My Title:
’Can social media construct a positive online persona?’
Aims:
-To break down the way women are depicted online.
-To explore gender performances online.
-To show that social media is a good medium for self expression.
-To explore my own online performance and how learn how I construct it.
-Create an illustrated story/graphic novel which shows online gender performance and the benefits of the digital world.
-Make my exhibition interactive.
Introduction:
As a female user of social media, I have always been interested in how women portray themselves online, especially those who grew up with the digital world, know as the Gen-Z’s. Having grown up with the internet, my life is much reliant on technological and digital resources, it is as normal to me as my offline world. However, this must have an impact on how we live our lives? And how we portray ourselves. This reliance on the digital world means we place a level of importance on it. We value its values and seek to be accepted. Social media is very visual. It dictates gender performance through visuals, and expects women to adhere to these visual expectations. That being unattainable beauty expectations.
The "importance of physical appearance and the fulfilment of gender roles are inculcated into women from and early age" (Laham, 2020). This importance of physical appearance for women is only encouraged online, through social media. It is like if these expectations are not met, then females are not feminine enough and thus cannot be appreciated as proper women. Women therefore, must fulfil these gender performances of unattainable physical appearance. I want to challenge this gender expectation, and show that social media can be used for positive expression through persona creation.
Gender is not a fixed thing, although usually society attempts to control it by giving it stereotypes and definitions. According to Judith Butler, “gender is performed” (Butler, 1988), so we perform a behaviour or ritual to fit that gender. My work challenges the assumption that gender is a fixed thing, especially online. It shows that we are individuals and can present ourselves how we wish, taking a post-feminist approach.
Therefore, this project is about social media and showing how it can be used by women to create online personas which express themselves. I wanted to portray a positive way of using social media and its positive outcomes. In order to explore this, I decided to focus on AR-Filters, which are commonly used online, where people can control/change how they look. They help women achieve unattainable beauty, which is often advertised via online celebrities. I thought that filters would be a good way to explore online personas and represent the online/digital world.
I decided to continue making my character from the pervious module and develop the narrative. I had some changes in mind, including developing the visuals of my character, adding much more illustration and text to my work. I wanted a large-scale piece of work that explores filters and the online world in a fun, detailed way.
Methodology:
Research led and practise based.
I used my research to inform the context of my work and story. I used practitioner research to help me create a visual, illustrated story with text and panels. I watched videos to develop my adobe and Procreate skills. I did a lot of developing skills I learnt in the previous module as well as learning new skills, such as making TIK TOK videos and creating a large collection of illustrated story posters/graphic novel.
Previous Module:
The previous module enabled me to work with Illustrator, Indesign and Procreate. I was not very familiar with Adobe software, so I put a focus on developing my basic understanding of these softwares. I also worked with QR Codes for the first time and attached them to GIFs and videos to make the poster interactive. I was also brand new to the concept of making panels, grids, adding text to illustration. So there was a lot of learning curves I had to get my head around. I had decided that in this current module I would create a much larger piece of work, which would be much more hand drawn, in order to make the story seem more personal. I also wanted less QR Codes as I felt it cluttered up the poster and took focus away from the illustrations. Finally, I wanted my character to have 3 main transitions, to make it clearer it is the same character, whereas in my original poster below, I feel that this is not obvious.
Previous module final work:
Narrative:
The narrative of my story is about a young woman (Gen-Z, early 20s) called Ella-Rae. The story begins with an introduction to her everyday life, where she wakes up, gets ready and goes to work. During this first section of the story, she is not massively confident or happy about her appearance. She meets up with a friend and feels inferior, as her friend always looks so perfect. The second part of the story is where she downloads this permanent filter onto her face, which transforms her into this blue eyed blonde, representing the typical beauty standard. At this point she gets a lot more confident in herself, and becomes quite vain, taking and posting loads of photos on her socials. She gains popularity as a result of her new appearance. The third and final part of the story is when the filter app breaks and her appearance starts changing and goes out of control. She learns that the filters now respond to her emotions and she manages to gain control of this. Ella decides to revamp her appearance and instead of following beauty standards she designs her filter so that it reflects her as an individual and brings back an aspect of authenticity. She is happy using social media and filters to represent who she really is.
Research:
Questions
1 What ways does technology and the digital world help construct our identity?
2 Can we construct a positive online persona?
3 What are the drawbacks of having an online identity?
Contextualising online personas:
In order to understand the online world, I am looking at both the benefits and negatives of it. I looked at how we have become reliant on the digital world and technology in our day to day lives. I focused on how women are depicted online and controlled by female expectations. The online world sculpts our lives and predicts our every move with algorithms and ads, etc. Social media influences our appearance and how we self-present. Being a Gen-Z and having grown up with the digital world, I am very used to being reliant on it and using it as a source for everything I do. I looked into how this can be a problem, due to Surveillance capitalism and this capitalist society that we live in. I looked at how we construct identity online as well as how we perform gender online, which for women is typically through consumerism and idealising online celebrities.
I took a postfeminist approach towards gender and identity construction online, and I promote the idea of being who we want to be online. So from a post-feminist perspective, social media is a great place to create ones persona. I found e.g. TIK TOK stars, who celebrate authenticity online and the idea of loving yourself. This research helped me shape my narrative. I explore the drawbacks of using social media but overall show that it is a positive place to construct a persona and ones identity in a creative way.
I also use my research to find how online female performance is constructed and depicted and this influenced me in my work to break the female depictions by merging my online and offline world. I did this both in my photoshoots/collages and in my story.
Gen-Z‘
I started my research by thinking about my own generation, known as ‘Gen Z’, or ‘Zoomers’. This is the first generation of people to grow up with the digital world. I read this article below, which talks about how this generation is so used to using technology, they become even better at communicating online than in real life. “As technology has evolved, so have other associated verbal codes and behaviours“ (Prospect, 2021).
(Prospect Article)
So we have developed text-talk, which is a much faster form of communication, often accompanied by emojis, which can express emotions or the mood of the conversation. Through the use of caps or a single emoji, people can express themselves. “Gen-Zers have adapted perfectly typographical tones of voice” (Prospect 2021). In the online world, we can constantly update our lives through posting, liking, commenting, sharing, enabling us to also interact with the digital lives of others. This shows how my generation have become reliant on the digital world to communicate and represent themselves, which I myself find a lot easier doing online. Therefore, the online world is a very valuable place, where the world is a lot better connected. The reliance could account for the importance people place on how they self-curate online. Because the online world is very visual, people place high importance on looking good for the camera, and editing; so they are more appreciated and noticed online.
