The Sherman Foundation

Design Brief: "Get it wet and feed it after midnight".

2012-01-20T11:13:00.001-06:00

Reading Pictures: Let Me Stand Next to your Fire

2011-12-19T10:05:00.006-06:00

The most disturbing quality of the still images from the surveillance camera which shows a man dressed as an exterminator spray an elderly woman in an elevator with a flammable liquid before setting her on fire is absence of the crude, horrible clumsiness normally present when one sees real violence captured. If the quality of the images were better it would read like a choreographed hollywood scene. He looks like a performer confidently taking the stage in the first still and has the relaxed swagger of a rock musician in the last. The strap slung across his shoulder doesn't help. There is after all a certain violence implied by rock 'n roll, why else would a guitar be referred to as an axe and a great performance said to "slay".

There is in fact an element of performance in this man's actions. If he does not actually work as an exterminator he took the time to plan this premeditated act, create the disguised and stand around pretending to be an exterminator while he waited for the chance to kill this woman. I wonder if the vile irony was conscious on the part of this man?

Police: Arrest made in New York elevator burning death

Tiffany Blue and Shoes with Red Soles (Paternalistic Pampering & Infringement Litigation)

2011-11-29T11:10:00.002-06:00

I've spotted many recent instances of what looks like "Tiffany Blue" in fashion/luxury/refinement contexts. The most egregious of which is its use by Jessica Simpson branded products: handbags, shoes and very noticeably, the shoe boxes. This is surprising given how frequently you see mention of the fact that "Tiffany Blue" is a trademarked color, especially formulated by Pantone but unavailable in their library. I'm not aware of Tiffany ever suing anyone for infringing on this trademark but recently the company did weigh in on Christian Louboutin's lawsuit against YSL for copying the way they color the bottom of their shoe's soles red. (Tiffany's filed a legal brief in support of Louboutin's position.)

(Link: Tiffany & Co. Takes Christian Louboutin’s Side in Red Sole Lawsuit)

Whether or not these are instances of infringement is debatable. It was the sighting of a "robins egg blue" Jessica Simpson shoebox that first caught my attention and sensitivity to subsequent sightings of the color. Certainly, any designer working in fashion or luxury would be aware of the strong association of this hue and the Tiffany brand. Any "box" in that hue is treading firmly in Tiffany territory.

Part of what makes the color so distinctive is that it is a surprising, unlikely choice for a luxury brand. I wouldn't describe it as a romantic tone but there is a strong "nuptial" association that extends toward the romantic. (Tiffany's began as a stationary store).

If it isn't obviously about luxury, what does "Tiffany Blue" mean?

My theory is that the color says "pampering", the kind of delicate care connoted by baby blues and pinks without evoking nursery (at least in a direct, obvious way). In particular, it conveys a paternalistic pampering that says, "daddy's gonna take care of you".

Does blue really work for Tiffany?

Shoes and the color red have a fascinating history that go back way before Christian Louboutin. The following is an excerpt from a fascinating post on The Fashion Historian Blog: Red Heels:

A perfect example of this system of monitoring the aristocracy is red heels on shoes. Louis XIV declared that only those in the royal favor were allowed the privilege of having red heels on their shoes, allowing everyone to show off when they were in favor. Red heels was like sitting at the popular kids table in school, only the very coolest kids could wear them.

Suddenly, if you fell out of the royal favor, everyone would know. It's bad enough to be out of the royal favor, it's even worse when you have to advertise it to the world. It was the perfect method for controlling a once unruly upper class. Aristocrats behaved themselves and they didn't have to face the shame of not having red heels on their shoes.

Rory Sutherland on Praxeology, Economics and Marketing

2011-11-28T07:59:00.001-06:00

Interview with Deyan Sudjic

2011-11-27T21:05:00.001-06:00

An interview with Deyan Sudjic on The Sound of Young America

Deyan Sudjic is the director of the Design Museum in London and the author of "The Language of Things." We talk with him about the history, function and significance of design.

What I'm Reading 11.27.11

2011-11-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

Books I've just finished reading:

Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography
A series of essays on "photographic frauds" by documentary director Errol Morris. Great reads that unfold much like his films. As much storytelling as they are essays.

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
I only got a third of the way through this when it came out so I decided to go back and read it in its entirety. Still relevant and worth reading.

Spent most of today in a bookstore. These are some of the things I read, perused and picked up:

The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects
Read the chapter on "Luxury" this afternoon. Magnificently written book by Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum in London.

