Personal Blog 2
A Breath of Air After Heavy Work
What felt immediately refreshing about Methods of Translating was the openness of the brief itself. We could choose from such varied source materials—a text, a publication, an image, a film or video, or even a performance—and then apply approaches like relaying, mimicking, copying, parodying, interjecting, extrapolating, hybridizing, paraphrasing, or improvising. It made the whole project feel playful from the beginning. It was essentially an exercise in understanding language through a more critical engagement with meaning: how meaning depends on form and context, and how translating something through a graphic design practice can reconfigure that meaning entirely simply by shifting medium or situation.
After the previous two methods, this felt like a breath of air. My investigation work had been emotionally heavy, rooted in observation, questioning, detail, and directions I didn’t expect. My cataloguing project was also mentally exhausting—so much history, so much thinking-through-making. So here, I gravitated toward parodying and improvising. I wanted to have a little fun.
Flipping the 1950s: The Good Husband’s Guide
My first idea was to work with old sexist housekeeping books—those 1950s guides telling women how to be “good wives.” I’ve always found their tone patronising, even if they belonged to another time. Reading lines like “clean away the clutter,” “be a little gay to make it more interesting for him,” “don’t question his judgment,” “a good wife always knows her place,” or “greet him with sincerity in your desire to please him” brought back that familiar irritation.
So I decided to translate that discomfort directly into the project. I began by taking vintage patriarchal material and flipping it through parody and reversal: an IKEA-style instruction booklet called The Good Husband’s Guide. Instead of domestic advice for wives, the booklet became a set of emotional and behavioural instructions for husbands in 2025. The audience shifts from wives to husbands, the timeline jumps from the 1950s to now, and the tone moves from condescending to deadpan satire. By translating old ads into modern male-grooming or emotional-labour guides—like turning “prepare yourself” into “take 15 minutes to listen without offering solutions”—I could maintain the structure but completely shift the power dynamic.
Turning Proverbs into Products
The second idea I explored was translating common proverbs and phrases—the everyday ones that carry subtle or not-so-subtle sexism—into branded products. I wanted to poke fun at them, not in a dismissive way, but by exposing their absurdity once the context is changed.
Phrases like “boys will be boys,” “don’t be emotional,” “man up,” or “behind every successful man is a woman” became brand identities. Translating them into brand logic made their patriarchal tone visible. For example, Boys Will Be Boys became a dramatic men’s fragrance with the tagline “for the man that never apologizes,” styled like those moody outdoor perfume ads—“outdoor entitlement.” Each phrase became a product that visually embodies its sexism, and I played with the idea of presenting them as posters or as part of a small publication.
My Pattern of Wanting to Do Everything
Throughout all of this, I also noticed something about how I work: whenever I explore ideas for a brief, I immediately want to do everything. My instinct is to expand every direction at once, and usually it’s time that holds me back. With this project too, part of me wanted to merge the brand ads with The Good Husband’s Guide and turn it into one big thing. I’m still not sure if they should eventually be combined or kept separate. With assessments coming up, I’ll probably keep them apart for now and maybe return to them during the holidays when I can push them further.
I don’t fully know what shape it will take yet, but I do know that I enjoy this process — following an idea, multiplying it, and seeing how far it can go.
Choosing a Direction (For Now)
When I brought these ideas into my tutorial in the second week, my class and tutor were especially drawn to the brand translations. They felt like the strongest direction, and honestly, they were the part I enjoyed most—much lighter than my previous assignments. So I committed to developing four different ads.
As I worked, something still felt slightly incomplete. My original plan was to print them and place them inside actual magazines to make them look real, but given the scope and time, I’m leaning toward an online format for now. I can still imagine expanding it into a small publication later. Throughout the process, I tried to stay in the space of parody: poking fun while still being respectful, keeping my boundaries, and communicating my point clearly without losing the humour.
Writing as Performance
Alongside the visual work, we also had to write a blog: a translation of an existing text into another form. I chose Designer as Author and Fuck Content by Michael Rock and turned them into a staged conversation between two archetypal forces—an author and a designer.
I think I was influenced by how much theatre, acting, movement, and performance I had been absorbing that week. The dialogue became theatrical almost naturally: two characters locked in their expertise, debating. There’s humour in it, and a softer neutrality in how I tried to communicate the tension between their perspectives.
Rediscovering My Theatre Self
My influences during this week were coming from unexpected places. I have a background in theatre—I was president of the Theatre Society in my undergrad—and I realised how much I had missed that part of myself.
Around the same time, I went to a stand-up comedy show by someone I’ve watched on TV for years. Here, in London, they were simply twenty minutes from uni. I even ended up having drinks with them afterward and talking about performance, art, conversation, and expression. Then I met a group of aerial performers, and it took me right back to being that girl on stage again.
Because communication has been such a central part of this course, I let myself be a little cheeky and theatrical in my written response. At one point I worried I was doing too much, so I called Clem Crosby—as I normally do—and received encouraging feedback. He even suggested sending the piece to Michael Rock, which was both funny and motivating.
A Spark That Turned Into a Skipping Stone
This method of translation ended up pushing me into a parody-performance-expression state I didn’t anticipate. Sometimes a brief sends you places you don’t expect; this one felt like a small spark that turned into a skipping stone, creating ripples. I felt creatively fulfilled in a way I hadn’t in a while, and it made me want to keep going and build more from this direction.