Promised Land Poster

Promised land is a documentary which follows a filmmaker riding Elvis’ Rolls Royce around America during the 2016 presidential election, and while doing so, draws comparisons between Trump and Elvis. For these posters, I explored Midnight Marauders contemporary film posters: similarly to his poster for ‘Hal’ I utilised a large amount of white space within the composition, and was very sparing with the application of colour, simply having one prevailing background colour with black over the top. The imagery shows Donald trumps head on elvis’ body, playing guitar - this was done as a very simple yet astute way of representing how the two are compared in the film, and does, in doing so, communicate the movie very effectively. Its also quite funny, with trumps face he’s pulling, which would mean it would be attention grabbing. A few design decisions relate back to rock and roll posters from the 20th century from print shops such as ‘Hatch Show Print’ who letter-pressed posters for many stars, such as Elvis. These design elements include the rows of stars and the use of a narrow sans serif typeface, which they would often use to increase the amount of space on the poster. Red was tested as a colour, because its bold and evocative of America. I then went for a yellow/gold because yellow is commonly associated with independent films/documentaries and also its representative of trumps hair. It's slightly gold so that it is evocative of Elvis’ grandeur and ‘royal’ status as the king of rock. 

Apocalypse Now Poster

For these posters, I attempted to use a modernist style, in line with Saul Bass’ design process. To do so, I used a minimal colour palette, geometric shapes and simple sans serif type, laid out rationally at the bottom. Saul Bass’ modernist posters always use a simple graphic image as a symbolic representation of the movie, The main themes of Apocalypse now are based upon simply representing the horror and chaos of the Vietnam War, this is further emphasised by looking at it through the eyes of the American troops, many of whom are just teenagers. And this is where we see the prevailing themes of the movie - rock and roll music, drugs and 70’s western culture, clashing violently with with the sheer horror of war. A scene which rather symbolically and visually represents this, is when one of the characters, who’s dancing around on the boat having just taken LSD, lets off a pink smoke flare. I visualised this through a winding pink shape going up the page, encircling the sun at the top, this also visually references the long river the central characters travel up in the movie. 

Study Task 6 - Proposal - Brief

What is your question/theme?

What constitutes a good movie poster - Anatomy of a Film Poster

Why is it important/interesting?

Cinema is a fundamental component of popular culture, everyone has a favourite film and everyone’s opinions are different. There have been so many different movie posters and ways to approach the movie poster over the last century, some of which everyone is incredibly familiar with the image of. It would be really interesting to delve into the core aspects of the film poster and dig deep into the actual graphic design, Is there one single approach to the film poster which is the most successful or is it more opinion based? Have we idolised film posters for years which actually aren’t good posters, or does the very fact that they have been idolised mean they are successful?

What are the important points / arguments / theories / concepts /contexts? (include key  writers - theorists) How do they relate to the question / theme?

Important points will definitely include different design movements such as modernism  and postmodernism. I will study arguments and theories put forward by key designers of these movements, e.g Massimo Vignelli in ‘Vignelli’s Cannon’, and analyse examples of movie posters using these sources. Another interesting topic will be the commodification and consumerism the Hollywood and blockbuster movies, and how marketing strategies and formulas have become more important than resolved and impactful design. Ultimately in my essay, by analysing a variety of case studies and using key sources to serve as different sides of the argument, I will formulate a response/answer to what constitutes a good movie poster, and whatever this answer is will inform the work I produce which will definitely contain movie posters I have designed in response to what I have learnt. 

How do you intend on exploring the question / theme? (methodology)

The majority of the research I gather will be secondary research, examining movie posters and texts which contextualise and critique the success and creation of a movie poster. Beyond this, it would be good to gather some primary research, perhaps this could be something along the lines of surveying people and asking them to pick which movie posters they think are the most successful out of a list I provide. The outcome I create will be a direct response to my findings in the essay. 

Why are you using this process / activity - how does it relate to the question / theme / theories? (Justification)

Fundamentally, what I am examining is whether or not there is a directly proportional relationship between specific graphic design methods and practises, and the success of a film poster. The context of a film poster has changed throughout the era’s, and with it, the style of film posters has changed depending on the prevailing graphic designs style of the time. The only way I can accurately asses the success of a film poster, as a singular com position as opposed to a subject of its era, is to critique and analyse it using a range of sources from different perspectives and different eras. Beyond that, when considering the subjectivity of the film poster, and the importance of its appeal to the general public, this is when it would be interesting to actually ask a range of people, which design they feel is the most impactful. 

