetting the meaning
behind clothing and instead buying it
for the experience. It is important here
to not forget the meaning behind the
messages that I will be placing on my
clothing.
Images and typography are texts that
have meaning based on shared codes
and conventions, and they are not
autonomous objects with pre-existent
and universally apparent meaning.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Research
Typography
Rebellion was reflected through the
medium of collage; juxtapositions of
unconnected images and typography
were brought together to create a
sense of disorganisation and antiinstitutionalism through paradoxical
organisation of the composition.
Jamie Reid (1977) uses an image of
Queen Elizabeths face in a collage
promoting the Sex Pistols album
entitled God Save The Queen. The
covers image had power to shock
through its unexpected association of a
member of monarchy with the medium
of collaged portraiture. Reid replaced
the Queens eyes and mouth with crude
slogans promoting the album.
Since I will be using typography to
communicate the message of rebellion,
it is important to research typography
that has been used within the punk era.
I then decided to experiment with
typefaces that would link and express
the punk era. Through research it is
evident that typography wasnt neat and
organised. Typefaces from the punk era
are made to look as if it was made by
hand; most designers and typography
was created using hand-rendered
methods such as print screen to express
their views of the post-modern society.
I will be using some of these typefaces
within my designs to express the
ideology that punk carried which was to
blurr boundaries and to make the most
of a do it yourself attitude.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Research
Influential artists
Punk seemed bent on destroying the very
institution of fashion (Price, 2004).
Vivienne Westwood and her boyfriend
McLaren were renown for their distorted
customisations such as rips, zips, studs,
badges and armbands were now being
used as a political statement on the street.
These clothes had something to say they
carried slogans, not logos.
Punk fashion became even more politicised
and street punk creating the image of
punk we now all remember: mohawks,
studded chokers, tattooes, Dr. Martens
boots and tartan.

This is a pair of gay cowboys designed by

Vivienne Westwood in the mid-1970s. This
t-shirt created a massive fuss in the 1970s.
Two cowboys, naked from the waist down,
with their genitalia out.
The idea was to make clothes look wrong.
The shock tactics of using images of
inverted crucifixes, swastikas, porn and
naked cowboys caused an outrage at the
time.
It is important to notice that it was the
quality of the image, but rather, the images
message/meaning. At a time where no one
came out as gay this was this was a way of
trying to blurr the boundaries that punk did
so well in.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Another design by Vivienne Westwood,

comes more recently where Terry Jones is
seen wearing a Save the Arctic T-shirt.
Westwood said that communicating the
threat of climate change had become her
priority and so she is keen to promote
Greenpeaces work to protect the Arctic.
The tools and processes artists and
designers use for producing artwork have
become just as important, if not, key, to
articulating meaning. Artists and designers
are now interested in the mechanics of how
art is composed and becomes significant as
art.

It is also important to highlight Barbara

Kruger, who uses words and images to
express her opinion.
Krugers work has become more relevant
when the rise of online shopping and
advertising has left consumers inundated
by words that become meaningless in their
ubiquity.
What Kruger says is that she only uses
words and images to express herself
because she thinks that words and images
have lost meaning because of how much
they are seen everyday. By using slogans
and images she is bringing back the
meaning behind these words.
The words I shop therefore I am now
have a meaning which Selfridges used
to comments on our conspicuous
consumption showing the consumer that
they are aware that we over-consume and
that our behavior changes.

Research
Punk - The era that changed the world.
The genre of Punk challenged peoples
value systems and in doing so,
exemplifies the way in which fashion is
a means of communicating rebellion
through trends in consumer culture: the
rise of new trends in consumption of
fashion can pave the way for new voices
in society.
Punk was the most iconic rebellion that
changed the way that people thought
and dressed. Punk was trash culture
gone avant-garde and the avant-garde
gone trash.
Punk however, enabled materials and
objects that had hitherto been deemed
[] worthless or ugly [to be] worn on
and in parts of the body that had not
hitherto been adorned.
From my observations and research,
Punk was an era that challenged
dominant ideologies and challenged
what people wore. Advertisers use
images as symbols to represent reality
and communicate something about a
product or service that exists in the real
world (Barnard, 2005).
Punk was a dark era that consisted of
the do it your self attitude of punk
challenged peoples value systems
and allowed new trends in consumer
behaviour to emerge