This reliance on the digital world and social media as a means to communicate and self-express could mean that people stress the importance of meeting the expectations presented to them on these platforms. So women must meet the beauty standards in order to be accepted online. In my story, I show this theme of reliance on digital technology, through my character who becomes reliant on filters to form her visual identity.
’Surveillance Capitalism’
We are watched online, and the online world controls us offline. Digital technology informs how we should perform online and even now in our offline settings.
As a result of COVID and lockdown, people have become increasingly reliant on the internet for communication, consumerism, entertainment and self-representation. But also the evolution of technology and how we rely on our phones for everyday things, such as ordering train tickets, turning the heating on, checking online banking, etc, means that we have become even more reliant. Gen-Zers are “coming of age where techno-optimism is turning into techno-skepticism, as society is reeling from data breeches and evidence of deceptive practises such as ‘Surveillance Capitalism’” (Prospect, 2021). “‘Surveillance Capitalism‘ is a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practises, of extraction, prediction and sales“ (Zuboff, 2019). This is the idea that we are too trustworthy with our digital appliances, which cold be watching us and recording our every move. But we are now too reliant on technology to avoid this problem. For example, my Google Home speaker couple potentially be tracking things I say around the house, looking for things to advertise to me online, predicting my next move. It’s quite scary to think how our lives are probably being controlled by our technology. This research gave me my main idea about my story, where my character would allow technology to control how she looked, but downloading a permenant filter. The filter would prodice the most attractive face, according to algorithms about online beauty standards.
In my story I show how our online world affects and intrudes on our offline world.
21st Century
I read a book called ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, 2018, by Yuval Noah Harari. It talks about how we could end up relying on algorithms and technology to decide every aspect of our life for us. It starts off by talking about liberalism, and how it interacts with the online world. So we are free to post what we like, follow who we want, share, comment, etc. The content we put out there is up to us. It says how we have free-will do what what we want online, and we get free-will form the basis that we have feelings. That no one can tell us better than ourselves how we feel, thus we have free-will. But, “when the biotech revolution merges with the infotech revolution, it will produce big data algorithms that can monitor and understand” our feelings better than we can (Harari, 2018). Therefore, because of technological development and innovation, we may even loose our free-will. This made me think about the fact that due to technology and social media, as we post everything online, we can probably be replicated and new versions of ourselves can be made. So do this mean we loose our originality and our authenticity as we can be copied so easily. Do we become just a body of data which can be stored and replicated? The idea of being replicated comes across to me through filters, which try to make everyone who uses that one particular filter look the same. A sense of self can be lost, especially when my character trades in her face for this super popular, unattainable beauty standard, which everyone else looks like. However, I am also showing that filters can be used to express authenticity and individuality, if used correctly.
Image: Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons For the 21st Century, 2018
Online Gender Construction:
I wanted to know how females construct their identity online; how they construct this feminine identity. I explored two online female celebrities, who focus a lot on appearance and living a luxury lifestyle, of high consumption. The first online influencer I watched as a teen was YouTuber Zoe Sugg, also known as ’Zoella’. I would watch her makeup tutorials and try to replicate her makeup, as she was so popular online at the time. I wanted to look like her and get a sense of the acceptance and appreciation online that she was getting. This was the start of my own beauty standard construction and what I was told was beautiful and attractive. Social media has an “emphasis on the visual… Self presentation has become a key mode of communication and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status” (Jiang, 2022). So the people online who attain this beauty standard are much more likely to gain popularity online, hence why a lot of young people want to achieve this, often through filters. To achieve this perfect visual, we have to self-construct and control how we are presented online, we create an online persona to fulfil this. Larger online role models, such as Kylie Jenner, from the famous Kardashian family, constructed an ‘ideal’ online identity, which consists of unattainable beauty standards, and a luxury lifestyle. “Many viewers seem fascinated with viewing and virtually participating in the lives of the wealthy” (Leban, 2020). In order to get some sort of feel for this luxury life, people follow her content, which produces this virtual luxury experience. People try to escape into the worlds of celebrities who live lavish lifestyles, which links in with ‘Escape Theory’, which claims that people “are more likely to experience a need to escape from themselves or their reality” (KiraBurundi.K, Grifiths.M, 2019). My character escapes from her reality by downloading filters and creating a new identity and reality for herself.
The other reason so many young females follow and copy the style and looks of these online female celebrities living luxurious lives, is usually because they display a perfect representation of their gender. So they are usually hyper-feminine, as they never have a hair out of place, with perfect makeup, posing, tidy and stylish homes, etc. This hyper-feminine portrayal of female gender helps to construct femininity in the online world. So in order to be more feminine and fulfil ones gender role, they must self-construct like e.g. Kylie Jenner. My character meets up with a friend during the story at a bar, and this friend represents the hyper-feminine, unrealistic beauty standard that is often portrayed to us online, which my character envies and wants to adopt herself.
Gender and Identity:
I am taking a post-feminist approach towards gender creating an online identity, showing that it is okay to follow online trends and consume products as long as one retains their identity, so they maintain their authenticity through their online persona. Post-feminism focuses on “individualism as dominant modes of accounting“ (McRobbie, 2007). So women are free to do what they like online. My character explores this freedom online and shows some of the problems with social media and loosing a part of her individuality, which she regains later on. “Women must enhance their appearance through consumption, which is prevalent in the contemporary media culture“ (Chase.J, 2019). Therefore, women can participate in online temptations such as consumption and using filters in order to create how they look in an authentic way, to make them stand out.
Gender and identity is something that is taught and learnt, which can be intensified online through hyper-ritualisation, imitation and simulation. “Self-construction is taking in a society driven by consumption, marketing and media” (Garner, 2014). “Goffman argues that advertisements are displays of gender rituals which guide and shape our perceptions and interpretations of reality“ (Garner, 2014). So female celebrities who display themselves often in a hyper-feminine, sexualised way, will shape how femininity is framed online and normalise these gender rituals.