Initial Idea 3 - Double Sided Poster With Flowchart

With the content and arguments of my essay developing, it become clear that a manifesto with clear set rules of how to design a good movie poster might be impossible, after all if this was possible, wouldn’t it have been done by now? Obviously like any design, movie posters are subjective and different people like different posters, sometimes for more personal reasons. However beyond that, I have found that the success of a movie poster is highly determined by its effectiveness in reaching its desired target audience, and also its effectiveness in communicating its genre.  So with this in mind, surely there are multiple different formats and ways a poster can be considered successful? With this in mind, I thought about how I can communicate my findings and then thought about doing s sort of flow chart; this could have multiple different branches and people could read it follow it down and get specific responses to designing a movie poster depending on what sort of poster they need to design. This could be on a double sided poster, with the other side being a poster that I design. One positive aspect of doing this as opposed to a poster zine would be that because it doesn’t fold up, the poster wouldn’t be all crinkled and folded, meaning its displayed and communicated in a more bespoke manner which seems fitting for a movie poster. 

I started thinking about the way I could design this flow chart, I haven’t come up with the actual content for it yet, as I haven’t finished the essay,  however I quite liked the idea of emulating some of the geometric shapes that Saul Bass used in his posters, he actually hand rendered these and cut them out of card so maybe I could do the same. 

Initial Idea 2 - Poster Zine

This idea spawned from the first initial idea of doing a manifesto and is just a different format for it. Instead of creating a bound publication, I could make a poster zine where there are 8 pages that you can flick through, each with a different manifesto rule/ point on and then you can fold out the zine into as poster which would be one of the posters that give created as a response. The good thing about this approach is that you get that fold out big poster and I think scale really makes a difference with something like a poster so it would be nice to be able to see it that big. The down side is that by being a poster zine it would loose that formal quality to it. Ultimately the poster zine would take a lot less time to do but would still effectively communicate the message. Below are a few mockups i did of what the zine would look like. For the design inspiration, I still took inspiration from The ’20 photographs’ publication and the ‘history of the samsonite’ publication, using ‘Aviano Flare’ as a heading typeface because its contemporary yet still formal. I laid the body text out very simply, and the fold out poster just has one of Saul Bass’ posters on there for the time being as a placeholder, and I have not started designing the actual posters yet. 

Initial Idea 1 - Manifesto

This first idea for a produced outcome in response to my essay is a fairly intuitive one. Having completed the essay, I will be well informed in this idea of what makes a good movie poster, so it seems apt to create a manifesto with rules and guidelines on how to make a movie poster. The manifesto will be a bound publication, with examples of movie posters which work well, as well as examples of movie posters that I have created in response. I would want the design to be fairly minimal and formal within the publication, so as not to draw any attention away from the actual posters. Also this idea of looking at posters from throughout time, s0me dating many years back, has this formal and historical quality to it, and a more formal bound publication would reflect that. Many of the posters have incredibly different styles, so utilising a simple aesthetic would mean no design style from any one poster is favoured, and the publication can reflect them equally. 

20 Photographs - Hugo Scott & Loose Joints

This publication for photographer Hugo Scott, designed by studio Loose Joints, is a collection of 20 photographs, each printed individually on card and collated in a box. While my publication would be bound, I really like the minimal design approach here; the photos are framed really nicely on blank white pages, and the type and cover work really nicely, leaving white space in there middle, and using a contemporary yet not overtly styled typeface. I would really like to give prominence to the movie posters in my manifesto so obviously looking at a photography publication is the way to go, perhaps I could display movie posters in my publication similarly. 

The History of Samsonite - Melville Brand Design

This publication, by Munich Based Design Studio, Melville Brand Design, details the history of the Samsonite suitcase. The sturdy hard back cover, reflects the durability that Samsonite’s suitcases have become known for, on the inside, the information and images were laid out rationally, taking the aesthetic of a very informative publication, with a range of images, labels on images and large chunks of body text. Perhaps this would be a good approach for my publication? I like the idea of a hard back cover as it would reflect this formal and historical tone of the manifesto. I wouldn’t have as many images as this book does but perhaps I cold just let the posters fill the majority of a page, with the body text on the facing page. Alternatively, for designers such as Midnight Marauder, on his website he has a page for his ‘B-Sides’ poster designs he didn’t end up using. It would be interesting to maybe include these, and other similar things which would just give these posters a little more context.

