Turning 3D into 2D

Just read this article which seems pertinent to our text readings on perspective. It featured an Italian artist name Felice Varini who creates these mid boggling installations were he paints graphics onto three dimensional objects, often far apart from each other, that resolve into flat two dimensional works when viewed from a fixed point. Here's a link to the article.

Spirit of the Times Movie Poster Research

North by Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock, 1959

Espionage and suspense film with themes of deception, mistaken identity, and moral relativism of Cold-War era. Saul Bass designed movie poster is somewhat similar to the poster for Vertigo, which Bass designed the previous year. In both posters the figure of a man is depicted as if falling through space—perhaps echoing the uncertainty and tension of the cold war.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick, 1968

Made at the height of the “Space Age” the movie tackles immense subject matter with psychedelic imagery and enigmatic story-telling methods. The poster is a still from the journey through the “Star Gate” sequence of the film and shows a close up of an iris tinted in psychedelic color with the “Star Child” super imposed. The tagline “The ultimate trip” carries multiple meanings: the odyssey through space, the evolution of the human species, and a reference to the drug culture prevalent in the late 60s.

The Graduate
Mike Nichols, 1967

Pragmatic depiction of aimless youth struggling to determine right from wrong, and whether there is any distinction between the two. Minimal in the extreme, this poster for the graduate presents the a massive feminine leg towering over a tiny figure in a cap and gown—implicating the sexually confident and aggressive older woman over powering the hapless young man at the center of the story.

Thoughts on Language of the Nude exhibition at Cooley Gallery

The conventions for depicting the human body have changed through time just as sexual conventions and morality have changed. Most of the work (except for the model exercises in the French section) in the exhibition focused on representing mythical/religious figures or events. Depicting gods, goddesses, cherubs, or angels for which nudity was a natural state of being. To depict an actual known person contemporary to the times would never have been acceptable.

The impact of ancient Greek and Roman artworks was, to me, quite evident. Of course, many of the gods and goddesses often used as subjects were of ancient Greek and Roman origin. Modern depictions of the nude still owe much to the ancient Greek and Roman forms—we continue to prize the idealized human figure.

The United States remains a country with a paradoxically adolescent and prudish view of nudity and sexuality. Images of half naked people are often used to titillate and entice for marketing purposes. Yet a half second view of a nipple on prime-time television led to immediate action by the FCC, and a widespread debate about indecency on television.

On the subject of movies...

Watching Man With The Movie Camera I was reminded of a movie I have heard about but never seen called Koyaanisqatsi. I still haven't taken the time to watch it (I intend to, though), but using the Wikipedia entry for the movie as a guide, it looks like it may use some of the same techniques as Man With The Movie Camera. Unlike Man With The Movie Camera, however, instead of being used to extol the advantages of technology and inspire hope for the future, Koyaanisqatsi is intended to show not that technology is good or bad, but that it is ubiquitous to our society. I have heard from many people that Koyaanisqatsi is an amazing movie. I really need to find time to watch both movies.

Text/Image Hunt

Terrorism, so long as it remains an abstract phenomenon, anonymous and unknown, arouses horror precisely because it appears blind, exceptional and uncontrollable.

This is the most literal pairing. The dark shadowy photo is mysterious and threatening, echoing the anonymous, unknown horror of the quote. The man and setting appear like they could be from the middle east, which many westerners equate with terrorism.

Terrorism, so long as it remains an abstract phenomenon, anonymous and unknown, arouses horror precisely because it appears blind, exceptional and uncontrollable.

The child appears worried and perplexed, terrified even, of a world it doesn't understand. Are adults any less terrified of the unknown, or have they gotten better at hiding it?

Terrorism, so long as it remains an abstract phenomenon, anonymous and unknown, arouses horror precisely because it appears blind, exceptional and uncontrollable.

Organized religion is all about power and fear—terrorizing people with stories of eternal suffering unless they submit to the will of the church. But we are do not see it as terrorism because we are familiar with it—it is not unknown or abstract.

The book I selected is Alienated Man a book of essays about alienation. The sentence I pointed to on page 152 comes from an essay from 1963 titled: "Reflections on the FLQ" by Léon Dion. The FLQ was the Front de Libération du Québec, a nationalist and socialist revolutionary group responsible for over 200 bombings.

The Persuaders: Emotional Branding

Americans are swimming in a sea of messages. The episode of Frontline from November 9, 2004, titled The Persuaders explores the ways marketers and advertisers shape messages to influence not only what people buy, but what they think about themselves and the world they inhabit.

In the early to mid twentieth century, ads focused on the tangible aspects of a brand: “Our toothpaste gets your teeth whiter,” “Our coffee tastes better.” As consumers became more sophisticated, these simple messages became less effective. When competing bands all claimed to be the best, yet the consumer could discern no actual differences between them, advertisers where forced to change strategies.

By the late twentieth century marketers had turned the focus onto the intangible reasons that consumers purchase a product: what a product means, not just what it does. Brands that could create an emotional connection between product and consumer came to dominate the market.

Brands now strive to be not just purveyors of product they want to be the suppliers of identity. Consumers will get more than a product they will get tools with which to broadcast to their society who they are. By wearing a pair of Nike running shoes I am telling the world something more about me than just that I like to run. The Nike brand carries with it all the meaning that the Nike brand has established over the years, the aura of the athlete, the risk taker, the challenger of convention. As a wearer of Nike shoes, I borrow the Nike identity.

Douglas Atkins, strategy officer at Merkley + Partners, coined the term “cult marketing” to describe the cultish ways that the consumers of some brands behave. He decided to study why people join religious cults looking to devise strategies that brands could employ to build a cult-like following. From this research Atkins concluded that people joined cults and became devoted to brands for the same reasons, they wanted to belong and they were looking for meaning. The techniques he devised were used by Saturn and were used to some success for several years. Not spoken about in the show is that unfortunately, when Saturn’s parent company GM had a change of management, the new management had no faith in the experiment of Saturn. They failed to build upon the early cult-like following Saturn had enjoyed. With no one to guide the “soul” of the brand it withered and now it appears that it will very shortly cease to exist as a brand.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. Roberts believes that brands that create “loyalty beyond reason” will get the premium profits. If a product can become infused with mystery, sensuality, and intimacy, and can be recognized as iconic it will inspire “loyalty beyond reason.” We’ve moved from brands to experiences.

The marketplace is filled with failed emotional branding campaigns. Saturn, as mentioned will soon be out of business, but this isn’t the fault of the emotional campaign as much as it’s the fault of changing management focus. The Emotional Branding segment ends with an examination of the new Delta airline offshoot Song. Song engaged in intense brand experience building in the hopes that it could stand out as a different kind of airline. Perhaps that is the biggest weakness of the trend in emotional branding. When all companies sell themselves as different, will we believe them all? Song closed up shop two years after this episode of Frontline aired.

How do we look?

From the minute I opened the text for this course, I knew it would be different. This is exactly what I need. I have been a working graphic artist for the last 10 years, having received an Associates of Applied Science in Visual Communications in 1999.

Since that time, I spent 3 years worked in entry level positions creating simple flyers and postcards and wanting more "meaty" projects to sink my teeth into. The other 7 years, however, I worked in in-house design departments and an advertising agency where I got the chance to work on the "meaty" projects I had been craving, and feeling a bit out of my depth.

While I have always been proficient with the technical aspects of design (I know my way around Creative Suite, and have experience working in prepress) I have felt at a disadvantage conceptually. All the courses in InDesign will not make you a better designer, they only make you a better technician.

When the advertising agency went out of business last December, I knew that it was time to rev up my skills and really take my career seriously.