Consumerism:
A big characteristic of the online world is consumerism. Due to our capitalist society, everything we see online has usually something to do with consumption. The adverts, videos, and content that we see on our socials is tailored to us, as our technologies track our interests and tastes through cookies, history, etc. I myself am fond of fashion related consumerism, I am a regular shopper on ASOS, trying to keep up with latest trends, to wear and then post on my socials. It is a guilty pleasure of mine, but something that is reinforced through what I see online. “Consumers use purchases to build their self-concepts, to reinforce and express self-identity and differentiate themselves from others. Material possessions can become a symbolic manifestation of who one is” (Jingy, 2017). I like using clothes to express myself and form my own identity. I particularly like bright, colourful clothes, to express my personality. At the start of this module, I did a clothes haul on ASOS and took a couple photoshoots of what I bought. I found that the clothes were slightly outrageous and obnoxious and probably clothes I will not wear in real life, but I found that they fed my online persona very well and added this individual edge to my online image. Even though I am fulfilling a very typical online behaviour, I am using it to create my own identity. Just like through the use of filters.
I was also inspired to do a clothes haul after researching Amalia Ulman and her online performance called ”Excellences and Perfections”, 2014. This artist created an online persona and executed ideal online performances, such as showing off a luxury lifestyle, showing her new clothes haul, her makeup, etc. She recorded this fake online persona “on Instagram to ask questions about gender online” (Kinset.C, 2016). This fake lifestyle she portrayed represented that of an aesthetic and ideal online persona. Therefore, I conducted a clothes haul to ask questions about how clothes and consumerism can help us find our identity online.
To further ask questions about gender and the online world, I created an Instagram account, where I upload fairly random pictures, of myself and my character. I show messy parts of my life as well as well-organised aspects, and show off my new clothes in some posts. I created content that is accepted by online femininity as well as content that is probably not, such as showing my messy room, my clothes on the floor, a bad selfie, etc. I am challenging the idea that in order to be feminine online, one must stick to specific gender performance, and showing my own authentic online performance. I am also showing the part of my world which I would not normally post online, my offline world, breaking down the common misconception that everyone’s life that you see online is perfect.
Artist Influences:
Women are often depicted online as being very posey, like female celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, who often posts posey, full-makeup, flirty images of herself. She in my opinion defines online beauty standards, which many women try to live up to. Amalia Ulman shows how women typically present themselves online, where she performs these gender rituals. Molly Soda breaks these female online performances, by showing her raw, offline world in an online setting. Looking at female online performance through beauty standards informed my concept for my story, where my character strives to achieve this unattainable beauty standard of perfection. She downloads the filters to become the beauty standard and thus embodies female online performance.
Amalia Ulman
Ulman's online performance piece called 'Excellences and Perfections', 2014, questioned how gender is constructed and presented online. She experimented with how women present themselves online, through a "three-part performance work... where she took the roles of 'cute girl', 'sugar baby' and 'life goddess'" (Kinsey, 2016). These three roles basically sum up the way women perform and self-represent online. She created a fake story about her life where she fitted each of these personas in, before telling her online followers it was in fact fake and just a performance piece. "Accusations of playing a trick on her followers illustrate what she called a 'glitch' in social media: the glitch between how we live our lives and how we present them online" (Kinsey, 2016).
Images: Amalia Ulman, 'Excellences and Perfections', 2016 Link: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160307-the-instagram-artist-who-fooled-thousands
This work introduced me to online art performance. It really interested that people were angry her account was fake, when a lot of things that people post online are also not a real representation of their lives. It made me think about my own online persona which is also not a true representation of my life by any means. It is more a medium to express myself, to create a visual aesthetic record of parts of my life. The fact her followers took her so seriously interested me. There is this expectation that what we see online is the truth, which is so wrong as the online world can be easily manipulated left right and centre through editing, filters, anonymity. This piece inspired me to create a character who acts as my online persona, and explores some of the issues I have dealt with online. I still think that this performance shows the creative potential of the online world, where we can become whole new people, or express different versions of ourselves. It's an excellent medium to explore ones identity.
PLT MODEL
The online clothing company, ‘Pretty Little Thing’ created their own digital model. The company made her very realistic, giving her her own Instagram account, giving the illusion that she is real. She models some of the clothes on their online site. I think this is an example of the digital world producing unattainable beauty standards. PLT created a visually attractive model, who isn’t real, therefore again setting unrealistic expectations. It also produces the impression that real women aren’t good enough to model, as they don’t fulfil this expectation as well as a fake model does. This is an example where digital technology may be taking it too far. My work breaks this concept of achieving a beauty standard and shows how social media can be a place to express oneself rather than conform.
Image: ‘Pretty Little Thing Introduces First Virtual Model Ambassador‘, Jeremy Lim, 2022, The Industry Fashion
Molly-Soda
Molly-Soda is a digital artist and postfeminist, who brings her online world into gallery spaces. She also shows a raw version of herself online, which is not often seen in the digital world. For example, she presents offline behaviours in her piece ‘Who’s Sorry Now’, 2016, which is a video of Soda crying in a hotel room at night. She brings the rawness of the offline world to the online world. “We all present a character online. We are turning ourselves into these avatars and creating these 20 personas for people to see” (Soda.M, 2019). Her work inspired me to create my own character, or online persona called Ella-Rae. Ella-Rae explores the online world as a female and comes across online gender expectations, performance, digital innovation and online authenticity. Soda also “takes private behaviours inherent to“ the offline spaces, such as the bedroom (AnnkaKultyGallery, 2022). As a result, her work and content is raw and often disregards beauty norms. This idea inspired me to create filters which are fun and creative, thus ignoring beauty norms.
Image: Molly Soda, 'Who's Sorry Now' 2017, Artsy
Her exhibitions have inspired my own curation idea of turning my exhibition into a cosy space, similar to that of a bedroom; where I usually sit and scroll through social media. Showing that social media can be a safe space. Soda’s exhibitions are usually pink, cosy and full of images, which replicate her desktop or digital world. She literally brings her bedroom to the gallery space in most of her exhibitions as well as her private online world. By showing the online world in an offline setting I will be changing the context of the online persona. I show my characters online persona in her offline, everyday setting, which again shows how her life is controlled by her online world. I am showing in my work and exhibition the strong relationship between our offline and online worlds and how this encourages specific gender performance. I am also showing how our online world can help us explore ourselves in a fun way, by creating personas and customising ourselves however we want.
