In the commercial space age there are new opportunities for designers to develop products for use during spaceflight, and it is becoming increasingly urgent for design sectors to prepare for direct engagement with the environment of space by engaging in post-gravity design. Design for space must derive from entirely different foundations to design for Earth, as a result of the need to consider the effects of weightlessness on those objects and their users. This paper identifies the need for designers to reconsider approaches to orientation in the microgravity environment, where there is no fixed paradigm of verticality; no fixed up/down or top/bottom. It argues for the value of post-gravity thinking, proposing three specific approaches to orientation in microgravity.

In microgravity, the astronaut's body is suspended in a void, separated from its surroundings except where measures have been taken to tether it to a surface. The experience of weightlessness can be characterised as ungroundedness - the feeling of being out of touch with surrounding surfaces. This sensation extends to clothing, which is suspended in the space around the body, not anchored to the skin as it is in normogravity. While on Earth, the weight of clothing on skin is a constant reminder of gravitational forces, equally, in space, the absence of the sensation of cloth against skin is a reminder that the body is located in an extraterrestrial environment in which the behaviours and sensations of everyday objects are defamiliarized. This article briefly considers the sensation of weightlessness from the perspective of the relationship between clothes and the body, and proposes ways in which these considerations could inform creative practice in fashion and costume design, and in depictions of the clothed, weightless body.

Design practice has historically been constrained by the assumption that designed objects, including clothing, will be made and worn in Earth gravity. The notion that designed objects have an upright state has influenced common approaches to design, including the tendency towards depiction and presentation of designed objects in elevation view, which, for fashion, is frequently understood in terms of silhouette. However, those who have experienced weightlessness, either in space travel or on board reduced-gravity aircraft, describe a post-gravity experience that prompts them to revisit these assumptions and consider the extent to which future commercial space travel will liberate creative practitioners to operate at all angles and orientations. As we enter the commercial space age, fashion will be increasingly worn in a variety of gravitational conditions, and the dressed body will therefore be encountered at a variety of orientations, showcasing views of garments that are not often encountered on Earth, and that are therefore often overlooked by fashion designers. This article responds to descriptions of the post-gravity experience by identifying the need to consider alternative views of the clothed body, and consequently to define garments without reference to the silhouette in fashion design for the new commercial space age.

In this commercial space age, audiences increasingly expect realism in science fiction. Weightlessness is commonly simulated through physical or virtual special effects, but reduced gravity aircraft offer opportunities for capturing the effects of microgravity more authentically. While this poses practical challenges for costume designers, it also invites the possibility of creative engagement with weightlessness. Costume can be employed to visibly evidence the effects of weightlessness, but to take advantage of this opportunity, designers must discard many of the fundamental principles of fashion design. This article examines the effects of weightlessness on costume in sequences shot on board reduced gravity aircraft, from Apollo 13 (Howard, 1995), The Mummy (Kurtzman, 2017), and the music video for OK Go's 'Upside Down & Inside Out' (Kulash and Sie, 2016), as well as footage of real-life astronauts. It then identifies those features of clothing design which must be reconsidered when designing costume for microgravity.

The act of undressing has a multitude of meanings, which vary dramatically when this commonly private gesture is presented for public consumption. This ground-breaking book explores the significance of undressing in various cultural and social contexts. As we are increasingly obsessed with dress choices as signifiers of who we are and how we feel, an investigation into what happens as we remove our clothes has never been more pertinent. Exploring three main issues – politics, tease, and clothes without bodies – Acts of Undressing discusses these key themes through an in-depth and eclectic mix of case studies including flashing at Mardi Gras, the World Burlesque Games, and ‘shoefiti’ used by gangs to mark territories. Building on leading theories of dress and the body, from academics including Roland Barthes and Mario Perniolato, Ruth Barcan and Erving Goffman, Acts of Undressing is essential reading for students of fashion, sociology, anthropology, visual culture, and related subjects.

