During this project, I take myself as an inspector to discover a hidden secret inside of me. From a perspective of someone who is feeling anxious and insecure about the body all the time. Although the title “Embrace” might lead people to relate my project into a body positive campaign, in fact, my project is about the struggle and the pressure on the self-actualization of body image.

Although I think the period is too short for me to make a significant awareness, I had some achievements. One of my most impressive achievements is the “ideal body T-shirt”. It is not only a product about challenging the public about their expectation on the body image, but also a good acknowledgement to my thought about the ideal type. And I gained the message from the interaction between me and the models who wore my T-shirt. It is the fact that each individual has their own ideal type and although the ideal type voted by the most of people still under some people’s expectation.

Be honestly, I do not think I produced what I Intended to present, as in a graphic design scenario. It is hard to communicate with the audience about the confusion. The audiences are more likely to get the simple message or their own interpretation from the project as I expect. However, I think as a transition from a fine art background into a graphic design zone, this is my first attempt of making contact with my viewers and intend to have more communication with them through my project.

From the whole Victoria’s secret store and their design of their models really shows about what they expect as the ideal body type as a brand image. And by recreating the Victoria’s secret style photographs, I think I really challenged my thinking for the first time. And by presenting my realistic self and the ideal self altogether with the support of photoshop, I felt really comfused about my ideal image. I was not sure that which one I liked the most, could be both or neither. As I mentioned, this project is using me as an inspector to discover the response, so it was part of the progress.

By going through the journey of looking for the response, I think one of the major thing I learned is that if I want to communicate with my viewers, maybe I should start with simple concept then complex rather then starting with the confusing complex message and eventually lost myself inside. It is dangerous to be so self-centered in the scenario of communication, maybe the next time I have to try harder to understand the voice from the majority of the public more.

With respect to my practical skills, I would say my painting and drawing skills are supporting me more then my digital techniques. I know that I would be more confident with painting and drawing, and that is the reason why I want to push myself more into the digital aspect to explore something new. My stronger skills support me on making the T-shirt also doing the typography.

In conclusion, this project is a starting point for me to get into know the visual communication in a stronger standard. I do not think that it is finished. The mistakes in this project really give me notice about what to expect when I enter the BA course. And I hope that I can eventually find out my response on the project.

From the public voting in the course, I summarized the ideal body type. To represent the idea of having the ideal body type and being ideal, I want to do an interactive project. I painted on a white XXL T-shirt with acrylic about the ideal figure. And let people wear it and capture their reaction when they are in the ideal body type.

The reaction was fun to watch that some of them look uncomfortable, some of them look relaxed also some of them look enjoying.

The mixed reaction challenge the thought of being ideal and the consequence of that. From this perspective, not only I can understand more about the pressure we are facing about the will of achieving the ideal type, but also acknowledge that even when we all have different attitude towards the ideal body.

Fatneral is the funeral of the ugly human fat.

I did a set design with soaps represent the human body fat. And all the other eatable fat represent the guests of the fatneral.

This scene represents the concept of the desire of removing the body fat but still remain all the other fat. Almost seem like the funeral is unnecessary since there are other fat exist and waiting to be body fat one day.

I want them to point out the pressure we are facing about the fat in our body. With the influence of media and fitness publicity, body fat has a negative image. However, everyday we embrace other fat rather than then body fat, even the avocados.

The typography is the stretch mark characters, to highlight the impact of gaining fat.

The cast members of the scene are all the fat parts that I want to get rid of in my body. I challenge my thought by giving them each a “fatsonality” to show that even fat have souls. And should we embrace them as they are?

Because I want to make my project more interactively, I start to think about what is the choice from public, what they think of “ideal body type”.

And I want to transfer the selection from the public onto the oversize white T-shirt so most of people can wear it. And I wonder how they feel when they have their “ideal body type”.

I made the selection based in the body fat and the breast sizes. The winner of all is the B size body and breast. It indicates that most of people don’t want the extreme body type.

The skin tone reference is based on several runway model’s skin colour as the tanned skin is popular in the western culture at the moment.

Text can be a powerful thing when it counters the photograph. In this case I want to create my own work and my own text with respect to the symbol of being fat and stretched.

Stretch mark is something that cover nearly every part of my body, and I had them since I was a kid. I found them annoying is because it is a record of my fat. When I gain weight, I gain stretch mark but when I lose weight, I don’t lose stretch mark.

I think they have strong connection with my project and I want to explore more about them.

By using photoshop, I can edit my photographs into my ideal body type. Also by layering the realistic version and the edited version together, I can see the comparison in a more straight forward perspective.

The outcome does make me think about a lot about myself and what I always want to be like. The ironic thing is that after I took the photoshoots, I felt that outcomes look confident and strong. However, after I did the photoshopped version, the outcomes look desirable for me . It is strange that I cannot persuade myself to embrace my own body as I am not happy with it

I keep saying that the “Embrace” is not a body positive campaign, it is a confusing experience that I want share with people who had the same thought with me focusing on the pressure on body image. And those photographs can express myself about the confusion inside of me.