Soda's exhibitions are bright, interactive and chaotic. They remind me of ones desktop space or the idea of scrolling through social media, with unending volumes of content. She uses the gallery wall as a kind of desktop space for all her online content. I love the visuals and how they replicate the chaos of the online world.
Her exhibitions:
Image source: http://www.annkakultys.com/artists/molly-soda/
Image source: http://www.annkakultys.com/artists/molly-soda/
Tracey Emin
Emin's instillation, 'My Bed', 1998, made me think about gender norms and how she disregards them in this piece. It is a very raw and personal piece which shows the reality of her offline world, which is not shown online. It shows a dirty bed, which is not commonly associated with being feminine, which in the form of a bedroom would usually represent tidiness, aesthetically pleasing and cleanliness. It brought me back to my bedroom and how messy it usually is. Before I ever take selfies or pictures in my bedroom mirror, I tend to clean my whole room incase I capture my messy habits. I realised that I hide away a part of my life online and thought it interesting showing this aspect online and changing my online persona, so that I am more authentic and real. After getting ready to go out and see friends, I took pictures of the aftermath of my room, which had bags , makeup and clothes all over the floor. I took pictures to show the process of getting ready rather than the outcome which was how I looked. I then posted these pictures on Ella-Rae's Instagram account, which produced an aesthetically real vibe. It was like a 'photo-dump' of raw and personal images. Photo-dumps are a trend going round on Instagram currently, which are a selection of raw and random photos combined into one post. This helped me become more authentic online, and show another side to myself.
Image: Tracey Emin, 'My Bed', 1998, Tate
Ines Alpha
Alpha creates really creative, futuristic AR-filters. She creates digital makeup looks which do not represent any beauty standards, but express fun and imagination. Her work is innovative and different to the typical filters seen on social media, which are used to enhance ones facial features. Her's add creativity and fun to the face instead of conforming to beauty standards. Her creative filters encouraged me to create fun and abstract filters myself on Procreate, through the FacePaint application. Using and creating filters to make people look cool and creative and express ones authenticity and individuality through something fun like this.
Image: Ines Alpha, 2022, Metal Magazine
Image: Ines Alpha, 2022, Metal Magazine
Spencer Barbosa
This is a TIK TOK content creator, who produces happy, body positive content aimed at women to support women for being themselves. She shows that being feminine doesn't mean being perfect or having perfect makeup, or meeting the unattainable beauty standard. Watching her content is fun and quite uplifting. Barbosa is a good example of of how social media can be used as a medium to promote self love and authenticity. In her videos, she exposes her raw side, showing off her hairy legs or parts of her body that probably wouldn't be accepted in the beauty industry. She has this 'down to life' and positive 'you do you' attitude.
Image: Spencer Barbosa, TIK TOK, 2022
So far in my research I have looked at how women perform online and how women are depicted online. Due to female online performance, women are often depicted in a very stereotypical way. There are however, digital artists an online influencers, such as Spencer Barbosa who try to break these norms, showing that beauty can be anything it does not have to come under one standard. They also show that women can perform however they want to online, breaking the online, social media norms for women. My post-feminist approach argues that women can represent themselves how they want to online, there is no right way to go about it.
Rob Shields
Shield's work inspired my ideas for creating a graphic novel which is interactive. I made parts of my poster interactive, such as by adding QR codes to social media accounts and related GIFs/videos I made. His novels are super bright and very futuristic, I really enjoyed his paneling style and the way he is playful with the images and the boxes they are in. For example, some of the images transcend the grids and interact with other images. This is a design idea that I used in my own graphic novel. Originally I had stuck my illustrations inside of the grids very formally, but this work made me more playful with how I added images and made them interact with each other as well as the text. 'Neon Wasteland 2' is very eye-catching and bright, which is full of engaging and interesting images. This was also something I wanted to portray in my own work, so I made each page of the novel busy with illustrations which were bright and eye-catching.
Image: Rob Shields, 'Neon Wasteland', 2020
Michael Sloan
Michael Sloan is an illustrator who's illustrations inspired my drawing style. I had initially thought about drawing my illustrations on Illustrator, but after looking at Sloan's work, I decided I wanted a more personalised touch to my drawings, so instead I drew them by hand on Procreate. I feel that as the book is somewhat based on myself, it is relevant to use my own hand for drawing the images. This also gives them a very authentic drawing style, which is my own. In comparison to Shiel's work, Sloan's drawing are a lot more minimalist and calm, with a more hand-drawn edge. Sloan's piece 'Keys to Our Home',2017 is an illustrated short story, designed for a newspaper. The format of the work reminded me of a poster layout, where all the images are combined. I really liked the aesthetic of the combined images, which create this overall art work. I had originally thought to format my graphic novel into a book, but decided that this medium was maybe too traditional for the content and context of my story. I thought of turning my story into a series of large posters instead. After looking at Sloan's work, I was convinced to make posters, as I thought that the combination of images brought my work to its full aesthetic potential.
Image: Jake Halpern, Michael Sloan, 'The Keys to Our home', 2017, The New York Times
Will Eisner
Image: Will Eisner, 'Will Eisner Graphic Storytelling And Visual Narrative', 1996
“The story form is a vehicle for conveying information in an easily absorbed manner” (Eisner, 1996). My aim in this module is to convey the problems of social media and the overall positives of constructing an online persona through it. As this is a difficult message to explore and convey, I thought it would be best illustrated in a story format. Social media are also a very visual platforms, so again thought this would link in well with the visuals of illustrating a story.
Eisner gave me inspiration for my character development and design. His book talked about creating ‘stereotypical images’, which enable to reader to quickly comprehend the character and what they are feeling, what their personality is like, etc. For example, I made a very stereotypical character design of the typical beauty standard, which is blue eyes, blonde hair, big lips, etc. This straight away implies she is confident, attractive, girlie, etc. It shows she is performing online femininity.
Story structure:
I used a graph from Eisner‘s book, which shows how to construct a story. There is a beginning middle and end, thus three main parts to a story. Within the narrative, Eisner shows that there must be a problem and a solution, before the story must end. I used this graph to construct my narrative, so the problem is that my character downloads a filter app, which hides her personality and individuality. The solution occurs when the app breaks an she finds a way of using filters to express herself. This graph enables me to show the negatives of social media whilst also overall communicating how social media can construct positive online identities.
