South African Conceptual Design

There many styles, types and forms of art, which include the art movements which has been  developed and discovered throughout the history of art history, talking about all those styles in context would take up a lot of lifetimes therefore in this case we are only going to focus on one which is conceptual design. Conceptual art distinguishes itself from design for its ability to stand for something that is functional and by also illustrating design ideas which could potentially be functional. Before conceptual design text was illustrated to give the message to the viewer and often words and images were used to make sense of the design, conceptual design changed that by giving the artist or designer the freedom to use whatever they see as a canvas to use it to give out information using expressive ideas and concepts.  South Africa is one of the countries which has the media flooded with conceptual art of campaigns which raises awareness about the issues which has to be attended to in the country.

HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF THESE CAMPAIGNS USING CONCEPTUAL ART WHICH ARE LINKS TO THEIR SITES:

Figure 1

The image above is a poster about the Nelson Mandela Day which is about recognizing the good things that the icon has done for us and we dedicate this day to him and celebrating it by simply doing good things for those in need and wanting nothing in return. I see this poster as conceptual art for the fact that there is no image of Nelson Mandela in the poster, just the idea of him and one cannot actually tell that the person masked with text is facing to the back or to the front, because there is no recognizable face on the image  one can see the person as themselves as they help those they can just like Nelson decided to stand up not only for the black race but for equality in South Africa. The poster does not tell individuals what to do by encourages them to choose to do anything that they see as being a great idea for them. 

Figure 2

Another issue facing South Africa is the extinction of rhinos in the country and no matter how the security measures are upped in the country there are still hunters around the world which pose a threat for the animals. The Save the Rhino campaign is made for the recognition of the pouching of rhinos and how that endangers these animals and threatens their existence for they are not that many in the world. The image shows another animal with a rhino horn strapped on its face and uses the tagline "nothing will ever bring them back"emphasizing how different and weird the other animals would look to us if they had an extra feature which does not belong to them, this also gets one to think of how bad it would look for a rhino to miss a feature it is mostly known of possessing, the campaign's aims is to make the people aware of the corruption and cruelty against animals which take place and donate money to help stop this. 

   Figure 3

The image above titled figure 3 is by the South Africa Counter- `Trafficking Programme (SACTP) and it is a programme by the International Organisation of Migration (OIM) which is aiming to raise awareness and stop the act of human trafficking and protecting victims and potential victims of the crime. The poster reads "she can't ask for help" which is emphasized by the red marks covering her mouth and by seeing this one immediately gets the idea that the victims are not in a position to stand up for themselves, therefore it is up to the viewer to be aware of the crime and not only protect those who  are close to the person but also help in retrieving the victims of human trafficking and catching the people behind the crime. No one would want someone they care about get taken from them and no one wants their freedom to be taken from them.

I find that the conceptual image affects the emotions of the viewer more than commercial art where composition is used to make the art beautiful than thought through in presenting an idea. I find that in most cases conceptual art is used for serious issues which has to be taken care of and it used in  a way that it attracts the eyes of the viewers and yet reveals the idea of the unspoken reality which takes place. Although it can be used to express any idea, conceptual art is mostly used in raising awareness about issues which otherwise one would not feel right seeing the design advertising something else like Benetton used to do with his controversial ads.