Design Stereotypes (Spain)

[jpa]

This thread is about contests with a Spanish theme.

(So I can writte on the thread, I writte here)

OH! Please!, Don't use topics for this design like flamenco dancers or bull fighters, Spain is much more than that...
Sorry, but I'm very tired of topics. England is not a beefeater, Germany is not a Frankfurt, etc...

Please, don't use topics in your works!

Thanks.

[resurepus]

I have changed the title of the thread because, yes, you cannot post in the contest thread and in fact we don't allow discussions of currently active contests. However if you are bothered by the images used to represent Spain, it is perfectly ok to discuss the problem

[_Redrum]

I edited your post a bit, jpa, so people would get and idea of what you're referring to.

[casperamy]

I find it quite amusing that someone who doesn't want us to use traditionally Spanish themes used traditional Japanese iconography in their portfolio. I am sure some would say the image of a traditionally dressed Japanese woman does not represent Japan.

Chris

[resurepus]

I find it quite amusing that someone who doesn't want us to use traditionally Spanish themes used traditional Japanese iconography in their portfolio. I am sure some would say the image of a traditionally dressed Japanese woman does not represent Japan.

Chris

Both are very good points, Chris!

[_Redrum]

I think people should use the thing that would be most easily recognized.

[Chung Dha]

Every culture/ country have stereotypes, the most common things the people will recognize them self easily and faster . Like Netherlands often uses Tulips and cheese and windmills. However the Dutch tulip are actually turkish and Cheese are also france. Windmills are dutch but aren't use that much. However in the Netherlands you nowadays don't see much of these things but got different foods you can't find in other countries but wouldn't use them as things to resemble the Netherlands. Like I wouldn't make a paella as a logo.

How ever people who doesn't live in the countries doesn't know if there are more things to say that something would resemble that country that easily. You should just say stop using those thing its better to advice what to use because you are from spain and know more and which are good to use.

[jpa]

First, thanks to resurepus and _Redrum for the edit.

I'm sorry for the time I take to reply, but I'm in other city.

casperamy: The image used in that site is an ukiyo-e, not a photography or a representation from that photography. And I'm sure (because I like ukiyo-e and I have a very large collection of it... about 10.000 images) that the ukiyo-e used in my sites are not well know. I'm not using a traditionally dressed Japanese woman, I'm using an Ukiyo-e... I think it's not the same.
One thing is to use traditional images and other thing is to use stereotypes. Maybe to make a logo with this rule it's more difficult than to make a web page.

How ever people who doesn't live in the countries doesn't know if there are more things to say that something would resemble that country that easily.

That's the theme. As a designer, you take the responsability TO LOOK FOR a symbol of that country rarely used if you don't want to make everybody makes. If you want to make the same things than other people, it's your choice. On the Official Tourism web pages you can find a lot of things from countries rarely used by other designers.

That's the spanish tourism page:http://www.spain.info/. As you see, there are no flamenco dancers, no bullfighters and, of course, no paella in front page.

Wathever, it's your decission to make your own design and this is my personal view.
Saludos!