Reflections on the first lecture, Surveillance and Foucault

One of the key texts this year is Graphic Design as Communication by Malcolm Barnard. He argues that all graphic design is centred on communication. So how could you use the lecture on Surveillance to contextualise this in relation to your practice? (You might work out that I’ve very interested in Communication theories and would personally argue that communication supersedes sociological interpretations)
If you look at how graphic design helps in the formation of social and cultural identities, it is reasonable to suggest that class, racial/ethnic age and gender groups etc. are often represented by stereotypes within the graphic design industry.
Using this issue as a starting point you could look at any single element within a piece of design and pick out how we are being subtlety controlled by the way we are stereotyped.
I would argue that stereotyping is part of the development of the docile body.
In Derrida’s Of Grammatology, he asks how representation inhabits reality. How does the external image of things get inside their internal essence? How does the surface get under the skin? One answer to Derrida’s question is that representation ‘inhibits’ reality. All representations are by their very nature ‘less than’ reality and therefore involve a selection or choice. This choice is going to be one made by the person constructing the representation and therefore will reflect prejudices held on the part of the image maker.
Salen (2001) suggests that all visual form supports structures of cultural standardisation, marking distinctions between what he calls ‘standard and non-standard’ participants. He goes on to look at how typography as a system can be used to mark social difference and how it can become an ‘agent of standardisation’.
So, perhaps some images are needed here to illustrate Salen’s point.






These images (above) may represent a small element within the process of stereotyping but I think we can see that in this case the typography is definitely not neutral and it is leading towards a simplification of what it is to be from another culture. This simplification suggests that we are made ‘dumb’ therefore docile in the face of difference.
More important than that is a deeper issue related to ‘difference’ and that is that by being singled out as different, it is presumed that we ‘know’ what the norm or standard is. This knowledge is in fact the hidden Panopticon.
So as a designer have you ever used a stereotype to initiate communication? For instance an idea of youth as opposed to age or what it is to be female as opposed to male? Have you tried to communicate to an audience based on class stereotypes? Have you seen other designers doing this?

References
Lupton, E (1994) Deconstruction and Graphic Design
Salen, K (2001) Surrogate multiplicities: Typography in the age of invisibility