A Critique of American Apparel

American Apparel's advertising strategy and subsequent campaigns definitely have both positive and negative aspects to them. As explained in this reading, Innovation and Exploitation - A Critique of American Apparel by Anna Kealey, American Apparel puts a heavy importance on being environmentally friendly, and ethically sound. The environmentally friendly and employee aspect of American Apparel is one which is integrated in almost all of their marketing and advertising, and definitely serves to glamorize both. I completely agree with the way American Apparel chooses to make being mindful of nature and of factory workers trendy and cool, but have to disagree with the way they portray women in their advertisements. The essay explains how the American Apparel advertisements are designed to look like amateur pornography, with young looking girls in very provocative pictures, which isn't a particularly glamorous or politically correct advertising strategy in my eyes.

Byker Wall

The Byker wall video was an (unintentionally) humorous one which I found really funny due to the host, Beatrix's, extremely dated 80's and hair cut. Beatrix took viewers to the Byker Wall in the UK, to view and comment on its design. The Byker Wall is a housing development project located in Newcastle, and was designed by architect Ralph Erskine. The video shows that the project contains a lot of public green space for the people who live there, which is something I can really appreciate and I can imagine it must give the residents a real sense of community. The way the video was shot made it difficult for me to really get a sense of the structure as a whole, and whether or not I liked it, or more specifically, its design. After researching the Byker Wall online, and looking at some better images of it, I've really grown to appreciate the appearance of it. The bright primary colored plastic pieces used on the Byker sound like they would look cheap and flimsy, but actually appear cheerful, different, and enticing, in my eyes.

Helvetica

Although I had seen the movie Helvetica three different times prior to our viewing in class, I still enjoyed watching it a fourth time. As someone who isn't a graphic design major, and doesn't have a ton of knowledge about things such as graphic design and fonts and typefaces, I'm still really able to appreciate the movie and it's concepts. Before I ever watched the movie, I wasn't terribly aware of the fonts used in the everyday objects I am surrounded by, especially Helvetica. Every time I watch this movie, I find myself looking around at the world and at signs, books, products, and logos, looking carefully at the usage of fonts in all of these outlets.

The movie presents different viewpoints on Helvetica and its usage in the world. While many designers swear by, love, and completely embrace Helvetica, others are completely turned off to it. Much of the distaste for Helvetica seems to come from those who feel the font is over-used and therefore un-original. Just looking at the desk in my bedroom right now, I see 3 different bottles of juice with Helvetica used for the brand names. However, I feel that Helvetica is used to frequently because it really is a perfect, clean, easy-to-read, familiar font.