Category: Pop Culture

Brand Logos

Urban Stimuli or Graphic Assault?

By Delphine Hirasuna |

City-dwellers know that we are constantly bombarded with graphic messages. It’s the “white noise” of urban living. Most of us tune it out like the omnipresent sound of traffic and pedestrian chatter.

This 2006 award-winning film, made by Netherlands-based Studio Smack for Museum de Beyerd in Breda, has become a classic. Like an x-ray, the film “Kapitaal” zeroes in only on the graphic stimuli encountered by an “unseen commuter” waiting on a platform for the train, riding the subway and walking through the city. Everything but the graphic information is reduced to black silhouettes. Signage, logos, ads, train timetables, graffiti, posters and packaging labels stand out in stark white contrast. There is no voiceover commentary, just the claustrophobic visual assault pressing in from every direction. It begs the question: How much do people really notice in a world of information overload? How can designers and advertisers avoid adding to the visual clutter and give the public something they really want to see?

Advertising

Museum of Communism (Really!)

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The fact that the Museum of Communism in Prague is next to a casino and above a McDonald’s burger restaurant is an ironic “thumbing one’s nose” at the oppressors who kept the Czech Republic under nearly a half century of totalitarian rule. The museum, which has as its slogan “Communism: The Dream, the Reality, the Nightmare,” is dedicated to relating what daily life was like living behind the Iron Curtain, right up to the Velvet Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Communist government in 1989. It includes everything from video clips, Soviet memorabilia, and a replica of a Soviet interrogation room.

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Brand Language

How Not to Brand a Country, but Succeed Anyway

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The occasion of America’s Independence Day on July 4th offers a good time to reflect on how the Star-Spangled Banner became the official flag of the nation. It all started back in 1777. A ragtag army of American colonists was engaged in a fierce battle for independence from Great Britain. Designing an aesthetically pleasing flag to represent themselves was the last thing on their mind. Outnumbered, outspent and outmaneuvered, the Continental Congress had more urgent matters to deal with.

But an emissary from a pro-colonist Native American tribe forced Congress to act by requesting a banner of sorts to display so that scouts would not come under “friendly fire” while on missions for the Continental Army. To prove they were willing to “pay” for such a flag, the emissary included three strings of wampum. Congress hastily put a flag design on its agenda, and 11 days later: “RESOLVED: that the flag of the United states be 13 stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.” This resolution was one of many passed that day. The committee obviously didn’t give the matter much thought, but “borrowed” liberally from several sources, including the Sons of Liberty red-and-white “stripes of rebellion” banner and the 13-star blue canton of the New Hampshire Green Mountain Boys and Rhode Island Continental Regiment.

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Awards

Jell-O Has Its Day

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Designers are pretentious snobs when it comes to Jell-O, and I’ve never understood why. Jell-O comes in lively primary colors, and can be molded, melted, layered, mixed with fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts or dairy, made clear or opaque. You would think it would be a designer’s dream food. It’s better than Legos and Play-doh because you can eat it if you tire of toying with it. But as food, Jell-O has been deemed a second-class citizen, lumped with stuff dished out in cafeterias and spooned to toddlers lacking teeth, sick people too weak to chew, and people scheduled for a colonoscopy. So, it is refreshing to see that Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn is hosting a Jell-O Mold Design Competition next week with the support of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Museum of Design, Smart Design, Core 77 and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, among other aesthetically savvy entities.

The competition rules are rigorous. Entrants are required to make their own molds, either a new one or a recontextualized pre-existing form. A panel of distinguished (we assume) judges will grade their Jell-0 on creativity, aesthetics, structural/sculptural ingenuity, edibility/culinary appeal, and best use and showcase of Jell-O. The grand prize is $400 in cash. You have to hurry if you want to participate. The deadline to register for the 2011 competition is tomorrow (June 15) and costs $15 for adults, $10 for students. Check out this video for inspiration.

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