Design School Confidential: Extraordinary Class Projects From the International Design Schools, Colleges, and Institutes
An excellent collection of class projects from design programs around the world. Filled with smart design exercises and great examples of work. A superb mixture of strategic and design thinking as well as aesthetics. Few design books pull it together as well as this one does.

The introduction discusses the Vernacular Messaging Sequence assignment that Katherine McCoy taught at Cranbrook in the 80's and 90's. Some of my all-time favorite graphic design work is by students in the program during that period. Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse is a retrospective of work from those years.

Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents
A big, gorgeous book filled with amazing and inspiring visual work.

Twenty-Two Tips on Typography
Nicely done book, good basic guidelines for students or non-designers.

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)
Not mind-blowing but a solid, useful book on design process.

Sunday School at the Sherman Foundation: Black Sunday Violence: "Give it a name and they will behave accordingly." – Jesus

2011-11-27T07:09:00.005-06:00

Experts: Intense marketing, weak economy, obsession with deals fueling Black Friday violence

Black Friday violence: 2 shot in armed robberies, 15 others pepper-sprayed

Black Friday Violence Reported at Stores Across the Country as Sales Soar

Mob looted SoHo store on violent Black Friday

Azelia Banks: 212

2011-11-26T22:27:00.000-06:00

This girl is on fire

Reading PIctures: Time Magazine Covers (Dec 5, 2011)

2011-11-26T07:56:00.001-06:00

Trends: On the Cost/Value of Human Life. (Self Checkout and Sign Holders)

2011-11-25T08:45:00.002-06:00

There are two things that I noticed more and more over the past year, both having to do with everyday consumer retail experiences. One, is the presence of self scanning/checkout stations in stores. The other is people being paid to stand on the side of roads with signs attracting attention for retail establishments. These two things seem to be at odds with one another. When I consider them simultaneously the questions that emerge are: Is human labor so expensive to a retail operation that developing and implementing self checkout is cost effective or necessary to profitability? Or, is human labor so cheap that the cost of employing someone to do nothing more than hold a sign negligible?

I personally find it offensive that a store would implement technology that eradicates low wage jobs in my community and then asks me to do the work. I won't shop at such places.

Is there any form of labor with a lower skill requirement than holding a sign? Even the New York city equivalent, people foisting flyers on pedestrians requires some effort and the LA version has evolved into performance art. (See the Sherman Foundation post on Human Directionals.

New research shows: Walking through doorways causes forgetting.

2011-11-22T05:18:00.005-06:00

This reads like a piece from The Onion, but it's not. VIA Notre Dame News: Walking through doorways causes forgetting, new research shows:

We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find.

New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

The study was published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Embodied Cognition is a subject that I've become more interested in over the last year. From Wikepedia: The overarching theme of embodied cognition throughout the literature is a reciprocal relationship between thoughts and actions. Embodied cognition reflects the idea that the motor system influences our cognition, just as the mind influences bodily actions. For example, in one experiment researchers directed participants to hold a pencil in their teeth to engage the facial muscles used when smiling. These participants were quicker to comprehend pleasant sentences than unpleasant sentences. Those holding a pencil in their lips to activate frowning muscles were significantly slower at comprehending pleasant sentences. This illustrates the influence of facial muscle movement on cognition.

I picked up a copy of Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson recently but I've yet to start the 600+ page tome. Next month.

On Color/Off Color: Why are our cars painted such boring colors?

2011-11-18T09:23:00.002-06:00

The Dallas Morning News:
Why are our cars painted such boring colors?

Excerpt:

Why are cars today painted such lame colors? If you look at the cars of the 1970s and ’80s, you find dazzlingly whimsical colors, bold hues that put a block’s worth of conservative modern rides to shame. Car colors today are often black, white, gray or silver. And even when they are a color — say, red or blue — those colors tend to be murky and muted rather than bold. What happened?

The answer has something to do with our tastes, and a lot more to do with paint technology. Cars of yesteryear (if we accept yesteryear to mean the 1960s through the early 1980s) were often painted in bright, popping colors — supersaturated pigments in hues that don’t appear on most modern vehicles. The appeal of these paint jobs has to do as much with the way the paint looks on the car as it does the color of the paint. Older paints sat flat on the surface of the car; there was no swirling iridescence to give an illusion of movement below the surface. The finish, though not quite matte, was a lot less glossy than the finish on modern cars.

