Throughout the whole of this term, there have been alot to learn. Namely the heavy significance of communicating your ideas. It is not only important that we work on the visual aesthetics of our work. The concept behind it is equally important. It has to potray the imagery that we want it to and it should be intepretable by the target audience that we are aiming for. What we do as designers is to COMMUNICATE our ideas to the audience.
The lessons taught in class actually even helps us in our social skills. With the knowledge of how to succesfully transmit our ideas and capturing attention, our social capabilities heightened as we now know how to use it on people.
Finally, the most important lesson this course has to offer is that one has to experience to fully understand concepts. It is of no use for us to know about a place if we do not visit it and explore the place for our own senses. We have to take advantage of all the opportunities available to expand our abilities. The most important thing is to try.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Personal Brand DNA
Personal Brand DNA + personal logo tryouts (from value combinations). Reflect on your attempts to match your Brand DNA with your values, and incorporating them in the logo - revisit your CAAS projects and pull out the most important learning points from that assignment. In terms of the branding process, what do you think are the similarities and differences between personal and corporate brands? (200 + words).
My experience matching my values with my brand DNA was tedious. Partly because I realised that i barely know myself enough to categorize myself. It was also because I found that I am still maturing and am not ready to define what I am now as how I will be in the future to come. The categorization that i give now may be invalid in a few months time.
This brings me to realise that both personal and corporate brands have one thing in common. The person or the corporate must be sure and firm of their visions and missions. For example, it would not be the same brand if one day Nike decides to jump into food and beverage and not sports equipment anymore. Not only that, they have to ensure that their brand describes them for more than just a year or two. It have to last them enough to leave a strong impression such that the mere mention of a word would relate back to the brand.
The difference, however is not too huge. Personal branding would be less formal. Corporate branding would need to be more formal. Personal branding revolves around you. Your achievement, the car that you drive, your credibility. The vision and mission for YOU. But a corporate brand is bigger than that. It is of a larger scale. It involves the vision and mission for EVERYONE involved in the company.
My experience matching my values with my brand DNA was tedious. Partly because I realised that i barely know myself enough to categorize myself. It was also because I found that I am still maturing and am not ready to define what I am now as how I will be in the future to come. The categorization that i give now may be invalid in a few months time.
This brings me to realise that both personal and corporate brands have one thing in common. The person or the corporate must be sure and firm of their visions and missions. For example, it would not be the same brand if one day Nike decides to jump into food and beverage and not sports equipment anymore. Not only that, they have to ensure that their brand describes them for more than just a year or two. It have to last them enough to leave a strong impression such that the mere mention of a word would relate back to the brand.
The difference, however is not too huge. Personal branding would be less formal. Corporate branding would need to be more formal. Personal branding revolves around you. Your achievement, the car that you drive, your credibility. The vision and mission for YOU. But a corporate brand is bigger than that. It is of a larger scale. It involves the vision and mission for EVERYONE involved in the company.
Analisation of a brand logo
This is the analysation of the logo for the brand Cheap Monday ™.
Basically the brand category is under fashion apparels as the brand sells clothing product like jeans, t-shirts and sunglasses.
What makes it stands out against its competitors is not only the quality and cut of its jeans but also its logo. There is a subtle subliminal message within the skull in its logo. The inverted cross represents anti-establishment, namely religion. Though ironically it is also what repels customers.
The brand character is somewhat rebellious and dark. The skull almost represents aggresiveness and barbaric qualities. The inverted cross is an extreme example of non-establishment and anarchy. This makes their user feel powerful. It makes them feel like their opinions are worth listening to because sometimes the government can really influence people to not voice out their opinions.
The brand benefit. In Singapore a pair of Cheap Mondays Jeans can cost you up to 120 dollars. Yet people still get them for its unique cut, durability and its washes. Wearing a pair of Cheap Mondays is also a statement, as it lets people know that
1) you can afford to splurge for comfort
2) You do know the underground brands. [not mainstream]
The brand credibility. There are no mainstream advertisements on the Cheap Monday Clothing labels in Singapore so far. Therefore the best way to truely know if its worth it is through word of mouth. Another unique advertising method is by having people wear them. When people wear their jeans and walk around, people will notice that the jeans look very attractive. They would then realise that those are cheap monday jeans through the labels at the back of the jeans and then they would buy it.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Art history
What is art?
It is very difficult to point our finger at something and say "this is definitely not art"
This is because art is very easily disputed. The word art itself has meaning so narrow yet so broad. It is narrow in a sense that it summarises down to words: form, and content.
However it is very broad because the defining of the two words form and content itself is large.
Form is the physical being of the artist's creation. A vase, a painting, a poem, a thought, a play. Everything that has been created is art. The physical form of these products contain aesthetic properties that are pleasent to the eyes.
Content is what the artist wanted to potray. It is the concept that backs up the physical being of the art. Therefore it is the story behind the physical form.
Therefore Art is basically a physical product with a story backing up its existence.
An example is my work,
Though it may seem like just any other stuff toy, the stuff toy that i designed and created myself is set apart from others by the content, the story that lies behind this stuff toy.
