Success and Failure

I decided to go with logo design this week, since I went with advertising last week. Being a visual communication major, I am very interested in the way certain logos communicate ideas and feelings in the viewer or potential client. I chose (in what I feel) a good example of logo design and a bad example.

Good Logo Design

This is a logo for an olive company. It helps the viewer relate names to images that correlate well with one another. In the logo it is in a circular shape as an olive. There is a nice red star that refers to the "Lone Star" name and olive leaves framing the olive. That composition gives the viewers eyes a break with the complementary shape. Already with a little Olive in the middle the logo gives the perception of food off the bat, the viewer shouldn't be confused what this is directed at. The stress is directly at the vibrant green olive but is balanced with the natural green stamp like background. It is level through and through, especially with the ribbon saying "Olive Oil Ranch" gives it a nice base with the lower corners of the ribbon in line with the lowest point of the circle. Which also gives the "Ranch" feel  in the stamped background and ribbon over the logo. 

Bad Logo Design

This logo design has a lot going wrong with it. To the perception it gives off, to the visual balance. The name "Technology Driven Transactions" is for a company based in domestic and global negotiations. The man at the top of the logo give the viewer the feeling that they should be running out the door from this company?  When you are dealing with money negotiations you want your customer to come too you. This brings us to the balance of the logo, but it look like the top part is sliding off to the side of the green rectangle on the bottom. I am not sure if the balance is coming from the bottom up, or if it is sliding off the side.This causes the stress on the word DRIVEN because of the great white negative space and angles pointed towards it. I think it might be time to go back to the drawing board on this one. 

Visual Language Syntax

Visual Language Syntax

One Word:                                      

Loss                                                 

Sorrow                                             

Down                                               

Hard Times                                     

Rock Bottom                                           

Don't know what to do                   

Suffer

Compositional Structures

Angled Stair Structure

Sitting at the bottom of the stairs

Burnout on the sides of the picture

Depressing colors

Sad expression and slumped body              

Person in front is focused on

Symbols:

Sad face

Limp body

Slumped shoulders

Work clothes

Briefcase

Big stairs

This photo is the epitome of the look of someone coping with unemployment. Visually all of the symbols and construction of this photo points to one thing: this mans despair. He is sitting on the lower steps of a large cement stairway with his head in his hand looking down. He is in a suit, as if he is a blue collar worker with a briefcase behind him. The stairs stretch up behind him signifying the climb he is facing and the lack of progress that has been made. The photo editing is also directed towards him, there is a burnout on the edge, putting a depressing connotation over the photo. 

Meaning 2

This Nike ad illustrates all three levels of design. The shoe itself is the representational aspect. It is a shoe, what Nike is displaying to the consumer. Then the aspects of a meteor, the fire, and astrodust particles burning off as it plum-its towards the earth are the abstract. Yet the viewer automatically relates these characteristics to a comet with out the giant mass being there. The fire and speed the shoe is perceived to be moving has the consumer relate to the speed he/ or she can go in a Nike shoe. The advertisement relates to a personal time or desire the viewer was running or the need to run again.  Then symbolically the Nike "swoosh" is a symbolic "check mark" as if checking something off your to do list, which is why their catch phrase is "Nike. Just Do It." It is interesting to see the flame up towards the burning off particles makes a Nike swoosh that mirrors the swoosh on the shoe itself.

Meaning 1

This week we were asked to show visual levels of designed visual information: Representational, Abstract, and Symbolic.

 I thought since the anniversary of September 11th is coming up it fit to show the process the Twin Towers went through. At first they represented our country with high prestige being the tallest towers on the New York skyline, then the abstract form of them on constant objects of remembrance, to now the symbolic memorial site the architects chose to build.

Representational

New York Skyline print.
http://www.postercartel.com/en/1700-5006.aspx?o=1030-5006

This portrait was painted among thousands of others when the World Trade Center was intact to represent the massive, importance that these two buildings meant not just to the United States but to the world. Having the sun setting behind the WTC front and center displays its prominence that the painter wanted the viewer to feel. Not only the painter, but the architects who designed the buildings, they knew it was going to be the tallest towers in the world at the time, and help put the United States on the power map. The two buildings stood tall and proud on the New York skyline for decades, it was a representation of our country's power. 

Abstract

Clip art illustration for sale to remember 9/11/01
http://www.clipartof.com/interior_wall_decor/details/United-We-Stand-September-11-2001-Text-Around-The-Twin-Towers-Flag-And-Bald-Eagle-Poster-Art-Print-1050272

When the towers fell the United States showed the most united patriotism in history. Graphics memorializing the day sprang up in full force. In these graphics you can not have such detailed buildings as in paintings, it becomes a blob on a shirt. The towers above just show the cubic form they had with the cone on top of the north tower and lines of light to show miniscule detail that there are windows. Yet the buildings still have their significance to the country in this graphic. 

Symbolic  

                       


 

      World Trade Towers Memorial site - 2011
     http://wandermelon.com/2011/07/20/911-memorial-in-new-york/

Finally there is the new symbolic meaning the WTC site has become. The architects now wanted to capture the significance of that area in New York. The pools are infinity pools that are exactly how big and where the towers were. They have to names of all who had passed on this horrific day. This memorial site is the ultimate symbolic representation of what that day meant and still will mean for decades to come. We will remember that day infinitely forever.