April 2010

Designing the adult world with children in mind

Why do all of our men’s magazines look the same? Penthouse, Playboy… the only way to tell the difference these days is the masthead. What if you got rid of the girl on the front-cover just once and used some creative graphic design? Would the crowds flock to to buy the magazine? Or would it spell economic disaster for a pornography giant?

A few weeks ago the Brisbane Times reported on a community furore over a billboard for the adults-only conference, Sexpo. Sexpo is, according to their website a “sexuality lifestyle” expo. It boasts its ability to provide access to international performers from all aspects of adult entertainment and its ‘aim’ is to “provide a fun and vibrant atmosphere for like-minded people to enjoy and find information about all things adult.”

Now, as a twenty-something male, this should sound pretty exciting; porn-stars and adult toys, side-by-side, all under one roof. The crazy fetishes, the on-stage entertainment, I mean, if you have a look at some of the event photos it’s pretty clear that the majority of attendees fit my demographic. But, to be brutally honest, it sounds a little boring and just a bit dirty to me. I’m no fun sponge though, if adults are keen to explore this sort of exhibition as a way to communicate or interact with others about their sexuality then by all means, go nuts and pardon the pun.

As a designer, what I do find irresponsible is the complete disregard for the broader social context in advertising this event. There has been a lot of media attention and community debate about the recent design and placement of the billboards used to promote the event in Queensland. Despite all the controversy around the location and contents of the ad, it essentially boils down to one thing; irresponsible graphic design.

The simple fact is that, as a society, we’re being desensitized. The design of sexually-targeted material even as little as 10 years ago, leaves today’s young men flaccid, bored and keen to bid on the next young girl willing to put aside her morals and auction her virginity on eBay.

What concerns me is not knowing where it will stop. In 10 years time, will the societal norm become one where graphic designers will be able to show a porn-stars’ nipples in an ad campaign… without covering them with stars or little vector love hearts? I mean, they’re porn stars right? Why censor their god-given anatomy in a still image if they’re plastered all over the internet where society can freely access them anyway?

Or what about just the female form in its entirety? Will it be considered ‘acceptable’ by generation Y to paste up this level of gratuitious nudity in local newsagents to advertise the new issue of whichever men’s magazine survives the ever-growing production costs of the printed page? Will the children of the future simply get bored with full-frontal nudity and turn to genome projects to create something of a Total Recall-esque woman (the three-breasted lady) in order to get enough stimulation to enable them to continue to procreate?

I’m an old fashioned guy, I still believe that a little mystery goes a long way in providing a provocative thought or creating a mental image. There’s a reason why the human genetalia (apart from maybe the Statue of David) doesn’t come to mind when discussing art around a dinner table; at least not as often as the suggestive smile of an eyebrow-less lady or the stare of a girl who might don a simple pearl-earring. If we are being desensitized and the next step in the advertising evolution is to drop all barriers as well as our underpants and admire the human figure in all it’s hairy, sweaty glory; why not start now and why not do it creatively, setting a trend for how we should approach this for future generations. I believe we can shift this trend for the better, but we need to act sooner rather than later.

After my most recent post on designing for the broader social context I decided to set a challenge for myself, to redesign the sexually-explicit imagery featured in adults’ entertainment. And what other place should I choose to start but of course, Playboy magazine; the icon of adult entertainment – bunny and all. Could it actually be possible to design a cover for one of these magazines that, to a child, could seem perfectly innocent but to an adult actually communicate a completely different and raunchy message?

The first step in this exercise was to find a recent Playboy cover; funnily enough, this isn’t very hard. (There’s just too much scope for pun’s in this article).