It tells of a story of a young girl, so different from others that she is discriminated. This changes when they begin to see behind the weird exterior.
As such, this is an art piece because it has physical aesthetics and a story behind it.
I have also come to realise that with an interesting concept, the art piece no matter how aesthetically unpleasent can become rather pleasent.
It is very difficult to point our finger at something and say "this is definitely not art"
This is because art is very easily disputed. The word art itself has meaning so narrow yet so broad. It is narrow in a sense that it summarises down to words: form, and content.
However it is very broad because the defining of the two words form and content itself is large.
Form is the physical being of the artist's creation. A vase, a painting, a poem, a thought, a play. Everything that has been created is art. The physical form of these products contain aesthetic properties that are pleasent to the eyes.
Content is what the artist wanted to potray. It is the concept that backs up the physical being of the art. Therefore it is the story behind the physical form.
Therefore Art is basically a physical product with a story backing up its existence.
An example is my work,
Though it may seem like just any other stuff toy, the stuff toy that i designed and created myself is set apart from others by the content, the story that lies behind this stuff toy.It tells of a story of a young girl, so different from others that she is discriminated. This changes when they begin to see behind the weird exterior.
As such, this is an art piece because it has physical aesthetics and a story behind it.
I have also come to realise that with an interesting concept, the art piece no matter how aesthetically unpleasent can become rather pleasent.
Brand Archetypes, Myths and Metaphor
I just realised that for each brand, there is a distinct image that they are potraying and through this lesson i found out that each image potrayed is based on the character of greek mythology. Perhaps even greek mythologies created characters out of these guidelines but that is another question.
Having a brand identity that is ever-changing can be quite confusing for customers. For example for one advert they appear as the sage, the wise man and offer quality advices and the next they are being the jesters that pulls out foolish jokes. A way this can backfire is that a customer who feels strongly for the brand because it potrays a certain image would be disappointed to find out that it has changed in how it potray itself.
However one way it helps is if it lets people have a fresh perception of the brand. Building up a strong foundation of followers with one image and start rebuilding a foundation of followers with another image without losing the followers from the previous. This require immense planning and strategy.
I am still deciding as of now the type of image i am going to potray. But most probably i am the jester as most of my work are very laidback and i try to inject humor into my works.
Having a brand identity that is ever-changing can be quite confusing for customers. For example for one advert they appear as the sage, the wise man and offer quality advices and the next they are being the jesters that pulls out foolish jokes. A way this can backfire is that a customer who feels strongly for the brand because it potrays a certain image would be disappointed to find out that it has changed in how it potray itself.
However one way it helps is if it lets people have a fresh perception of the brand. Building up a strong foundation of followers with one image and start rebuilding a foundation of followers with another image without losing the followers from the previous. This require immense planning and strategy.
I am still deciding as of now the type of image i am going to potray. But most probably i am the jester as most of my work are very laidback and i try to inject humor into my works.
The communications model
Above are two examples of a communications model. The first is slightly more comprehensive and detailed though the bottom is easier to understand and is more of a summary of the models.
Basically, according to communication models, messages have to come from a source. The source would encode his message and transmit to the receiver who would then decode the message and therefore take action or better known in the communication models as "Feedback" or "changed behaviour".
For a real life example, we'll name the two guys "A" and "B".
A sees a well furnished room and thinks red suits the walls and would therefore encode his thoughts into a sentence.
"Hey B,that is a well furnished room. I think the walls should be painted red!"
The message that B receives depends on the noise or distractions in the room. If the room is noisy then the message would be distorted or if B is not paying enough attention, B would not be able to correctly interpret A's message.
Considering all went well, B would therefore recieve the sentence, and break it up or "decode" it, to fully understand the message A is trying to convey. And with the correct interpretation comes the call for action. B would therefore analyse and evaluate if the room really does look better with red walls.
As designers, we need to realise that there are more than one way of interpretating our works. A person lying down would be interpretated in so many ways. He could be thought of as dead, sleeping, tired, lazy. It is therefore important to try to as much as possible to make the message as apparent and as "legible" as possible.
An example of a design that has been misunderstood would be the 2012 Beijing Olympics logo. Because of its ambigous nature, many people could not seem to aprehend what the logo is about at a glance. There are even people who thought they saw a very explicit content of an oral sex scene.
Communications
What is communications?
The dictionary's definition for communications would be
Why is it important that we know about communications? As designers, we need to realize that communicating is not restricted to the transferring of information from a person to another. In fact even while looking at a poster, thousands of information could be shared in a glance, thus it is an example of communication.
The dictionary's definition for communications would be
communicate - transmit information ; "Please communicate this message to all employees"; "pass along the good news"In other words, communication would be the act of transerring information and messages, from one party to another. This can happen in a variety of ways too. It could be a direct transfer for example in a conversation between two people facing each other. It could also involve other mediums like telephones, letters, computers and even a human messenger.
communicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist"
communicate - convey: transfer to another; "communicate a disease"
Why is it important that we know about communications? As designers, we need to realize that communicating is not restricted to the transferring of information from a person to another. In fact even while looking at a poster, thousands of information could be shared in a glance, thus it is an example of communication.
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