Design Precedents
Although I have included some of my design precedents in the series already and used them as tools to support the arguments relating to my hypothesis, literature review, and critique, there were a few more that I couldn’t fit in so I want to briefly talk about these and explain why I believe these are useful in arguing whether or not designers are responsible for creating gender stereotypes and whether it is our responsibility. The Design precedents I am going to look at are:
Lego as a company and their gender neutrality drive
Basik as a brand that is working hard to break down boundaries
1. Lego
Lego created their people without any stereotyping in mind. All the people in the Lego all have the same boy sizes and the clothes all fit on another the only way to really differentiate is maybe by the hair and the clothes they wear. Lego were praised because all the people could do any job, all had the same poses and so it was false to say they were creating a brand around stereotypes or the people ad stereotypes. Where they have come under a little bit of fire is with their branding and their bricks specially the Technic and friends range. It has come to see that on the Technic range (this includes building, spaceship, cars, etc.) all are targeted towards males with darker bricks, males on the packaging and the adverts used to have boys playing with these while the friends range (shopping malls, houses, cooking) had more feminine coloured bricks and had girls on the covers and not boys. In their adverts it used to have girls playing with these more than boys. So although they created a brand that didn’t stereotype people and allowed all genders to all the same things while kids were playing with it but their branding was definitely targeted towards male and females the stereotypes of children they thought would demand it.
2. Basik
Basik was a gender neutrality project by Saana Hellsten. She was looking at ‘packaging that perpetuates gender stereotypes’ because she believes gender neutral packaging can be a way to creating gender equality. She argues that our first interaction with a product is it's packaging and currently the way products are packaged encourages gender stereotypes. Basik is a series of household and cosmetic products that uses gender neutral packaging to appeal to people. Household products at the moment are created to appeal to women by using soft tones and sensitive products because it is still playing on the stereotype that women should be doing house chores. Saana Hellsten was trying to create household products that is designed for the neutral not targeting either male or female in order to break down the stereotype that women should be in the kitchen. She also created a series of razors because although male and female razors do the same thing (cut hair) they have such a different visual language. She wanted to strip away the gender form the packaging and instead concentrate on the function. The razors she created are for the neutral and could be bought by anyone and wasn’t targeted to a gender. She has started a conversation about the way we brand household and cosmetic products because effectively they are demanded by everyone for the same reasons so why are they targeted so differently towards males and females.