BEAUTY DEFINED BY PERFORMANCE

 American media has created limiting identities that influence the portrayal of women in sports. By introducing new narratives, design can restructure, recontextualize and inevitably, redefine women in sports. These new narratives will impact society as whole, especially young aspiring athletes. The new narrative that I propose to interject into media is "beauty defined by performance". As athletes, we should focus on what our bodies can do, not what they look like.

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TruFit is an app designed for high school girl athletes that forces them to set performance goals rather than aesthetic goals. Instead of saying "I want my arms to be less flabby", it's "I want to be able to complete 20 push ups". It not only changes the way they think about working out, but also changes the way they perceive themselves.

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This 9x10' poster has moving panels that play with the duality of current portrayals of women in sports and my proposed view based on performance. On the front is the heavily photoshopped, "non-active", sexualized view of an athletic woman that media continues to propagate. On the back of the poster are the new narrative photos, (not photoshopped) that show a realistic portrayal of women athletes.

These take-away cards also played with the duality of typical media images. To open the flyer, you must physically tear off the old image of women. Once torn open, it reveals the new narrative and information about the TruFit app
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These take-away cards also played with the duality of typical media images. To open the flyer, you must physically tear off the old image of women. Once torn open, it reveals the new narrative and information about the TruFit app