Image of Playboy cover 2008

In my research, it was pretty easy to see that historically, these designs don’t change very much and they’re pretty common across many of the men’s magazines that have been (and still are being) published. One could argue that this is probably driven by Playboy and its pioneering of what is at the forefront of sexuality advertising over the last 50 years. After analyzing a few examples, I found that they often contain 3 key features:

  1. Large masthead to identify to the brand of the magazine and the date of the issue.
  2. Photograph of a woman, either in a strategically nude position or dressed in what is essentially an embarrassing, fantastical costume. Often accompany the image is a caption to identify the woman in case you didn’t recognize her from the latest new release when you last browsed the adult video store.
  3. A list of the contents of the magazine; feature articles and suggestive headings, etc.

Now I’m not sure about you but a parent who happens to be browsing their local magazine rack with their 5 year old child in hand can’t control what their child’s little, over-stimulated brain absorbs. And this sort of imagery is certainly something I wouldn’t be keen to have my child subjected to at any level. I mean, is Tiffany Fallon dressed as Wonder Woman really something I want little 5 year old Diedre to use as a role model?

This seems to be the current state of play though and thus form the basis of my challenge: What can I say to Diedre’s dad that will simply fly straight over the little girl’s head without doing any damage to her impression of how adult women should act or dress (or undress in this case). Of course, good design is also commercially successful so I still need to get the attention of her dad too because he’s our key demographic here as he browses fishing or motorsport magazines, and what better way to do this than with the current societal taboo – a reference to human genatalia.

Illustration of Playboy cover design

And so you can view them side by side:

The real playboy vs the fake

I designed this using the copy from the cover of the Feb 2008 issue and overlayed my own creativity to replace the feature image and caption. I didn’t want to show or tell my wife until I was satisfied I had fulfilled my own brief.

Her immediate reaction upon seeing it was in fact shock, but I wasn’t surprised. “That’s wrong” she said, but she chuckled immediately and almost ashamedly to herself. What was interesting was the longer her eyes devoured the cover, the less wrong it became. She could imagine telling little Diedre that it was a gardening or cooking magazine while my wife knew full well what the cover was alluding to. It’s intention of course is to use humour and simple graphic design to communicate directly to the target audience without providing other, more damaging messages to the audiences who are not considered the key demographic but whom still are exposed to the work – exactly what a good piece of design is supposed to do.

If you’ve managed to find this post, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please tell me what you think of this; whether it is wrong in your opinion or whether you’d be happy for your children, none the wiser to the subtleties of this communicative attempt of the female form, to see this in their local newsagent while daddy browses the motor car section right next to where they keep the adult magazines.

Of course, any design needs to fulfill the commercial aspect of the brief – “Will people buy it over its neighbouring monthly issue of Penthouse.” Well, in my opinion, I really believe that if Playboy ran their March cover with something like this on it, sales would not diminish. In fact, they might even get a few more out of sheer curiosity. Humour is a powerful tool in the designer’s arsenal. This magazine would surely jump off the shelves, the contrast of it to the sea of familiar faces of the elite adult entertainment world that surrounds it would surely see this as a viable commercial option for an adult entertainment publishing giant like Playboy. And if it doesn’t work? Well, I hardly think it would make a dint in Playboy’s profitability as the next month’s issue is just 30 days away. So why don’t these companies use their brands for good and give it a try?!

I won’t lie, I found this exercise really fun and I plan to try a few more of these in the near future with a particular focus on the horror film genre. If you’d like to see a re-design of a particularly scary or sexually-explicit movie, please let me know.


Other writing
May 2023 on Design Leadership

People not proxies

We’re running out of ways to explain to people why they should care about other people. Maybe we need to try something different?

May 2022 on Climate

We, the endangered

Is it inevitable that humans end up on the endangered species list? And, if so, how long have we got before that happens?

March 2022 on Culture Design

Let’s innovate!

Are internal innovation labs putting the cart before the horse by focussing on the technology before the problem?

February 2022 on Climate Design

Is digital real?

Digital takes what’s real – land, water, energy – and converts it into abstractions of value that, for some reason, we seem to value more than the finite resources that are used to make it.

1 comment

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *