OUGD504 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN: PROSTITUTE LAUNDRY (+RESEARCH)

After trawling through Kickstarter at all the many campaigns that were being shown on there, I decided on a project titled "Prostitute Laundry" by Charlotte Shane. I produced several mind maps taking information from the Kickstarter page, Twitter, Charlotte Shane's website, and various other outlets Charlotte Shane or her work were featured on.

This mind map shows what Prostitute Laundry is actually about, what Charlotte describes her letters describing. This mind map also shows what Charlotte wants her books to be like, and talks about two other books which she hopes to publish called "The Cord" and "Nightmare Brunette" if the campaign gets enough supporters.

This mind map is about Charlotte Shane and what she has done, things she believes in, what she does.

This mind map shows all the outlets that Charlotte's writing has been shown in, such as Playboy, The New Inquiry, Pacific Standard.

Prostitute Laundry
Prostitute Laundry is a collection of 56 letters from writer and escort, Charlotte Shane. She calls this collection of letters a "meditative serial memoir". You can also subscribe to these letters through Charlotte's blog, however she doesn't create an archive, so you can only read the most recent letter. This means each letter is a stand alone story, one that has more impact on those who have read what came before, but is still captivating for those whose this is the first story of Charlotte's they've read. Charlotte Shane describes her work as "Accounts of the most preoccupying aspects of my life: the struggles of my primary relationship, my paid and unpaid encounters with other men, my conflicted attitude regarding my body, and more." Charlotte Shane's Prostitute Laundry has gotten attention from NPR, NYMag, and The Washington Post.
On Kickstarter Charlotte describes how she wants the book to appear if she raises enough funds to produce it, saying it must have a durable and friendly feeling soft cover, which will look better with wear, that you can chuck in your backpack and not worry about damaging. She wants margins wide enough to scrawl detailed notes down, printed on stock that gives just the right amount when your pen or pencil makes contact with it. She also wants the book to fit comfortably in one hand, making comfortable reading easy, and that she absolutely hates hardbacks.
Charlotte Shane also talks about two other works of hers, "Nightmare Brunette" and "The Cord", which she hopes she can publish too if she gets enough supporters and funding from her Kickstarter campaign. She describes Nightmare Brunette and being a lovingly crafter paperback similar for Prostitute Laundry, only written when she was younger, gentler and more interested in her (sex) work. The Cord she describes as being a tender, intimate depiction of two people exploring the start of an uncommonly profound connection, and wants the book to have illustrations scrawled across the pages, produced by an illustrator that features primarily in the content of the book itself. The Cord has been reviewed as; "This made me believe in love again."

To me, it appears as though although Charlotte Shane works in the sex industry, her writing, or the way she and others describes it, is quite intimate and personal, feminine too, and she has such a precise image of how she wants her books to be produced, the way they are to be used, tactile aspects of them. She's honest, and her writing is raw, she doesn't hide her feelings or dance around the subject, but lays them down and doesn't care what people think. Or maybe she does care what people think, but doesn't let it affect the way she does things or what she wants.

Charlotte Shane
Charlotte Shane is a writer and sex worker living in New York. She has co-founded the sex worker-run blog "Tits and Sass". She has also contributed to the Kickstarter funded anthology "Coming and Crying". She is on Twitter as @CharoShane, with her bio reading "Not in the vomit but near it". Her mantra for the rest of her life is "Grow up and learn something". Essays listed on her website are categorised under light, medium and heavy, relating to the content, she you can choose something depending on your mood, and then by the content. Her essays have been featured in Playboy, New Inquiry and Matter to name a few, and adult-mag.com has described her as "A sexual justice activist working to end the reign of fuckboys on Twitter".
Charlotte Shane appears witty and funny, not taking herself too seriously, but with great ambition to do well in what she loves.

Digital presentation
Initially to get a sense of what the Prostitute Laundry logo should look like, I started by looking at different online platforms Charlotte Shane is portrayed on, such as her Kickstarter page, Tumblr, Twitter etc.

Kickstarter

This is the homepage for Prostitute Laundry, where the initial video start image is of presumably Charlotte herself writing her letters. This has such a gentle, feminine appearance, with the standard white background that comes with Kickstarter, combined with Charlotte's pale pink shirt she's wearing. This gives a very elegant and grown up, independant woman vibe, as young women wouldn't wear shirts on choice, and generally wouldn't be thinking about funding for a project in the first place. 