Image: (Will Eisner, 1996)
Eisner helped me create an interesting narrative, “a major element of storytelling draws on experience and reality, another source centres on the fabrication of a problem“ (Eisner, 1996). My story is based on the reality of social media and my experience with it, from this I fabricate a scenario which is beyond reality, making it exciting and interesting to read. It is also not that far from reality, these days people are using filters, who’s to say filters wont be permanent facial options in the future.
PRACTICAL WORK:
Keywords:
-Filters
-Online world
-Navigating identity on the online world as a young female
-Individuality
-Social media
-Reality
-Beauty standards
Plan:
-Whats my identity in the online world? -Take photoshoots, look at previous posts, create makeup tutorials and develop a character out of this. The character could represent myself as well as the struggles of social media and beauty expectations related to this.
-Create this confident, strong character
-Develop digital software Skills: Illustrator, Indesign, Procreate
-Use social media platforms to create wore and content.
PART 1:
SOCIAL MEDIA: Deconstructing and constructing my online persona
As my work is based around social media, I planned on creating my character her own social media account, or create content on social media that would supplement my story as well as adding a digital edge. I made a list of digital/social media related content I could produce and include as a part of my work, to supplement the story.
Photoshoots
Edits
Collages
Makeup videos
Makeup-filter videos
TIK TOKS
Instagram
Key words:
-Persona
-Female performance
-Online performance
-Beauty standard
-Authenticity
-Individuality
-Expression
-Expectation
-Online vs offline world
-Depictions
Photoshoots:
In order to create a character that is based around my social media experience, I have to look at my own use of social media and the content I create. I did a bit of deconstruction of my online persona. It’s partly an exploration of my own social media and online journey, looking at how I self present, so that my character is similar, replicating my experience.
I started by creating several photoshoot. This is a typical routine I do before going out for the evening. I post my favourite images online, on my socials. I wanted to investigate my own online persona and see how I self present and curate online. I found that from the images I took, were very posey and I generally took a series of photos to get that perfect one. I do not generally present a very realistic version of myself on my socials, especially Instagram. But I see social media as an opportunity to express myself, differently to how I do offline. It is a creative outlet of personal expression and exploration.
Photoshoots are a digital aspect of my everyday online life, which I thought a good first step to take. They reflect fashion, consumerism and more than often the ‘perfect‘ version of ourselves. They also reflect my online persona. I want to reflect my online persona through my exhibition as well as through my story.
Before taking these photos I did an ASOS clothes order online, where I bought £100 worth of new clothes. As seen below they are bright and slightly outrageous, portraying my online identity and the person I want other people to see. I posted some of these pictures on my social media accounts, which is a normal behaviour of mine, after doing a clothes haul. I believe that consumerism can help people create their own identities and express their individualities.
I wanted to compare these specifically online-aimed photoshoots with more candid, unplanned photoshoots of e.g. my messy room and overcome online gender rituals and expectations. I aim to break the boundaries of female performance online and show that social media is a great place for exploration and expression.
Photoshoot 1:
Photoshoot 2:
Image Editing Process:
Edited Images:
Below is my final images from the photoshoot. I edited the images on my phone, as shown to enhance the images and make them brighter. I found that my online self is very posey and I put a lot of pressure on myself to look perfect in each photo, which I can enable through editing. I thought about how this is a result of expectations of women online, developing into a specific form of rituals and gender performance.
Photoshoot 3:
Part 2 of taking photoshoots
I took some candid selfies, which were not planned. I picked up my phone and took the best pictures I could muster considering the poor lighting and bad camera angles. I felt that these aspects added to the candid feel of the pictures. Here I am introducing a part of my offline world to my online world, by creating content I would usually not show. I was trying to deconstruct my online performances and rituals by taking more realistic photos, which were not flattering, but showed me ignoring gender expectations.
I feel like these images reflect a more honest side to me, but also show that being a female doesn’t mean I have to adhere to gender rule regarding beauty expectations when creating online content. I decided to take a step further and take some more revealing, personal photos of my offline world.
I wanted to design a colllage that was busy and clustered, similar to the online world and to my own social media pages, which are bursting with images. So I made some collages, which reflect the candid aftermath of doing makeup, and taking pictures of myself before posting them online. They allow me to bring a part of my comfort zone, my messy bedroom, into my online world. My bedroom has so much involvement with my social media. It is the ’comfy’ place where I settle down on my bed or a beanbag and scroll for hours on my phone. It is also the place where I do my makeup and pose in front of my mirror or take selfies.
I found that taking these pictures really helped me rebel from online gender norms as a female. They reminded me of Tracey Emin’s instillation piece ‘My Bed’, 1998, where she ignored gender rules and showed a raw version of herself, which challenged how we depict women.
Taking these un-aesthetic, messy and unplanned photos of my messy room and me in casual clothes breaks the expectation of how women are presented online. I am blurring the gap between the online and offline world to overcome these online expectations of female gender performance, where women are expected to be constantly stunning, living this unrealistic and unattainable Life.
I also took more aesthetic photos of myself, and will combine both sets of photoshoots into a poster. Combining these will show a more realistic version of my world, both online and offline. It also shows that it is okay to break away from online expectations.
I created 3 separate collages on Procreate and combined together all the digital content I had created. I felt that the combination of online and offline content created an overall good representation of my authentic self. I really liked the aesthetic of the messy, unorganised images which are overlapping each other. There is interaction between these images, which is fun and playful. Furthermore, taking these images of myself out of context, onto this journal or onto a gallery wall, may potentially change how digital content is seen and how we represent ourselves online.
Bringing my online everyday life into the offline everyday world. Changing the context of digital content and seeing how this changes my online identity. Also showing the offline aspects of my online world, such as the editing process, the messiness of my bedroom after getting ready for a photoshoot, makeup, me posing in a hoodie. Changes the way we see people online, especially from a female perspective. These images also breakdown the idea that we must always look perfect online, they show that 'Instagram beauty' is unattainable and not realistic.
I really like these collages as they have this chaotic-ness about them, there is no kind of curation that’s gone into them. I wanted them to reflect the chaos of the online world. The ‘offline’ photos trivialise unrealistic online gender expectations. They also blurr the boundaries between the online and offline world through the combination of photoshoots.
I plan to use some of these images in my exhibition, but separately and not in a poster format. I shall create a collage on a wall, where the images from the photoshoots are dotted randomly around. This aesthetic will replicate that of my messy desktop, my busy camera roll or my random social media posts.