The Web Has Become The World's Mood Ring - On The Media

2011-11-12T16:19:00.000-06:00

The Web Has Become The World's Mood Ring - On The Media

Inspired by the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz?

2011-11-08T21:10:00.002-06:00

Regardless, it's fabulous.

Time / Synchronicity

2011-09-24T16:59:00.001-05:00

Reading Pictures: Raped and Left for Dead (or Fashion Print Ad)

2011-09-11T22:21:00.004-05:00

I've posted several times about the oft-used, visual narrative of "raped and left for dead" that appears frequently in fashion photography. This evening while watching The Pledge (2001 film) a police officer, played by Jack Nicholson, holds up a photo from a crime scene that could easily be mistaken for print ad by Versace or Louis Vuitton. The ad below is the example I used the last time I posted on the subject.

Even in instances when the photo isn't as overtly art directed as the example above, the prostrate poses and splayed limbs do the narrative "dirty work".

Barbie Breasts

2011-08-17T05:17:00.002-05:00

This image of a pair of breasts was made with an assembly of naked Barbie dolls.

Close up:

By artist Chris Jordan

1 800 Call "Sam"

2011-08-09T11:47:00.002-05:00

Attorney Sam Bernstein is so well known in Detroit he doesn't need to put his name or occupation on his billboards, just his face. 1 800 Call "Sam". That's hardcore market dominance.

On the Language of Form: Luxury & Degradation

2011-08-05T09:14:00.005-05:00

Curious how often things that are inherently malevolent or undesirable are presented with names or veneers that make bold claims to the opposite. Below, 2 unsavory and dilapidated motel's: "Mona Lisa" and "Esquire" (the top hat is an especially nice touch).

The use of nature imagery in the packaging and marketing of unhealthy and processed foods is common practice: Visual Tropes: Pastoral Farmlands

"Luxury & Degradation" is the title of a series of sculptures by artist Jeff Koons.

On Color/Off Color: Cream Condolence

2011-08-05T04:23:00.002-05:00

The color of this car is best described as "Cream Condolence", that taupe pallor often found on the upholstery and wallpaper of funeral parlors.

Signs of the Apocalypse

2011-08-05T03:55:00.001-05:00

Study Links Creativity and Arrogance

2011-08-04T18:53:00.003-05:00

"At the age of six years I wanted to be a chef. At the age of seven I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambitions have continued to grow at the same rate ever since." — The first sentence of Salvador Dali's "Diary of a Genius".

The study, just published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, was conducted by a research team led by psychologist Paul Silvia of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The Focused Arrogance of the Highly Creative (miller-mccune.com)
New research links creativity with lower levels of honesty and humility.

Pride and Prodigy (WNYC radio interview with psychologist Paul Silvia)

Reading Pictures: Italian Archetypes

2011-08-03T07:53:00.003-05:00

Barberini Faun / Dolce & Gabbana

Reading Pictures: The Ambush

2011-08-03T06:05:00.002-05:00

Sebastian's Voodoo

2011-08-02T05:18:00.001-05:00

Trending Now: The End

2011-03-23T17:45:00.004-05:00

This week's cover of Newsweek: Apocalypse Now.

From CNNMoney: Sales of luxe doomsday bunkers up 1,000%

If Footman Tire, What Will Horses Do

2011-01-09T11:48:00.005-06:00

A 70s anti-communist educational film. The beheading scene.

Via The DMC

44% of Online Sharing Occurs Through Facebook

2010-12-30T09:54:00.001-06:00

I knew the number was high but wasn't expecting 44%. Wow.

VIA mashable

Shop Vac

2010-12-02T09:43:00.003-06:00

The best kinetic type piece I've seen to date.

Blackberry Torch (Blaze engulfs dozens of homes in California neighborhood)

2010-09-10T10:41:00.003-05:00

Gender Transgression as a Mode of Expression

2010-09-03T10:52:00.005-05:00

Androgyny and gender expression are more common than they are talked about. Some of my favorite examples of gender transgression as aesthetic modes of expression.

Following the release of this video in 1983 Annie Lennox was names one of Playboy's 10 Sexiest Women Alive. As a teenage boy I found this perplexing and a little uncomfortable. I get it now.

Marilyn Manson perverts the inversion.