I like the approach both of these research points have taken, and at the moment, if I were to take this idea forward, I’m sort of imaging a combination of these two publications; a hard bound book with similarly contemporary type to ’20 photographs’ and the inside would be laid out as rationally and minimally as ‘the history of the samsonite’ but maybe with images framed on single pages like ’20 photographs’.   

Anatomy of a Movie Poster - Research

As an outcome in response to my essay, it seems essential to create at least one movie poster, having researched and critiqued the idea of ‘what constitutes a good movie poster’. I can use my findings to inform how this poster looks, demonstrating through my outcome, that I have engaged with my essay topic. How I demonstrate my findings as a produced outcome is still something I need to create initial ideas for and experiment with, however it seems clear that a big research point will be the designers who’s posters I have used as case studies in my essay:

Saul Bass

Saul Bass’ film posters are arguably some of the most iconic film posters ever made; working with directors such as Hitchcock, Scorcesse and Kubrick, Bass’ modernist approach to the film poster utilises simple shapes and primary colours in minimal compositions, with the dominant aspect of the poster often being a single graphic symbol, representing a key theme in the movie. Bass also produced the opening graphics for many films and was the first designer to incorporate motion into these. He also did some more commercial design, creating logos for big companies such as AT&T and united airlines. 

I read the book ‘6 Chapters in Design’ which features a chapter on Saul Bass:

I found it interesting the way his combination of ‘emotion and intellect’ were talked about. It’s true his designs are very clever because he not only manages to distil the movie down into  a poster, but into a very intuitive and simple poster, visually communicating the movie in a symbolic image or graphic. It almost makes sense that he designed logos as well, because if you think of a poster such as the one for ‘the man with the golden arm’ the black angular arm on the poster which serves as a visual m metaphor for the protagonists drug addiction, almost serves as a logo at this point because its so linked with the film and so simple yet effective. These ideas are definitely ones I will have to try and bring to designing a poster; I think it would be very interesting to designer a modernist poster taking inspiration from Saul Bass; a lot of people do create Saul Bass esque posters and kind of end up just copying his style and creating a pastiche, I want to really investigate applying his process. 

Stephen Frankfurt

Frankfurt was primarily an advertising executive, creating many famous ad campaigns, however he did create a few very iconic movie posters including posters for Alien and Rosemarys Baby. Looking at his posters, theres often a lot of white space, and the designs seem very fixed to the vertical plane, with the hierarchy of type and imagery sending the viewer’s eye down the page. Frankfurt is critiqued for the similarities between his poster for Rosemarys baby and Downhill Racer, both of which contain a horizontal profile of a woman face in the top half of the image, empty space in the bottom half, and a small silhouetted image connecting the 2. While Frankfurt didn’t design that many movie posters, his designs are still very visually striking and memorable, to me they demonstrate a stepping stone between modernist posters like Bass’ and the post modernist posters which came after because he uses more sophisticated edited imagery, yet still very rationally and efficiently lays out the poster. 

Bob Peak

Bob Peak was a commercial illustrator, and after trying his hand at movie posters, soon become known for his developments of the modern movie poster. He has worked on posters for movies such as apocalypse now, star trek, superman and James Bond. His posters are very loud, colourful and eye catching; compiling images of characters, key themes of the move and specific scenes into immersive visual collages. His poster for apocalypse now is particularly striking and very emotive with Brando’s face emanating an ominous expression. It’s also interesting to consider this idea of consumerism with this poster, even though Marlon Brando wasn’t the star of the film, his face is more prominent and it gives the poster more star power and draws people in.

Midnight Marauder

Midnight Marauder is a contemporary graphic designer, specialising in posters for movies. He has an incredibly large and diverse range of work, ranging from big blockbuster movies to small independent films, with the styles of his posters varying depending on the movie. The poster I am looking at for my essay is his poster for the documentary ‘Hal’ a documentary about director Hal Ashby. This poster is quite modernist, using a lot of white space and a very minimal approach, this design style is present in a lot of his work and works very effectively, however he also has posters which are a lot louder and busier, often using illustrative images and bright colours. I think Midnight Marauder may be one of the movie poster designers that I look more closely at for research because he is a contemporary designer, and the posters I will design, whilst maybe still being for older movies, will be created in contemporary context. 

Study Task 5 - Planning and Structuring an Essay

• Intro, not too descriptive, mention lack in quality of some modern posters and mention how people love the iconic posters of the past.

