I know I'm not the first person to raise this issue, but I'd like to get a discussion started about how we represent genders and ethnicity/nationality in arch viz. This may seem like a heady topic, but I think we have a responsibility to be mindful of this. It speaks to our own biases in how we think about culture and architecture, and influences our audience's perception of both.
Many would probably tell me that this is a minor detail, but I definitely notice when I see a beautiful rendering populated only one type of people. I was recently asked to switch out some of my entourage in a rendering because the only woman in the image was wearing "stripper heels". Our client, being a woman, might not take kindly to the representation (it also looked like a man in the rendering was checking her out... XD). They were totally right, but it shouldn't have taken having a female client to raise the issue.
In my opinion, this has mostly to do with the availability of high quality entourage that represents people fairly. This seems to be particularly so with free entourage.
Do you agree/disagree that entourage packs usually represent people unfairly?
Have you encountered similar issues in your work?
Do you or your company take any particular stance on the topic?
Do you think it matters at all?
Do you have any recommendations for good entourage?
All of the above is purely my opinion/experience. So, please discuss! I'm eager to hear what your opinions and experiences are.
Cheers,
Jinmu
