Today I read some essays from the book “Consumer Society in American History” by Lawrence Glickman. I felt it would be a good read to get a general idea behind the theories regarding my ‘proposed’ topic of choice. I was especially drawn by the essays that focused on America and Consumerism after World War II. As we all know, after war vets came home, many of them bought houses and ‘modern’ consumerism started to take foot. Appliances had to fill houses, citizens had to buy cars to get to work, etc. The essay that stood out to me the most was Elaine May’s “The Commodity Gap: Consumerism and the Modern Home”. As her essay discussed, during the heights of the Cold War, being a consumer was patriotic and American (because it was Capitalist). In general, in order to ‘combat’ the Communist threat, it was an American’s duty to define their individuality and consume.

I also finally read through my book “The Design of Dissent“. The book showcased posters/other works that focused on a variety of topics. My favorite poster from the “Corporate World” Section was the “First Things First” manifesto/poster by Kevin Garland. He writes to his audience (artists and their clients) that even thought most of the work that designers and other artists do will be soul-less (and corporate) he hope that society will call for more meaningful work from young artists in the future.

I also really liked the “Corporate American Flag” poster by Shi-zhe Yung. It’s a simple but very real idea.

Even though this poster, “Printed in the U.S.A.” by Emek, was meant to be a critique on privacy (as the book stated), I felt it spoke also as a critique about consumerism:

I was looking at the Adbusters website and (obviously) found work there that related to my topic and appealed to me. I’m also glad to see that a lot of their articles are online (even if their artwork isn’t) seeing as how the only 2 Adbusters issues at UConn are at the Dodd (which means they probably don’t circulate).

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Well, I’m going to be gone until next Sunday. Like I mentioned, I won’t be able to post anything during that time. However, I’ll be taking some books with me though to read so I’ll be ‘sort of’ productive during my trip.