• Modernism - From the beginning of the 20th century, movie posters were illustrative and depicted particular key scenes of the movie with actors faces prominent. In the 60’s Saul Bass came onto the scene, started applying modernist design values to movie posters, swapping out depictions of scenes for minimalist symbolic imagery and shape. Other designers soon followed. By citing vignelli’s cannon and one other conflicting modernist text, analyse one or two examples of Saul bass’ work. 

• Stephen Frankfurt, Rosemarys baby 1968

• Post modernism - came along in the 70’s and signalled a departure from modernism in popular culture. Since postmodernism is described as a ‘conscious use of other styles’ and a mixing of different styles medias etc. we see the illustrative pre modernist movie poster have a resurgence. Bob Peak poster - apocalypse now?

• Commodification - The ideological process of commodification knows no boundaries, which is why we can no longer find refuge in the now defunct distinction between commerce and culture. Whilst one sells commodities as value, the other sells values as commodities. Paradoxically, the form of expression and communication they use to do so, are essentially the same. There is an exponentially higher quantity of designers in the world now then say 20 years ago. This means now, it is not hard for a company/product to have good design as designers are not hard to come by. The commodification of graphic design means that designers are doing work for a client which allows the client to make a lot of money, instead of a collaborative process. 

• Consumerism - Consumerism relates to movie posters because it is the process of studios using marketing tools and visual formulas within their posters to increase their profits. Here talk about recurring visual themes ion blockbuster movie posters.

• Contemporary design - many agree post modernism is coming to a close or already has, some using the phrase ‘post-postmodernism’. When we take a look at modern day film posters, and not the ones effected by consumerism or commodification, but the more creative endeavours - artistic films, documentaries etc. a jump back to modernism can be seen, could this be postmodernism doing what it does and consciously reverting back to that style as enough time has passed? Look at midnight marauders poster for Hal 
•  - compare with vignelli’s cannon. 

• Conclusion - posters are subjective  - there can be no one poster which is the best. However most importantly posters need to suit the genre, tone and target audience. While these formulated blockbuster movie posters aren’t examples of really nice, thought out design, are they justified b evacuee ultimately they do the job they need to. 

Quotes 

Vignelli’s Cannon

• We are for a design that lasts, that respond’s to people’s needs not to people’s wants. 
• We like the use of primary shapes and primary colours because their formal values are timeless.
• We strive for a design that is centred on the message rather than the visual titillation. We like design that is clear, simple and enduring. And that is what timeless means in design. 
• One should not underestimate the importance of white space to better define the hierarchy of every component.
• Most of the time we like to use colour to convey a specific message, therefore, we tend to use it more as a symbol or as an identifier.

Posters: a concise history - John Barnicoat

• a poster can never be obscure
• The designer cannot allow his work to express a private idea that subsequent generations may be able to unravel: he must achieve instant contact.
• To do this he must, like an entertainer, work with his audience. 
• Their function is to communicate as well as to be decorative.
• A straightforward, objective design will always have a general appeal and the clumsy, amateur design will always find acceptance with the public.  

Film Posters of the 80’s  - 

• the film posters of any given period offer an unerringly accurate reflection of the tastes and aspirations of the audiences they were designed to attract. 
• For film-makers have always been quick to seize upon the prevailing fashions and preoccupations of the times and to distil them into their purest form, and the poster artist strives, of course, to carry the process even further by capturing the magic of a movie in a single graphic image. 

Movie Poster - Emily King

• when developing identities for films, in each case Bass attempted to find a strong graphic symbol that would act as a summary of the plot. He maintained the modernist belief that it is possible to strip away layers of the complexity and arrive at a single visual essence. In the case of the man with the golden arm the twisted black arm is an expression of the central character’s struggle with drugs. 
• By taking Bass on board Preminger, Hitchcock and Wilder were, to use a more modern term, branding themselves and their output in a way that bolstered their position as independents. 
• Farrow’s profile looms over the horizon as if it were the setting sun, in contrast to which the silhouetted pram looks insubstantial and vulnerable. The poster does not communicate much about the film, but is a powerful free-standing image. 
• Typical of Peak’s style, this poster is a montage of scenes from the film. In line with the demands of marketing, Peak concentrated on the star, Marlon Brando, emphasising what he described as Brando’s ‘Marvellous Head’.
• Empire strikes back - Irvin kershner - playing up the romance between carrie fisher’s princess leia and Harrison fords Han Solo, this poster aimed to attract a broader audience, in particular more women, to the second film in the trilogy.
• Peaks hollywood career  reached its zenith  in the late 1970’s. Sometimes described as ‘the father of the modern movie poster’, peak had a style that perfectly fitted the overblown, almost camp nature of the main stream cinema of that era. 
• VCR’s first came onto the market ion the mid 1970’s …. In response, the studios concentrated investment on the production of blockbusters to an even greater extent, aiming to smooth out their incomer streams by repackaging these big budget films for home viewing. The impact of these shifts on movie posters has been largely negative. Now part of larger marketing campaigns, poster images are required to be reusable in a number of formats and for the most part they have lost any stand-alone quality. The need to appeal to the eye flicking along the shelves of the video stores has led to uniformity and blandness. 
• 21st century escapism - the principal means of promoting the new breed of escapism involves superimposing highly retouched photographs of attractive lead actors on dramatic pictures of imaginary landscapes. Spectacular, glossy and unreal in every sense, these images offer potential audiences a very potent mix of fantasies. 
• Posters are primarily advertisements and their task is to connect with the people on the street, not with the images on the screen. 