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Audience
Chosen target audience
For the practical, I will be targeting
mainstream and commercial fashion
that became boring. Challenged by
punks attitude of making your own
clothing and style, punk blurred the
boundaries between high and low
culture, it demonstrated the collapse
of hierarchies of knowledge, taste and
opinion as well as, the interest in the
local rather than the universal.
My Target market for the practical will
be 18-40 men and women who seek
to blurr boundaries. In a world where
meaning is pluri-dimensional and intertextual, truth is fluid and boundaries
are blurred, clothing is no longer
associated with the type of social
hierarchies it once was
I will also be targeting those who
want to challenge the high and low
culture. The ideal aesthetic in the prepunk era stipulated a fashionably neat
and conservative appearance. This
challenged the era that was known for
being near and conservative. Punk broke
all the rules to social hierarchy. This is a
mass rebellion against mass production.
ideologies, challenging the middle-class
view and the value of money within
fashion.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Initial Ideas
Initial sketches
Before going to the screen-printing room,
it was important to have an understanding
of what sort of designs I will be going for. I
wanted to create something that was random
to express the opinion that punk had.
Punk their mediums of expression challenged
what Bourdieu described as a social
distinction in values between noble taste or
art, legitimated by the educational system,
and inferior taste of the lower class mass
culture that lacks nobility.
Punk was a rebellion for the low class against
the upper and middle class. These designs will
be a guide for me to use as they are designs
that have been randomly been placed.
I will be screen printing because it will
communicate the rebellious spirit of their
times through an evolution in mediums for
expression in art that are accessible by all
classes. By using screen-printing it relates to
how people within the punk era used handrendered techniques to create their clothing.

Sketches to help me understand the importance of everything being random and handrendered.

The positives will be used to create the screen

boards to then create screen printed clothing.

The positive to be used within screen-printing. The phrases have been taken out from within
the dissertation to express the meaning behind the message.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Print process
Screen-printing
Historically, art was inseparable from
authority associated with the places of its
production.
On May 14th,1968, students started
visualizing their rebellion by creating images
of counterculture that challenged the
government.
Using a distinctive style that is still used
today in political demonstrations; students
created hand rendered, screen printed
images with anti-capitalist slogans that
represented their political stance.
Similar to how punk challenged peoples
value systems through using recycled, cheap
materials to produce art, the medium of
screen printing paved the way for new voices
in society
For my final outcome, I will be using screen
printing as it is a medium of rebellion that
was used by students to express their
opinion. Screen-printing enables to the
typography used to have more meaning.
Now that words and images are used more
frequently in the post-modern era, we
forget the important behind the meaning
(signified and signifier) of the word. This
links to Barbara Kruger who used slogans
and phrases within Selfridges to make the
consumer more aware about
The signifier, here is the message
and meaning within the graphics (the
sound-image) and the signified (the
concept it represents) is fashion and
rebellion.

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Devolopment
Screen printing development
Punk and collage and their mediums of
expression challenged what Bourdieu
described as a social distinction in
values between noble taste or art,
legitimated by the educational system,
and inferior taste of the lower class
mass culture that lacks nobility
(Bourdieu, 1984).
This shows how fashion designers have
political power to challenge trends and
social order to express rebellion from
social norms.
Throughout this process, I bought more
clothes than usual to represent the
idea of mass production. By screenprinting slogans I was expressing the
view of the low culture who wanted to
blurr boundaries. Everything created
has been used with the idea of do it
yourself.

Throughout this stage, I wanted to create something that wasnt organised and wasnt tidy
and neat. By using my hands which were covered in paint, I decided to experiment by
placing my hands onto the clothing to make them appear more dirty and challenging.

I decided to screen print on the acetate

paper so that when I placed the items of
clothing the wet paint would create imprint
of slogans on the back of the t-shirts.
Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Mass production devalues the meaning of

products as people over consume to the
point of forgetting the meaning of products
themselves (Jenss, 2015).

Further Devolopment
Screen printing development
Throughout the 1970s punk used buttons,
badges and every day materials were used
as a tool for the expression of rebellion,
fashion design empowered ordinary people
to threaten dominant ideologies, beliefs and
value systems and supported classes lower
in the social hierarchy of power.
Throughout this stage, I wanted to add more
to my clothing to make them appear more
second hand as well as making them appear
more within the punk era by using scissors,
paper clips and badges.
A lot of clothing made in the 1970s was
created by yourself. I wanted to illustrate
this by ripping into the clothes and
making clothing such as t-shirts now vests.
Again, everything was very random and
was created with the intention of making
everything random, nothing was to be
organised.

Similar to how punk challenged peoples value systems through using recycled, cheap materials
to produce art, the medium of screen printing paved the way for new voices in society.

Using scissors just like the Punk era (1970s)

who used everyday materials to create a
new ideology and genre.
Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Using sleeves and cut outs of previous

t-shirts I have now decided to use these cut
outs to create pockets to signify the do it
yourself attitude that Punk had created.

