The document outlines a brief for creating images through photomontage to protest a societal injustice. It discusses researching artists like John Heartfield for inspiration in handmade montages. The creator considers issues like wealth inequality and the way celebrities promote unhealthy products. Initial ideas include contrasting wealthy celebrities with facts about poverty. Research explores protest posters and Dadaist techniques. Outcomes include handcut and digital photomontages contrasting wealth and poverty to promote on t-shirts.

1. Constructed Image
Becky
Bond

2. THE BRIEF
 The end product of this brief will be a powerful image or
series of images to protest a chosen societal injustice.
 I’ll create this outcome by means of researching into
photomontage as a means of portraying a message.
 I’ll experiment with hand made montaging and digital work
for a variety of outcomes.
 By looking at artists such as John Heartfield, Peter
Kennard and the Dada movement I’ll gain inspiration as to
the method of hand-making montages and by researching a
chosen topic which means something to me, I’ll have the
means to adapt and shape their methods to my project.
 I’ll use my outcome as a means to promote my chosen cause.

3. SOCIETAL INJUSTICES –
INITIAL IDEAS  “GOD I hope all these celebrities
all shit their pants in public, the
way the poor women who buy
this nonsense upon their
recommendation do,” - Jameela
Jamil
 https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2019/j
an/25/owen-jones-meets-tim-martin-
wetherspoons-no-deal-brexit-poverty-wages-dont-
ask-childish-questions-video
 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-
62-people-who-are-as-wealthy-as-the-poorest-half-of-
humanity-combined-a6818766.html
 https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/ftc-is-cracking-
down-on-celeb-sponsored-content.html
 https://mic.com/articles/136002/why-weight-loss-
tea-is-the-biggest-scam-on-
instagram#.RNldGNPQN
My initial idea of something I believe is wrong in society
and symbolises an imbalance and misuse of power between
the rich and the not so rich was the way celebrities are paid to
promote ‘health’ drinks (fit tea etc) which are either laxatives
or scams. It also touches on the issue of body image.
Celebrities have money for personal chefs, personal trainers
and surgery whereas regular people don’t. comparisons between
yourself and celebrities is useless because of those factors, but
celebrities and companies capitalise on this by paying celebs to
pretend the secret to their looks/lifestyle/etc is the drinks.
Another idea I had is about wealth hoarding. While researching
protest art I saw a poster which showed the combined wealth of
the 85 richest people is equal to the total of the poorest 3.5 billion
people. Having such a monstrous amount of money would mean
one of the 85 could give away about 95% of their wealth and still
be overly comfortable for the rest of their lives. This statistic really stood out to me and spurred me onto thinking about
hy[pocrisy of rich people and the unnecessary amount of wealth people have. I don’t think there’s any need whatsoever for an
individual to have a personal wealth of an amount so great they couldn’t even spend it all over a lifetime if they tried.
Rich people such as Tim Martin – Wetherspoons founder, when asked about his workers on poverty wages - while he’s a
millionaire labelled the questions ‘childish’ , celebrities asking the public for donations while dressed in designer clothes,
celebrities making insensitive comments about a harsh reality for some people

4. INITIAL IDEAS
 Some other ideas I had were about animals and the ethics involved in
farming them for slaughter, the way in which our damaging the
environment affects them and in turn, us.
 I went with the idea of wealth hoarding because I felt it was analysed more
in depth than the other options by charities and awareness campaigns,
with facts and figures which I felt more compelled to share. They were
shocking to read and would make a strong campaign. I realized I felt quite
passionately about it.

5.  I liked the contrast between celebrities
saying insensitive things about poverty
and flaunting wealth against real
people in poverty today – as in my
research, I liked the idea of using
people of interest. In the news, things
that catch peoples’ eyes the most are
related to celebrities and tragedy. I
wanted my photomontages to combine
this with facts and figures that make
the reality of poverty a bit more
understandable to people who have
never faced it.