A Century of Posters - Martijn F. Le Coultre & Alston W. Purvis

• Requirements of a successful poster were eloquently delineated  in 1901 by the critic Raymond Needham: ‘take any representative Japanese print - a book illustration,  a broad sheet or a theatre bill - and it will be found to embody all that a good poster should. One dominant idea is presented graphically, beautifully. The detail does not weaken, but actually enforces the motif. There is not a superfluous line. The colour scheme of flat tints is fresh and striking, but always harmonious. The composition gives an idea of balance and breadth, but affords no hint as to how these qualities have been attained… The general effect is decorative in the highest degree, may be humorous and is certainly pervaded by the “hidden soul of harmony”. 

Hutcheon - post modernism

Best film posters of 2017

What Constitutes a Good Movie Poster? - first essay draft

I started to write ought the first draft of my essay, which I did so without all of my references yet and no real plan. I just wanted to see the direction I could take the essay, and to see if the research and ideas for content I had at the time were enough.  After getting some feedback on it,  I realised that I was going about the essay wrong; I was trying to fit everything in when is should really just be focusing on a handful of examples that respond to mu question. Also in this draft essay, I really wasn’t talking about actually what constitutes a good movie poster enough, more so talking about Hollywood marketing and consumerism with blockbuster films, which while important and interesting as a bit of context, should not be gone into in so much depth. From here I need to research some more books, and find a handful which go more in depth into what makes a good poster/movie poster. I am then going to use 4 or 5 film posters to use as specific case studies. I will formulate a plan for my essay as well to make sure it is structured correctly. 

There is a general consensus of late, indicating the modern movie poster has declined in quality in comparison to some of its more iconic predecessors. It’s true that as the film industry has grown to become a trillion dollar industry, contributing greatly to the world economy, more and more films are being produced and sadly this means a lot of them are simply made to churn out more cash, with their movie posters functioning as repetitive marketing devices. In this era of modern cinema and design, people long for the originality and human touch of the classic film poster; framed posters of films like Scarface and Pulp Fiction line the walls of the bedrooms of students and young adults who weren’t even alive when these films were released. Fundamentally, are the formulaic and 'soulless’ Hollywood marketing strategies to blame for this decline or are people just filled with a misplaced sense of nostalgia? The most important question is, what actually constitutes a good movie poster? Can this be examined effectively or is it purely subjective?

When considering the modern day movie poster, one must contemplate the degree to which they are calculated and used as a marketing tool, Barackman (2013) writes - “Although movie studios typically drop $100,000 per poster, they often fall prey to formulas and “I’ll have what she’s having” designs.”. In any creative field, the avoidance of repetition is common and strived towards, designers want to create original and new work each time,  however for these big blockbuster movies, certain colours, grid systems, visual devices and typography are used  to market specific genres to a specific target audience, and when they work, studios aren’t afraid to keep on using them. For example, A surprisingly large amount of modern film posters use the colour combination of orange and blue; These two colours are directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, making for a dynamic and exciting contrast, for this reason the two colours are used an incredible amount in posters for action, thriller and fantasy movies. Other visual devices which have proved successful, meaning the studios have subsequently regurgitated them include; The man and woman standing back to back against a white background for a romantic comedy movie, a gritty dark blue hue for an action/thriller movie and the classic ‘floating heads’ above a beach for a romantic movie.