I wish when different people view those photographs, they can have their different understandings about the body images because it is a subjective thing for them.

By achieving that I want to make my work as interactive as I can to communicate with the viewers. Also explore more various media and material, not just digital, also paintings and drawings.

I let my friend took some photoshoots of me to interpret the Victoria’s secret’s style also challenge the brand image.

From being the model in this photoshoots I wanted to almost act like I am a Victoria’s secret model. When I was performing, I was thinking that I am the most sexy and attractive girl in the world.

And when I saw the outcome, I was amazed that it was not striking because the concept was about challenging the two extremes.

And I start to think about the impact of embracing myself during the photo-shots may actually make a change on my image.

From the purpose of discovering the ideal image and the debate. I visited the Victoria’s secret store locate in New Bond street. The store is made up of 3 floors and one underground floor. Each floor has different collections with different style. And the underground floor has the sub brand Victoria’s secret PINK which market positions on the sports wear.

The interior design dominate of the first floor dominate the luxury black and white style with big chandeliers. Which gives the visitors a first impression of the brand identity is aiming at the higher price underwear.

The black and white photos of the Victoria’s secret models fill in every wall in the store. The photograph feeds of those sexy looking really make me have the drive to try on some underwear in those backstage style fitting room and see if I will look the same.

From an overall perspective of the store, I would say it really emphasize its brand image of creating sexy attractive women in their intimate outfit. Giving a message that from getting those underwear, women can be similar to the model. Also from the psychological point of view that it is a behaviorist approach to attract the consumers.

From the perspective of discover the self image we desired, I want to look into the scenario of the impact of body image.

As I said in my proposal, I always feel that the more weight I gain, the further distance towards a Beauty. I desire to have the slim body with shape and I can not embrace my curvy body shape.

I always desire the body of the Victorias’s secret Angels as I think that it is attractive. And by having that body would increase confidence.

However, when I went to Zurich, the blue angel appealed to me, it makes me think of someone who has rich enthusiasm and passion. Although the body type of “the Blue angel” is not the body that I desired, the curvy shape.

Still, I saw the full confidence came out of the piece and it was eye-catching. Compare to the Victoria’s secret model, somehow “the Blue Angel” shows the same vibe as the Victoria’s secret model, they both celebrate themselves as they are. And it make me think about that do I desire the body or the confidence as my ideal image? Can I embrace myself and become confidence as they are?

Coming from this point, I want to look into both the Victoria’s secret models and Niki de Saint-Phalle’s art project as a debate of “Do good body create confidence?”.

Title: Embrace

Whether we should embrace ourselves as we are or the self-images we want to achieve.

Content:

I have always been an overweighted individual since I was an infant. My mother was a professional dancer also a dance teacher. In her opinion, the body with fat is ugly. Therefore, I am always the ugly one. During my time of growing up, I never stop thinking about changing my self image and my appearance.

I realize that it is a common issues across the society, especially applies to girls. Girls based their self esteem on their appearance too much. Although it is more rational to embrace and celebrate ourselves as we are. Because the confidence from inside should empower individual rather than the appearance from outside as the appearance will not always stay the same. However, it is hard to get rid of opinion to achieve the ideal self.

I am determine to explore and investigate this sensitive subject since I am the harshest critic of me, I hate my appearance as well as the incongruence of my self-esteem. Therefore, even though this is an aspect and worry that the majority of people shared, I want to investigate myself as the participant to go through the sensitive beauty debate to find out an answer towards the self-image.

With respect to this project, I am willing to embrace myself, both my ideal self and the realistic self. As similar as that, I also want to see the impact from others on my self image. I wish using me almost as a experiment sample to generalize my finding toward the public.

Media and Process:

Graphic design would be a good way to explore myself in this scenario, because nowadays, people are very much influenced by graphic medias e.g. magazine, instagram and advertisement etc. And those graphic media emphasize the image of how people should look like in a way that is hard to achieve. The typography combined with photograph make powerful and instant communication with the viewers. I can use those media as the secondary reference to study the debate in a better standard.

I take this project as a transition for myself from a Fine Arts based thinking to a graphic design scenario. My previous project were very much autobiographical. As “Embrace” is a transition, although it is based on myself, it is more of a conversation of me leading the voice to communicate with the public.

In a practical perspective, I am willing to use magazines to study the “iconic looking” created by the society. Also some photography polaroids and the support of photoshop techniques would be a goof tool for me to explore. Apart from the digital techniques, some drawing and painting technique are crucial for me to create the self image, as they are free to explore on paper etc.

Final outcome:

As a result, I aim to produce the outcome can make the people who share the same opinion feel that they are being noticed and feeling more comfortable with themselves. One of the most crucial aspect is that I can step out of my self-centered zone and make a connection with the public.

In order to manage my time wisely, I will do a mind map as list of things I should do and organize each thing into a timetable with different time slots.