This is Charlotte Shane's biography page on Kickstarter, where you can read a bit about her, and there are a few links to her websites and social media pages as well. Charlotte's profile picture on this page has a similar appearance to the Prostitute Laundry campaign page, with the photograph in black and white, with Charlotte looking quite serious but very feminine with her hair style and winged, elegant black eyeliner. Again she is wearing a shirt, in this photograph it looks white, which continues the theme of her being sophisticated and a 'real woman'. The whole appearance of these two Kickstarter pages is very French, as pale colours, sultry, serious looks, shirts and elegant winged eyeliner are all typical things in France, which you will often see women looking like, especially in Paris. This is perhaps something I should incorporate into my logo designs.

This is a quick sketch page as Charlotte introduces Prostitute Laundry to us as readers, perhaps giving us an idea of the kind of appearance she aims to show the book in. This has a kind of thought about scruffiness to it, as the uppercase title's terminal's tend to flick out in some cases, appearing as if it has been written quickly, not necessarily in a hurry though, that may just be how she wrote it. However the "by Charlotte Shane" in title case looks as if a lot more time and car has been taken over it, with the small swirls at the terminal's of some of the letters, and the linking up of some of the letters as well. The two aspects of this title have a great contrast to them, which could reflect Charlotte's work as a writer and also an escort, the great contrast there is there.

Charlotte Shane included one of her letters that would be in the Prostitute Laundry book on the Kickstarter page, so give potential backers an idea as to the kind of writing she produces. This is what really drew me to the project, as the writing isn't filth, it is captivating and kind of like an inner monologue of what's happening before her. 

This is the front page of her website, which as you can see is very minimal and simple, with her articles listed below in categories of light, medium and heavy, depending on what kind of reading you want, which I think is really clever, as sometimes you don't want to read anything in particular, but you know the kind of style you want to read something in. Underneath her name title, it says "is a writer", which is as if she has to clarify that is her profession, rather than letting people make up their own minds. This may be because she is trying to get away fro being an escort, and is forcing her image as a writer out there, so is saying it plainly, or this could just be how she is as a person, as her writing is very forward and matter of fact, she doesn't dilly around things.

This is Charlotte's Tumblr page, where again in the title she has included the word "writer", cementing the fact that that is what she is, which makes me think she could be a little insecure, or is simply just putting down her profession like many other people do. Her tumblr page is full of quotes and writing, and what images there are they are interesting illustrations, and photographs of influential or socially "different" women, who are fighting for rights or equality.

Charlotte Shane's Twitter page. Here she uses the same profile picture as for her Kickstarter, website and Tumblr pages, to create a continuous aesthetic, and so that immediately you know it is the same person across all her social outlets, and not just someone who has the same name and looks a bit similar.

The Cord is a title of another book Charlotte Shane hopes to publish, which is her longest and most "remarked upon" letter. One of her illustrator friends who features prominently in the book will produce illustrations to sit alongside the text, supporting the writing itself. The hand drawn style of this title is very similar to the Prostitute Laundry title, using all uppercase and some of the terminals, such as on the "T" and "R", having little flicks on them, as if she just wanted to get the title down quickly and efficiently. This creates a very uniformed appearance with Prostitute Laundry, which is something to consider when producing the logo for Prostitute Laundry, that it can be easily adapted for the other two books Charlotte Shane hopes to publish.

The Cord example appearnace.

The Cord example appearance.

Tits and Sass is a blog which Shane co-founded, and contributes to. It has a much more urban, on the streets appearance to it, with the title being hand written on lined paper from a ring binder notebook, which looks as if no care has been taken to how the title has been written, it just needed to be got down on paper. This has a very unsophisticated look to it, which really contrasts to the content, which is all rather well written and covers important topics, not just in the sex industry.

Researching into Charlotte Shane and Prostitute Laundry has been very beneficial to me as it has given me a very good idea as to the kind of aesthetic of her work, and if this is how she is choosing to portray herself now, this is something I should try to stick to when designing her logo, to make sure it will fit in with all of her other online platforms. It appears as if she wants to really show herself as a writer, even though her writing is about her sex work, se wants to be seen as a writer first and foremost, which is something really important to bear in mind when creating her logo, not to make it look too much as if it should be seen in the red light district in Amsterdam, but to show her as an intelligent woman, and hint at her sex work perhaps.