Starting by looking at myself and my own online behaviours gave me ideas for my character and how she will behave in her online world. My character will be involved in taking selfies, uploading content to her socials, buying new clothes (clothes hauls) and represent my online behaviours. Furthermore, I was able to reflect on my social media/online behaviours. I got to examine what I am like online and found that I wear brighter, bolder clothes, am generally more confident. I try to post a mixture of candid and posed content on my socials, which represent two sides to me, the online and offline side. I feel that my online persona is a fun, creative person who encourages me to explore and interact. This is why I want to promote the positive aspects of social media on ones self esteem and ability to construct themselves online.
CREATING MY OWN FILTERS:
As gender is always performed, especially online where women are expected to meet certain standards of beauty, authenticity is usually disregarded. I looked at making filters as they are dynamic, and usually relate to the online world of beauty standards. I thought that by creating filters, I could bring back a sense of authenticity into the online world of social media.
Next, I decided to make my own filters. In my last module, I used Procreate to create filters, as I could not find any free software to create filters on. The drawback of this feature is that you cannot upload the filter, so the filter is not accessible outside of the app. In order to overcome this problem, I filmed the finished filters moving around on a blank canvas. However, this time, I developed this idea, by filming myself applying filters to my face. This is a digital version of the classic makeup video tutorials, originally created on YouTube. The idea is that I am applying a fun, creative filter to my face as I would with makeup. It shows that filters can be used to express oneself in a fun creative way.
I also turned my final filters into moving images and filmed them move around the screen. I thought this would be a good way to make my filters more interactive and could somehow work in my story. Perhaps by attaching them to QR codes and placing them in my final work.
I started by experimenting with creative filters, and using them more as makeup at the start of my experimentation.
Letting TIK TOK decide my filter:
Here I used a TIK TOK filter, called ’Random Makeup’, which is where the filter randomly decides your makeup for you. I tried this a couple times and took a screenshot of the final makeup-filter look. I then copied the randomised looks on procreate. I thought about making these into TIK TOK videos, but I struggled with text timing of the video, as the recording time was too short to fit both the filter progression and my final work on procreate. However, to show what I did, I took some screenshots on my TIK TOK account whilst doing these below.
Process:
Outcomes: These are two of the outcomes of copying a TIK TOK random makeup filter. I found that doing this made my filter making skills a lot more experimental and gave me ideas for fun makeup looks.
Below are the final three looks that I created myself on Procreate. I filmed the process of applying the filter, to replicate that of a makeup tutorial. My aim for these filters was to make them express myself, so I wanted them to be abstract and retain a bit of my fine art background, shown through the scribbles and use of line. I decided to go further with these final looks and film them moving around a screen.
Filter-Makeup Tutorial Link:
My filter-makeup tutorials show a digital form of makeup application. These filters express myself in a fun and creative way, and show that filters do not always have to comply with typical beauty standards. I liked the outcome of this video, but I decided to make the filters move of their own in a video format.
I made three videos of the filters moving around on their own with a blank background.
I filmed these images moving. I decided that they were not visible or realistic enough so I thought about adding a background and making the filters more 3D.
Links:
Links:
Firstly, I added a different background colour to each filter. This helped to define the face of the filter, so it was no longer flat. I started filming these filters, but I decided that on a plain background they looked a little simple, so I developed the looks further.
FINAL FILTER LOOKS:
Below are the final filter looks. I added more pattern on the face, which helped outline it And create a contrast between the filter and the background. I like the playfulness of these filters, and unlike a lot of social media filters, they are not for fitting into a beauty standard. I made these filters to show how they can be created and used to express a person creatively. This idea links in with my character, who at the end of the narrative uses filters for expression and identity.
VIDEO LINKS:
I will use these final 3 filter videos in my posters, potentially if I create a set of digital posters, to make them interactive. I think that in my exhibition, I will dot QR codes (for these videos) around a wall, alongside the photoshoots of myself.
Instagram account:
Originally I had made an instagram account for my character ‘Ella’. This account contained the original images and drawings I made of her and was accompanied by the narrative. Since then, I deleted the original images on that account and have uploaded the new drawings as well as images of myself from my photoshoots. I have combined my photos with her drawings to question the audience whether we are the same person, if she is a cartoon version of myself, or if she is just posing as my online persona, my other, digital identity. On social media, it is often the way where we do not know if the persona in the image in front of us is really a true reflection of themselves and their lives or just a fake, online persona they have created for their viewers to see. So I combine the photograph with the illustration to question is this the same person or are they two separate entities, one made up and one hiding behind the un-edited camera.
I also wanted to create this account to encourage identity exploration and expression. Social media is a really good place to explore ones own identity and be creative and fun with it. The online world offers a safe place where people can self-curate and be who they want to be. By creating two versions of myself, I am creatively exploring my own identity online; through illustration, fashion and objects.
Both me and my character are finding our own identities online and in the real world. I am also exploring my online identity through my character.
I am really happy with the new version of this Instagram account. I feel like it brings my character to life, and questions whether we are the same person or if she is my online persona. It bridges the gap between the online and offline world, by showing pictures of myself combined with pictures of my character. I also like the candid pictures of the flowers or the messy floor in my room. This aesthetic shows a realness to social media that we often do not see. I am breaking the stigma that our social media accounts have to look perfect, and showing the offline world, a more honest approach to social media. Thus showing it is okay and to embrace our differences and quirks. I tried to make my content randomised, so that there is a mixture of myself, my character, objects, etc. I wanted this account to be less curated and again more authentic.
LINK:
Overall, I will be using the filters, videos and photoshoots as a part of my exhibition. The current plan is to dot the photos and QR codes randomly around a wall, next to my final piece of work. This content represents my online identity and brings her into an offline setting. Having QR Codes also makes my work interactive and encourages people to us their phones as part of my exhibition. I want to create a kind of social media experience, from my perspective as a female Gen-Z social media user.
PART 2: GRAPHIC NOVEL
Character Development:
-3 versions of the same character
Initial drawings:
The drawings below represent the development of the design of my character.
I started drawing a more detailed version of my character. I was mainly focusing on designing her last stage or transition in the story. The idea was to make her look fun, quirky and bright, visually representing her personality, making a more authentic look. I decided that her main change in feature would be the colour of her hair, so I made it pink. Pink is a bold, powerful colour, which represents femininity. As my story has a post-feminist approach, I thought it a good idea to make her final hair colour represent this. Below are a few initial drawings of my character.