This is not to say that there are no good movie posters these days, because there are a lot of amazing posters, Perhaps the reason that the film industry seems so oversaturated with these vastly edited formulaic blockbuster posters is that these are the movies which have the biggest budget for advertising and are generally the most popular. Basically the more money they have riding on it, the less risk they want to take in elements such as marketing. When examining the posters of movies  which are perhaps a touch more avant - garde; documentaries or independent films, it’s a totally different story. This can be seen in art director Adrian Curry’s Creative Review article ‘The Best Film Posters of 2017’. Each poster is not only a departure from the modern blockbuster movie poster but also they are entirely different from each other, providing refreshing variation. Take for example film poster designer Midnight Marauder’s poster for Eugene Jarecki’s documentary ‘Promised Land’, which Curry (2017) describes as having ‘beautiful high-contrast images, surreal juxtapositions, flat planes of colour and perfect type’. And Midnight Marauder’s film poster prowess does not stop there; his portfolio is ripe with fantastically  designed posters, for example, his poster for Amy Scott’s ‘Hal’ utilises a beautiful balance between very minimal type and imagery, a serene amount of white space and a refined application of colour - a superb piece of design and a far cry from the blockbuster movie poster sensibility of throwing everything they can onto one poster. 

As previously stated, a lot of these more creative and intriguing designs come from movies which aren’t from massively popular studios or franchises and are instead more of an artistic endeavour. For movies like this, where generating as much cash as possible is not the main priority, the director and producers gain more control and ‘creative autonomy’ over elements such as the poster. This means that they don’t have to, for example, squash in all 8 characters of a movie with their scale on the poster being proportional  to their role in the film, because they don’t have to try and use the film’s star power as a promotional attention grabbing tool. 

Study Task 4 - Identity and Consumption

What is meant by multiple identities? - Multiple identities refers to the different identities one assumes in their life, in other words the different social situations they are in regularly and the roles they assume in them, for example you have a different identity when at work, compared to when you’re at the pub with your friends because these different situations require different responses. 

How are identities formed? - As young children, we have a basic and primitive  understating of who we are and what our identity is, however once we grow up, these identities develop, they are moulded by the people around us and the things we do and we start developing multiple personalities as we start to encounter different social situations. 

What is social categorisation? - Social categorisation refers to the way in which we as humans perceive and categorise other people. It’s easier for humans to notice similarities and differences between themselves, and the person they are attempting to categorise. Often the way we categorise people is based upon aspects such as their material possessions and social group. 

What is social comparison? - Social comparison is almost the reverse of social categorisation - it is the process of comparing oneself to others and finding similarities and differences, but instead of its purpose being too categorise others, it is too reflect on oneself and in doing so, get a better sense of our own individual identity and increase positive self esteem. As humans, our identity is informed by the brands we consume, so by comparing our self to others and purchasing brands that conform to this desired identity, we achieve a sense of belonging. 

What is social identity theory? - This is the theory that by being part of a group, people get a better sense of their own identity, and this idea of belonging boasts their self confidence. The theory also states that a ‘group’ is defined by the products these people consume, often related to image e.g. clothing. However for it be defined as a group, they must be recognisable as a group to others, so that their collective identity is apparent. This distinct collective identity is often subject to brands advertising and marketing to specific target audiences or ‘groups’. 

What is an example of a strong brand identification? - Vans trainers and clothing have a strong brand identity because they have a clear set target audience who their marketing and advertising is catered to - skaters and young people. Being a company built around skateboarding and its community, vans trainers, while not exclusively intended for skateboarding, are very commonly worn by skaters b because there is that brand association. Vans advertisements commonly feature people on skateboards and their trainers and clothing are commonly advertised to be very sturdy and long lasting - fitting a skateboarders needs. Even young people who don’t skateboard are commonly attracted to the community and groups which associate with it, one reason for this is its cultural connection with certain genres of music e.g. punk and rock music. 

What are the negative effects on body image? - Someones body image is a big part of their personal identity and image. If people socially compare themselves to brands and the way they advertise, this can commonly decrease their self confidence because brands often use people with ‘perfect bodies’ for advertising, and consumers start to compare themselves with these perfect images, believing that they should look like that in order to conform to this group, and when they realise they cannot truly look like this, it decreases their self esteem. 

What is self-discrepancy theory? - This theory is a way of understanding peoples perceptions of their own identity’s and body image. The theory suggests that there are 3 ways one perceives themselves: 

Actual self - the way we are currently 

Ideal self  - how we aspire to be 

Ought self - the way we think we should be 

If there are discrepancies between the actual self and ideal self, or the actual self and the ought self, this can lead to low self esteem.