Description
Diversity and Cultural Awareness are ongoing topics within the advertising world, not only in the content of ads, but in the hiring practices of design agencies. Within a creative brief, we always identify the target audience. If that audience is defined using unsubstantiated stereotypes, it is very easy to get off-track in your creative.
Assignment Part 1: Identification of Stereotypes
Utilizing the US Census Bureau
https://data.census.gov/cedsci/
Look up the data for the city in which you live. It may be Phoenix , but it could be your own home town.
List the diversity within your community by making a chart that identifies the ethnic background and percent of population.
What are the top six ethnicities in your community?
Include percentages of gender if available.
For each ethic background, list the characteristics you think of when you picture that race.
In your list do you see any of the stereotypes you saw in the advertisements from the articles?
Are those stereotypical words, images, phrases, or thoughts appropriate for use within the advertising world when speaking to that group?
This process can also be used to evaluate stereotypes used to describe any diverse population. In advertising, using stereotypes can backfire.
Assignment Part 2:
This assignment can be done with a partner or small group, as directed by your instructor.
Identify a current diverse population in our world. Create a mind map of at least 150 notes in search of non-stereotypical words and images you could use to represent that population.
Create two digital mood boards of curated imagery from the web.
Board 1 will showcase negative stereotypical images of your chosen population. In other words, how not to showcase them.
Board 2 will showcase the opposite – positive and truthful representation of your population.
Present your work in a process document with the following structure.
Page 1: Title of project, your name (s), your instructor’s name, class date and time.
Page 2. A one-page reflective essay of what you as a designer personally learned about cultural diversity and stereotypes through this process.
Page 3: A definition of the population you are working with.
Page 4-5: Your mind map
Page 6 – 7 Mood board 1
Pages 8-9 Mood board 2