Although am very happy with how these drawings turned out, I decided that they took too long to create. So, I started to design a simpler model, one which I could replicate many times. At the moment I am planing for my story to be roughly 25 A4 pages long, which means I need to design a character who can be easily replicated.
New drawings:
These designs were much simpler to draw and much more time efficient, so I decided to stick with this kind of style for my character.
Final 3 character design:
Below are the final 3 character designs. In my story there are three main sections and two main transitions which my character goes through. Her first, initial design represents her natural, offline self. I wanted to make her look fairly normal, so I created her without makeup to show her real Self. I also show her with makeup on, when she goes to work or goes out to a bar. This represents her offline world. At the start of the story, Ella will be wearing a lot of blues and greens to represent her emotions and the fact she isn’t happy looking the way she does. Represents this lack of confidence.
Natural
-Simple design, natural looking, limited makeup, unconfident, shy, quiet
2. First transition
This is the first transition. I designed Ella this time so that she fits the typical beauty standard, of blonde hair, big lips, blue eyes, good bone structure, long hair, etc. She also wears pink to represent increased confidence in herself.
- Filter, ‘perfect’, flawless, exaggerated features, teeny nose, long hair, bold, confident
3. Second transition
This is the second and final transition that Ella goes through. This time I gave her wider eyes, a softer face and pink hair. This give the impression that she is kind and content. This filter represents her individuality and personality. Her pink hair represents her happiness and confidence.
-When she becomes more ‘herself’, quirky, arty, expressive, colourful, fun, wild
STORYBOARD 1: Once I had designed my character and her many faces, I moved onto constructing the storyboard. I had started drawing some illustrations for my novel, but I need to create some structure so I planned some vague pictures and stages in the story and I followed this when creating more illustrations.
Creating Panels On Illustrator:
I started creating each page on Illustrator. However, I found this software very difficult to create panels on and arrange illustrations. I made a few attempts, but I did not like any of the outcomes. I thought that they were too restricted and the illustrations did not interact or make sense together. They looked more like a collage.
I even started adding some text to the pages, as shown below. I did not like the digital text, I felt like it took away some organic-ness from the drawings. I decided instead to use my own handwriting to form the text, which made my story more personal.
After struggling on Illustrator, I found that I needed to hurry up my process due to time restraints. Despite my endeavours, I used procreate to create the panels, pages, arrange the images and write the text. I also watched a video on how to create panels on Procreate.
Image: Greg and Jennifer, ‘Procreate for Drawing Comic Strips’, 2019, YouTube.
This video really helped me gain an understanding of creating panels on Procreate. I developed my Procreate skills through learning more about layers and different shortcuts. I found that making my graphic novel on procreate was much more doable.
I also looked at this web page, called ‘MakingComics.com’, and found an article called ‘Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio’, 2014. This informed me about ‘panel staggering‘, which helps the reader comprehend and understand the comic. I adopted this method in my work, and still kept the panels playful.
Image: Bizhan Khodabandeh, ‘Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio’, 2014, Making Comics.
Image: Bizhan Khodabandeh, ‘Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio’, 2014, Making Comics.
These diagrams helped me understand how to layer panels so that the content can be accessed/read effectively and in order.
STORYBOARD 2:
I developed my storyboard and created more specific images inside of panels. One by one I rubbed out each sketch and placed the illustrations into each panel. Finally, I added the text, which I hand-wrote.
As some of the pages were constructed of one large image, I only made storyboards for the more detailed pages, which were harder to visualise and form in my head. Doing this also really helped me design the panels on each page. I struggled with the panels a fair bit, but creating rough sketches and storyboards made it a lot more manageable.
TYPOGRAPHY
I conducted some experimented creating marble patterns on Procreate, which I will somehow involve in my drawings. The idea is to make some 90s inspired colour pallet marble effects for backgrounds, etc. I want my illustrations to be very bright and fun, so this helped me to consider which colours to use in my work. I then played around by adding text to this marble effect and seeing how it interacted.
ILLUSTRATOR TYPOGRAPHY:
I used Illustrator to create some fun typography, which I was thinking about using in my story. The main problem I had with these filters was mainly that they took too long to make, especially as my story has a lot of text, and I need to be time efficient. I also found that when I placed the hand-drawn illustrations with this digital text, they clashed and I did not enjoy the contrast. However, I found that using my own handwriting to create the text seemed to flow a lot better with the drawings, so I used my handwriting instead. It was also a lot more time effective, and meant that I had greater control over how the text fitted in between the drawings and boxes.
HANDWRITTEN TEXT:
CONSTRUCTING PANELS ON PROCREATE:
Creating panels on Procreate is lot more manageable. I have direct access to the panels and it feels like a tangible process, which works better for me. Below are some brief examples of how I started making the panels and gradually introduced illustration and text. I did vary this process a bit, sometimes I added in image first then drew the panels around and vice versa. There was a lot of trial and error.
Once I had finished all the pages, I had originally planned to print them out in a traditional book format. However, after discussions I had decided to print them out in a series of posters. I felt that aesthetically they looked really powerful collected together, creating this overall piece of artwork. The business of the posters also reminded me of the chaos of scrolling through social media or looking at ‘recently recommended’ content, which is usually a collage of content scrambled into one big piece. There is so much to look at and its not easy deciphering exactly where to start, simulating the experience of using social media. As a result, I thought printing my work out in a series of posters was most effective and relevant.
FINAL OUTCOME DRAFT 1:
This was originally my final outcome. However, when I started numbering the different sections in my work, I shifted the pages around a bit so that they could be read more easily. However, this is a good example of what all the pages look like combined. There are 8 pages on each poster.
FINAL OUTCOME (WITHOUT QR CODES):
FINAL OUTCOME WITH QR CODES:
QR CODES ON POSTERS:
Instagram Link
2. Filter video links
Numbering the pages:
I decided it best to number each row of pages so people know in which order to read the Work. I decided that reading across the page (horizontally) would be best, and meant I did not have to number each individual page section. The number system is shown in the image below. This is the same for each poster.
Posters on the wall:
The final stage of this module was printing off my work. Before getting it officially printed, I conducted some test prints, to see which size was best to print my work off. I tried A4 and A3. These were too small and the text was very difficult to read. I decided that the posters would need to be ideally double the size, so I went for A1 and got them printed. I am very happy with my choice in poster size, the prints are clear and legible. They are also so fun and bright to look at.