6. IMAGES & CONTENT RELATING TO
IMBALANCE OF WEALTH

7. $79,200,000,000
$7.25 an hour
$79,200,000,000 – Bill
Gates
“Please give generously”
“There’s not enough to go
around”

8. RESEARCH INTO PHOTOMONTAGES,
PROTESTS, COLLAGES AND
AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS When researching books of protest posters and campaigns, the posters which
stood out most to me and pulled my interest were ones which were satirical takes
on people of interest or corporations. I like wordplay and visual puns and found it
was reminiscent of Dadaism movement.

13. HANNAH HOCH “Höch was not only a rare female practicing
prominently in the arts in the early part of the
20thcentury - near unique as a female active in
the Dada movement that coalesced in her time
- she also consciously promoted the idea of
women working creatively more generally in
society. She explicitly addressed in her
pioneering artwork in the form of
photomontage the issue of gender and the
figure of woman in modern society. ”
 https://www.theartstory.org/artist-hoch-hannah.htm
 Hannah Hoch is one of my favourite artists
who pioneered photomontages during the Dada
movement in Germany. Meaning in her work is
a lot more subtle than the protest pieces and
her methods are a lot more DIY and hand
made.

14. MAX ERNST, HERBERT
BAYER, MARCEL
DUCHAMPS, RAOUL
HAUSMAN
The Dadaist montages differ from the
protest pieces visually, though there are
strong meanings in both. Because of the
different societal contexts of these eras,
messages in Dadaist times were more
subtle whereas contemporary pieces can
be more explicit.

15. I found more images relating to my topic to use for
my photomontages. Through research I started
forming ideas such as contrast between poverty in
England and wealth in the biggest richest parts of
America, where houses, lifestyles and luxuries are
otherworldly.

17. PHOTOMONTAGES

19. DIGITAL PHOTOMONTAGES

20. OUTCOMES
I first used cut up pictures to play around with and create montages. These were limited
in what I could make, as changing scale and colours wasn’t an option once printed. I
liked that this was challenging and meant I had to find ways around to alter and get to
where I wanted to be. I was happy with my outcomes, but felt they were quite busy
when comparing to the protest photomontages I’d researched. They were more like the
Dada era montages both visually and in terms of how I’d made them.
I didn’t enjoy the montages I made digitally without the hand drawn bases – I found it
harder to get inspired when I didn’t have all the pictures laid out in front of me. The
idea of sticking Mariah Carey’s face onto one of the starving children she’d envied the
body type of came about during assessing my paper collages. I tried it digitally but even
then, liked it better when the cut out style was a bit more messy than clean Photoshop. I
decided to go back to editing the existing montages. I edited paris Hilton’s ‘stop being
poor’ shirts onto one of the pictures of the poverty struck children to make a piece to go
alongside the Mariah/celebrity quote idea. Even though I didn’t like the medium so
much, I felt the ideas were interesting.
As the Dadaist movement is one of my favorite eras of design out of the research I’d
done, I was alright with how my outcomes at this point were more like that than the
protest pieces. I adapted them slightly while maintaining the content. I did this using
ProCreate on my iPad. I wanted the colours to reflect the difference between extreme
wealth and extreme poverty – bright and pretty vs dark and dingy.

21. USING THE DESIGN TO
PROMOTE3 main ways to promote a cause are billboards, tote bags and t shirts. Billboards reach
huge audiences based on location, totes and t shirts mean the charity gets promoted by
people who have already donated. I looked at existing charity products to see which my
designs would suit best.
Billboards tended to be mostly large type and limited imagery and tote bags were often
snappy and short with just a charity’s logo on.

22.  T shirt designs were noticeably more colourful and decorative than tote bags and
billboards. I thought my style of montage would suit a t shirt more than a
billboard or tote. My design was noticeably more busy than charity t shirt designs
pictured, but I could subvert from the norm to make my product stand out.

23. OUTCOMES
I liked how the digital versions of
my handmade photomontages had
come out, so I used my favourite one
of them on a t shirt. I reflected on
this and then chose to simplify the
design slightly to keep the message
clear. If I’d chosen a billboard there
would be more room for small
details, but I felt a t shirt would
benefit from a slightly altered
version of my design. I liked how the
photomontage looked on a t shirt
and as a design in itself.
The two children and the lips
cutouts look very DIY which I’m
glad I kept as an element in the
montage.