TODAY

1) Icebreaker2) Let’s talk Logo assignment3) Overview of some material from the readings4) Your turn5) Reminders6) For Wednesday!

Icebreaker

For today I want you to tell us all your name and your favorite logo.

Checking in

Things to check:1)Are you on the blogroll?2)Is it clear to you what is going on?3)Will you have two blog entries by 11:59 pm tonight?

Some quick Visual fun

Take a look at the next few slides and tell me what’s going on here. Look carefully. Sometimes you might need to squint.

These illusions depend on intricate line work, very specific color and contrast choices, the mind’s desire to complete shapes and patterns and the fact that our eyes jitter a bit normally.

If you squint hard and look at each of these images, they WILL become still. But not for long.

Visual Fun

This doesn’t pulse like the last one, but I wanted to give you another cool visual design trick here. On the next slide, you’ll see two dots (and a weird image, and a white space). Stare at the dot in the middle of the image for 30 seconds, then shift your gaze to the other dot.

And now that logo assignment

As you know, on February 24th, you will be turning in your first major assignment for class: a new mascot and logo design for the Washington Redskins football team.

I want to give you some time today to think about that assignment. But first… here’s the actual task, laid out in front of you.

The task

For the final submission, you should send me a completed, colored logo with a written memo of approximately 500 words explaining your choices. You will also submit with this project a shorter, 200 word or less, cover letter to the team “selling” your new logo and mascot.

One element…

…you really want to think about is why the current logo is problematic. So here are a few looks at the main logo, the logo in action, and some of the Redskins secondary logos.

And a reminder…

A consideration…

I am sure some of you might not find the Redskins logo, or the old Miami Redskins logo, all that problematic. What I would urge you to do in this situation is to submerge yourself in the rhetorical nature of the occasion. Some people will not be offended, of course. This is almost universally true of anything you might do; there will be some who don’t think it’s a big deal. But when designing a mascot and logo, it’s important to think about the ENTIRE audience. Why, then, is the Redskin a problem?

A word on methods…

There are a number of ways to make your own logo. If you have the artistic skills, your best bet will be to draw or otherwise generate your own. We will talk a bit more about that as class moves along. But another thing you might do is collect elements from elsewhere and sort of “kitbash” them, in the DIY sense, or “Voltron” it, so to speak.

And then…

NEXT!

… I want us to engage the readings and really sort of grapple with them, but as you might guess, if we tried to grapple with every part of all five of those readings we’d end up sitting here a long, long time grappling with a big ol’ bunch of ideas.

So I’m going to suggest a strategy– pull key ideas and illustrate how they work/see if we can convert them to a sort of tool, or a roadmap, if you will, to understanding visual rhetoric.

Something like this:

Roland Barthes

Barthes challenges us thusly:

“Now even– and above all if– the image is in a certain manner the limit of meaning, it permits the consideration of a veritable ontology of the process of signification. How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?”

What?

So….

.. Images carry meaning. But how’d the meaning GET there, Barthes asks us to consider.

Gunther Kress

Kress tells us:

“The approach from Social Semiotics not only draws attention to the many kinds of meanings which are at issue in design, but the “social” in “Social Semiotics” draws attention to the fact that meanings always relate to specific societies and their cultures, and to the meanings of the members of those cultures.”

Like…

These images have meaning……because we know them.They emerge from our culture and are reinforced by our culture.

Recognize this?

That isn’t this, is it? = SOr is it?

Walter Benjamin

Benjamin, who I promise is not the bad guy from Apt Pupil even if he looks like him, reminds us:

“In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain.”

What is the Aura of This?

What is the Aura of This?

Anne Wysocki

Wysocki reminds us:

“Because we have all grown up in densely visually constructed environments, usually with little overt instruction or awareness of how the construction takes place, it is easy to think of the visual elements of texts as simply happening or appearing…as though… television sitcoms were the result of a camera crew following a typical family through their day.”

Single, nerdy college professor on TV

IRL

This remind you of your friends sitting around?

And these are just normal people enjoying normal products

What Wysocki would ask us to do is…

..ask why. Think about why those images are chosen.

And maybe more importantly… why don’t people think about it/why isn’t it sort of a big deal to most Americans?

Now it’s your turn

Break into five groups. That should mean 5 per group. Once you’re grouped, from my podium going clockwise around the room:Group 1: KressGroup 2: BarthesGroup 3: Wysocki, EyesGroup 4: BenjaminGroup 5: Wysocki, Meaning of TextsPick between no less than 1 and no more than 3 main ideas, support them with source quotes, and find examples for discussion. As you finish, email me your materials: alexanp3@miamioh.edu

As you think about next week…

DO NOT FORGET THE IN-DESIGN TUTORIAL!

DON’T FORGET IT!

I’m serious!

Homework

For Wednesday, read: Read for class: Williams Chapters 4 & 5: repetition & contrast; Golombisky & Hagen Chapters 1-3, and Missy is Missing