The Blog

In Design Competitions this quarter, each student was asked to respond to briefs for the One Show Young Ones and D&AD Student Awards. For the unfamiliar, these are huge worldwide competitions that celebrate the very best work in advertising and design. The One Club was founded in New York City and D&AD (Design & Art Direction) in London.

One of the One Show briefs challenged us to promote the horrors of the thoroughbred horse racing industry for Peta. To be honest, I didn’t know much about horse racing before working on this and I felt like it might be hard to dive in and get excited about this project. I’m not really a huge fan of horses; I think they are beautiful and I like looking at them, but having being thrown from one as a little girl, I’m kind of scared of their power. But this brief was a game changer for me. It ignited my interest in learning about mass meat production, research that has since dissolved any personal desire to eat meat ever again. But I won’t get preachy right now. Some other time, perhaps.

Peta expertly describes the horse racing industry in the brief:

Behind the romanticized façade of thoroughbred horse racing is a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns and slaughter. Racehorses weigh more than 1,000 pounds and are supported by ankles the size of a human’s. They are whipped and forced to run on tracks that are often made of hard packed dirt at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour while carrying people on their backs. They are pumped full of drugs intended to mask pain, so that they keep running long after their stressed or injured bodies would tell them to stop. When they stop winning races or become injured, usually when they’re still very young—often not even physically mature yet—few racehorses are retired to pastures, because owners don’t want to pay for a horse that doesn’t bring in any money. Since the last horse slaughterhouse in the U.S. closed several years ago, tens of thousands of horses are now shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico, or Japan, where they are turned into dog food and glue. Their flesh is then exported to countries such as France and Japan, where it is considered a delicacy.

Another image I remember is that of a racehorse being shot between the eyes with a bolt gun. It often takes several shots through the brain to kill the animal. This is a disgusting way to end a life.

Haley Gardner (you’re familiar by now?) and I worked on an ambient advertising campaign to promote such horrors. Horse racing uses horses for entertainment, making the animals a spectacle for excited onlookers. Art has historically done the same thing, showcasing the strength of these animals through painting and sculpture. The streets of the world are dotted with sculptures of strong animals, usually with their heroic human counterpart, and paintings of horses are hung in private and public galleries alike. This kind of art is so prevalent that it is no longer surprising or unusual.

We wanted to leverage art as a medium in which to show the duplicity of the horse racing industry. In Haley’s words, “these ambient art installations mirror the way horse racing operates; from afar, it’s an enjoyable and pleasant scene, much like sculptures and paintings. But upon further inspection, what is thought to be a beautiful display is actually a disturbing example of the brutality the horse racing industry works hard to hide.”

Life-sized sculptures will be placed in public areas where passersby will be able to see exactly how two-faced the horse racing industry is. On one side, a beautiful, strong and healthy horse. On the other, its raw flesh and battered body exposes the brutal nature of a racehorse’s career.

Painted portraits of mutilated horses will be placed at bus stops and subway areas around cities. The injuries, like this gash in an otherwise healthy horse, are aimed to grab attention and provoke the viewer to learn more about the cruelty of the racing industry.

I illustrated the horse using colored pencils and scanned a hunk of ribeye for the meat. And the blood is real! (No it’s not. But that would’ve been cool.)

Haley smartly connected our campaign to Oscar Wilde’s comment that “life imitates art far more than art imitating life.” In this case, the opposite is true.

This was such a fun project.

The final project in my packaging class was to design interesting packaging for a boring product. Each student was assigned an everyday, boring or cheap product, a country of inspiration and a target age and gender. I was assigned pink foam hair rollers, India and 6-8 year old girls. This was actually a pretty fantastic combination of things. India is rich with inspiration, colors, stories, patterns and shapes. Having already designed two packaging projects for men (Gallus Reserve and another I haven’t posted yet), I was so grateful for my assigned target and the opportunity to use feminine colors, an excess of pattern and glitter! With my niece and two young cousins on my mind, I started my research.

When I was reading about Hinduism, I came across a story of Durga, a goddess created to destroy a ferocious monster. She is depicted as having anything from 8 to 18 arms, each wielding a different weapon to fight evil. I liked this story and thought it’d be interesting to reshape it for this project. I also wanted to design something more interesting than a standard box. Curlers are almost always stacked on top of one another and packaged in a box and I thought something more playful would appeal to young girls.

Combat hair demons like frizz, tangles or stringy hair with Kumari Kurls! Kumari’s weapons of beauty are sure to turn your tangles into beautiful curls!

I illustrated Kumari for the front so that her many arms would be holding her weapons, the curlers, that show through the front’s acetate window. On the back, Kumari is riding her sidekick, Eshani the elephant! I created a paisley pattern for the grass, a swirly pattern for the sky background and a scalloped pattern for the side of the box. The shape of the box is inspired by Indian architecture and I installed a zipper so that the box can be opened and repurposed as a bag for art or school supplies or sleepover materials!

Haley came through with another fantastic story for the back of the package and instructions for the insert panel that explains how the bag can be reused.

Legend has it that Kumari, Goddess of Curl, once lived in a land known for its tangled tresses and unmanageable frizz. At the cries of her tousled townspeople, she decided to take matters into her many hands! With Eshani the elephant by her side, Kumari took to battle, using her special tools to conquer the hair demons that were destroying her people! Bad hair was defeated and all was right in the village again.

Kumari’s legacy lives on through Kumari Kurls, a special collection of beauty tools designed to curl any type of hair. Use this set of rollers to give your hair bouncy curls, too!

I learned a lot during the construction of this bag. Creating a scalloped top is maddening. Installing a zipper in a bag made of chipboard and paper is challenging. Attempting to create a seamless paisley pattern when it is unnecessary is silly. And I have a serious contact allergy to superglue. Lessons learned.

Another thanks to Tiffany Hudgins for shooting this for me!