Barbara Brownie, Acts of Undressing: Politics, Eroticism and Discarded Clothing (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), ISBN: 978-1472596185

'Dressing-up' has often been seen as a gendered activity. In particular, costuming the design and creation of costumes - has been viewed as a female pursuit. However, contemporary events and artefacts, particularly those related to fandom, frame dressing-up in contexts that are more acceptable to male audiences. Via cosplay, historical re-enactment, and the personalization of characters in online games such as World of Warcraft, a new generation of men are becoming more engaged with costume. This article will identify contemporary influences on the perception of the wearing and construction of costume, particularly with regards to costume as an expression of masculine ideals. It will discuss the costume as a marker of hypermasculinity, authority or preparedness, and identify how traditionally feminine domestic spaces and activities have been coopted by a new generation of males. It will present domestic activities such as sewing as rights-of-passage on the path towards masculinity.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose that, within the practice of motion branding, transforming type has been largely neglected by existing theorists and its importance to wider marketing trends overlooked. It will be observed that previous texts on transitional letterforms have tended to focus on changes in global arrangement and in doing so have neglected to recognise the significance of changes that occur at a local level, within individual letterforms. Design/methodology/approach – Taking an interdisciplinary approach, with examples including idents and bumpers from Channel 4, Sky, FOX, Five and MTV. New methods of understanding these artefacts will be introduced, with emphasis on how they affect the relationship between broadcaster’s identities and the medium of television. Modes of definition and understanding that have previously been applied to holographic poetry will be applied to the field of on-screen artefacts. Findings – The paper will discuss how branding has adapted to incorpor...

Barbara Brownie, Jayne Smith, Rebecca Thomas, ‘In Another Instant: Focus and Interaction in Creative Arts Learning’, paper presented at the European Conference on eLearning (ECEL), University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, 29-30 October, 2015.

Fluid typographic forms (letters, numbers and other characters), which transform over time to present new identities, are employed in a new kind of temporal typography. These forms, and the behaviours they exhibit, are most commonly seen in temporal media, including television idents, credit sequences and typographic animation. However, fluidity is dependent upon characteristics that were developed historically, from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. It has become possible to retrospectively identify the ways that historical developments anticipated fluid transformation in temporal typography. Some categories of fluid behaviour would be impossible if it were not for the concept of the letter as malleable, as a three-dimensional object, or as modular. These characteristics permit processes, or fluid behaviours, through which a new identity is introduced to a changing form. This article demonstrates that these three characteristics are reflected in three historical developments: the use of the transformable grid in the development of Romain du Roi, three-dimensional nineteenth-century typefaces and the modular lettering of Josef Albers, Theo van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck.

Disguise - the substitution of one identity for another - is a deliberate act of construction and an elimination of self. Through costume, signs of self are concealed and erased, and in their place appears an apparently complete alternative identity. Although dress is typically aspirational, reflecting a desire to imitate those of higher socio-economic status, this article observes that there are occasions on which it is desirable to use costume to reduce status, and to escape the perceived pressures and responsibilities of social or economic power. In trans-status disguise, it is necessary to abandon all outward indicators of individuality and status: to perform ordinariness.Performance of ordinariness is a means to an end: a tool to enable behaviour that would otherwise be inappropriate or impossible. Inspired by Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, nineteenth-century journalists used costume to experience life in the poorest sections of society with the aim of increasing trans-status empathy. In screen-based narratives, a disguise can often be pivotal to a plot, particularly since, in these primarily visual media, costume is a key identifying feature of any character. Taking as examples, Coming to America, Superman and The Saint, this article observes how costume permits a perceived lowering of status, which in turn enables liberation. In particular, it will propose that there are parallels between the social experiments of nineteenth-century journalists and the fictional narratives of twentieth-century television and cinema.

In the thirty years since the first appearance of Martin Lambie-Nairn's ident ‘Round and Back’, Channel 4 has established a reputation for screening idents that are both innovative and pleasingly familiar. While many texts have acknowledged the significance of these artefacts, there has, as yet, been no sufficient exploration into the precise behaviours that make these idents so distinct. This article explores the construction of the Channel 4 logo from independently moving parts, and the alignment of static parts prompted by tracked navigation, showing how these behaviours are made possible by the modularity of the Channel 4 logo. These behaviours are likened to anamorphosis, in which a privileged viewing zone reveals to viewers an alignment of forms, and a fleeting moment in which separate pictorial objects collaborate in the presentation of a more significant numerical configuration.