Final Outcome
Creating a punk inspired rebellion
clothing.

The do it your self attitude of punk

challenged peoples value systems
and allowed new trends in consumer
behavior to emerge (Barnard, 2002)
Punks challenged the idea of spending
excessively to be classed fashionable
therefore, rebelling to the structures of
class and its associated taste, materials and
lifestyle norms.
For my final outcome, I have created a
large scale of clothing (relating to mass
production) that were screen-printed.
Throughout this outcome, I didnt have
a plan or structure; all the slogans/
phrases were screenprinted randomly.
I wanted to create something that
would express rebellion, using a
method that has been previously
used in past histories; 1968 Student
revolution. I also used only typography
to make the words have a meaning
(relating back to Kruger and signified/
signifier).
Consumption is much more than the act
of purchasing goods or services. It is a
stage in a process of communication
[] an act of deciphering coding,
which presupposes practical or
explicit mastery of a decipher or a
code (Bourdieu1984: xxv). Therefore,
the capacity to see derives from
knowledge of concepts and words
available to name and perceive visible
things (ibid: xxv).
Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

Here is a small selection of clothes that I have created by using screenprinting as a mean
of communication. I also created more than one outcome to challenge and express mass
production. With mass-produced clothing, consumers are being disjointed with the clothes,
fuelling the idea of second and third cycles of consumption which means not ending up
being put in the dump but instead acquiring new values in a highly diversified, global
market for used clothing (Jenss, 2015:28).

Synthesis
Synthesis linking the practical to my
dissertation.

Fashion and Graphic Design is a

reflection of how we think, behave,
the values, beliefs and lifestyles
we associate ourselves with. It can
challenge dominant authorities and
can be used as a form of rebellion
against socio-cultural norms. People will
always acquire new goods in order to
distinguish themselves from others, this
is what we call the social hierarchy.
Punk used materials and objects that
had hitherto been deemed worthless
or ugly to be worn on and in parts of
the body that had not hitherto been
adorned. In the Punk era, objects
that were previously discarded now
had a much greater value and were
considered desirable. Subsequently,
clothes now had a medium through
which to express their opinion. By using
badges and hand-rendered techniques
such as screen-printing it shows ways
in which graphic design has been used
as a way to construct and maintain
positions of political power in society
and contest codes of social order.
For the first time ever, images of art
have become ephemeral, ubiquitous,
insubstantial, available, valueless, free.
They surround us in the same way as
a language surrounds us. They have
entered the mainstream of life over
which they no longer, in themselves,

Daniel Carter - OUGD503 - Studio Brief 01 - Monotype

have power. As images and words are

being used so much in todays society
we forget the meaning and messages
behind them. Within the clothing,
typography is the only illustration on
the clothing. This forces the consumer/
viewer to see these slogans and
interprets a message of rebellion and
chaos.
Words and images are on more of
less everything and more of less
everywhere. The clothes that were
created had various slogans and
phrases that have used throughout
my dissertation, that are linked with
rebellion as well as the most iconic
rebellious era of punk. What people
wore was political in the sense that
clothing is a means of contesting and
challenging class and identities.
Fashion is not a social and cultural
identity, but instead, used as a
symbol. Saussure uses this symbol
as a sign that is created through the
union between a signifier (the soundimage) and a signified (the concept it
represents). The signifier, within the
practical is the message within the
graphics and the signified is fashion
and rebellion. The use of symbols
and signs is evident in the May 1968
French student revolution where they
use the screen prints to produce mass
production of rebellious designs going
against the government. The practical
was created via screen-printing to

highlight that hand-rendered methods

were used during the French student
revolution as well as during the punk
era; students created images of
counterculture that challenged the
government whilst punk challenged
dominant ideologies and class
structure.

I created various pieces of clothing

challenging peoples value systems
through using recycled, cheap materials
to produce art. It was the medium of
screen printing that paved the way for
new voices in society to be heard; art
was made quickly, easily and cheaply
by students using hand rendered
techniques from accessible tools that
challenged powerhouses of mass
production. Since screen-printing was
used as a mean of rebellion through
mass production, I have attempted the
same ideology by creating numerous
(mens to womens fashion) clothing
that will be used to promote rebellion
through mass production.

To conclude, my practical is based on

the punk era that challenged dominant
authorities through a do it your self
attitude. I created numerous designs
of clothing to encourage rebellion
through mass production; by having
more clothes the messages will be read
more therefore, expressing the meaning
of rebellion. We live in a world where
meanings are no longer fixed, therefore
my practical is an attempt of bringing
back meaning to words and images.