I placed them on my wall to replicate how I am thinking about placing them in my exhibition. I thought placing them vertically in a row, going from top to bottom in order would be most appropriate. This display requires the reader to get physically involved in the work, as they have to move to read each poster. The display also replicates the action of scrolling, when one starts at the top of the feed/content and ends at the bottom. There isn't necessarily a start or end. I love these posters as an overall piece of art work, as well as graphic novel. Finally, I printed off my posters, each one sized A1.
EVALUATION:
-Breaking down gender norms online.
-Blurring the boundary between the online and offline world to get rid of online female depictions and unattainable beauty standards.
-Showing that women can present themselves however they desire.
-Social media as a positive medium for self expression.
In response to my title question, ‘Can social media construct a positive online persona?’, I found that social media has two main sides. It usually has this bad stigma, especially in regards to the depiction of women. My research showed me how intertwined our online world is with our offline world, how our technologies watch and control our next move. Similarly, our social medias have a big influence over how we self present online. I looked at how women construct identity online, through a big focus on appearance and trying to reach unattainable beauty standards. I looked at digital artists and online influencers, such as Molly Soda and Spencer Barbosa, who break down gender norms online and change how women are depicted. This research informed my contextual development for my practical work. It made me think about merging the boundaries between the online and offline world, where I show both my online and offline worlds to challenge online female beauty standards. I created filters which are fun and expressive, to limit the idea that social media filters have to enhance beauty and allow women to fit the beauty standard. Finally, I created my story which I turned into a series of 6 posters. My story contains messages about the problems with social media and how it can be controlling, but overall shows that it can be a good medium to express oneself. So to answer my question, social media is a good place to express oneself and to break female depictions and expectations online.
I am very pleased with my final posters, I think they are visually exciting and busy and my character is fun and relatable. I enjoy the range of illustrations which create a busy, exciting and colourful aesthetic. I made two versions of my posters, one which is printed, and another which is digital. The plan is at my exhibition, I will give people the option to either look at the large posters or they can scan a QR code which will take them to the digital poster PDF.
I am happy with the narrative of my story, it is engaging, futuristic, relevant and relatable (especially to women in their 20s). It touches upon current debates and topics within the world of social media and digital technologies. It also explores the possibilities of the future with technological innovations. It communicates the way social media can be a positive place to construct an online persona and to express oneself. My research was key in helping me develop an interesting narrative.
My photoshoots and filter work add an interactive edge to my work, or will do in my exhibition, where people will be able to access them through their phones (scanning QR codes). They also add a personal aspect to my work, by showing a part of my online world. They explore how I constructed my online persona. The story adds context to my photoshoots and digital content, so they compliment each other well.
With both the photoshoots and the illustrated posters, I communicate how women can express themselves how they want to online, by ignoring the gender expectations and rituals. I show that performing gender online does not have to be a fixed concept and we can use social media to explore our identities in a fun, creative way.
If I could change something, I would have probably added a TIK TOK account to show at my exhibition. But as this platform was new to me, I did not have enough time to really explore it. I also was not sure about the use of music on TIK TOK, so decided to play it safe and instead use it to inspire my filter ideas. However, I think it would have worked well alongside the Instagram account. Maybe that is something I can develop after this module, to get my work and creative ideas out there.
Bibliography:
Cohen, A. (2018) Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ Ignored Society’s Expectations of Women, Artsy.
Tate (1998) Tracey Emin ‘My Bed’, Tate.
Amalia Ulman: Excellences and Perfections (2014) New Exhibitions Museum.
Gallery, N. P. (2019) Artist Molly Soda.
Lim, J. (2022) PrettyLittleThing Introduces First Virtual Model Ambassador, TheIndustry.Fashion.
Katz, R. et al. (2021) In Touch With Their Emotions and Extremely Online- Here’s What You Need To Know About Gen Z, Prospect Magazine.
Hancock Hawk, B. and Garner, R. (2014) ‘Erving Goffman: Theorizing the Self in the Age of Advanced Consumer Capitalism’, Journal For The Theory of Social Behaviour.
Butler, J. (1988) ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Thearte Journal.
Duan, J. and Dholakia Roy, R. (2017) ‘Posting Purchases on Social Media Increases Happiness: The Mediating Roles of Purchases Impact on Self and Interpersonal Relationships’, Journal of Consumer Marketing.
ArtRocket. (2022) ‘How To Layout Your Comic! Panels, Gutters and Page Flow’, Art Rocket
Colbow, B. (2016) ‘Drawing Comics in Procreate from Start to Finish’
Leban, M. (2020) ‘Constructing Persona’s: How High-Net Worth Social Media Influencers Reconcile Ethicality and Living a Luxury Lifestyle’, Journal of Business Ethics.
Molly Soda (2018) Annka Kultys Gallery.
Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Survelliance Capitalism.
Barbour, K., Lee, K. and Moore, C. (2017) ‘Online persona Research’.
“Performing Microcelebrity” Analysing Papi Jiang’s Online Persona Through Stance and Style’ (2022) in Language in Society. Cambridge University Press.
Harari Noah, Y. (2018) 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.
Eisner, W. (2008) Will Eisner Graphic Storytelling And Visual Narrative.
Virtual Model, Innovative and Progressive Content? (2022) Flashnerd.
Duffield, C. (2022) PLT CGI MODEL, Independent.
Dobson Shields, A. (2015) Postfeminism Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media and Self-Representation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kinsey, C. (2016) Artist Amalia Ulman created an online persona and recorded it on Instagram to ask questions about gender online. BBC
Alpha.I. (2022), Ines Alpha. Metal Magazine
Meltzer, M. (2014) ‘Zoella: The Haul Vlog Queen: The Haul Video is the Girlie Answer to the Tech World’s Unboxing Videos’. New York, .
Berryman, R and Kavka, M. (2017) ‘I Guess a Lot of People See Me as a Big Sister or a Friend: The Role of Intimacy in the Celebrification of Beauty Vloggers’, Journal of Gender Studies
Lim, J. (2022) ‘Pretty Little Thing Introduces First Virtual Model Ambassador’, The Industry. Fashion
Greg. Jennifer. (2019) ‘Procreate For Drawing Comic Strips’ YouTube
Khodabandeh, B. (2014) ‘Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio’ Making Comics