Ralph Lauren for Women

That ain't no woman, it's a man, baby!
-Austin Powers

There is a cliche moment in many films, a morning after moment between couples, the woman is dressed in the button up shirt the man had on the night before. There are many ways to read this: symbolic submission, a symbol of their coming together as one. She on some level has crossed over INTO his world

The aesthetic narrative behind Ralph Lauren is that moment on a larger cultural scale. Ralph Lauren leverages iconography and symbolic imagery more effectively than any other fashion brand. It is a storybook narrative of a classic, eastern-seaboard America. A folklore or industrious and wealthy men who's patriarchy is so powerful that even the women's clothes seem fashioned from "his" world from things pulled from "his" drawers.

(From my essay: The Aesthetic Narrative of Ralph Lauren for Women)

The 80's Sunset Strip Metal bands are a great demonstration of how machismo always feminizes when taken far enough. Is it only with retrospective detachment that they all look like lady-boys?

Reading Pictures: Sexual Expressions: Erections & O-faces

2010-08-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

It's a classic Hollywood maneuver, a couple embrace in a kiss and the woman's leg bends at the knee and rises. A visual metaphor for arousal and erection. It's also an excellent example of what Freud referred to as "predicate thinking", the treating of dissimilar objects as equal when they share physical attributes, common in the primary process thinking of dreams.

Madonna with her own less subtle metaphorical erection.

A Bath and Bodyworks promotional coupon for a new product called "Dark Kiss" featuring a cosmetic photography cliche, the o-face.

Reading Pictures: Levi's Outdoor Exposure

2010-08-25T13:20:00.001-05:00

What is happening in this picture?

The model is exposing himself to us.

He sits on the corner of a car's trunk, legs slightly spread. His crotch is dead center of the image. A tarp, pulled up and tucked beneath his crotch reveals the car beneath, reinforcing and doubling the expression of "exposure". The position of the gathered tarp and exposed, protruding portion the the car draws further attention to his genital region and focuses energy into the image's center.

This is not a flirtatious exposure, but a menacing one, as is clear by the model's non-verbal expression. The fact that he is sitting on a car also has communicative significance. If the car belongs to someone else, it is an act of dominance and transgression. If it belongs to him it is a display of possession, of "owning".

It is no accident that the tarp is blue (jeans are blue) and the car red (the color of genitals flushed with blood).

Is it going too far to look for further connections between the car and sexualized behavior? Cars, in the context of advertising, are often fetishized sexual objects. Acts of indecent exposure often take place in modes of public and private transportation.

Reading Pictures: The Ambush

2010-08-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

It's as if, walking down a city street you've turned and found yourself face to face with a gang of male assailants. The visual narrative of confrontation, the ambush, of imminent attack so popular in fashion photography and music of all genres.

Reading Pictures: Raped and Left for Dead

2010-08-25T12:44:00.003-05:00

Another fine example of one of fashion photography's favorite narrative cliches, the raped and disposed of model.

Previous post from March 02: Reading Pictures: Raped & Left for Dead

Sense of Smell: Stinky Utility Bills

2010-08-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

Utility bills that smell of rotten eggs.

As part of a safety campaign, Puget Sound Energy is including a scratch-and-sniff pamphlet with its billing statements to remind customers of what leaking gas smells like.

Natural gas is odorless, but providers add a chemical to the gas that has a distinctive, sulfur-like aroma similar to rotten eggs so leaks can be detected.

VIA the AP: Wash. utility adds rotten egg smell to bills

Demographics: Single in the U.S.

2010-08-20T07:40:00.001-05:00

VIA CNN: Single? You're not alone

About 46 percent of all U.S. households are maintained by a single person, says the Census Bureau. More than half of the unwed are women. Know what else? For every 100 single women, just 88 single men are available.

There are 96 million people in the United States who have no spouse. That means 43 percent of all Americans over the age of 18 are single, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"Single" is defined as adults who have never been married, are divorced or are widowed in the bureau's America's Families and Living Arrangements survey of 2009.

An increasing number of these single Americans -- more than 31 million -- are living alone, according to the census. They make up 27 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1970.

On Color / Off Color: Pink vs Brown Nipples

2010-08-14T15:40:00.003-05:00

The color of skin has a way of eliciting strong human emotional — even irrational and superstitious — responses. In Tanzania, witchdoctors kill albinos and ritualistically harvest their body parts.

In Japan it seems that nipple color has such a powerful significance than many woman are seeking cosmetic assistance in changing them from brown to pink.

And there’s a belief in Japan that pink nipples denote purity, while brown ones … don’t. A female plastic surgeon I know who works in Tokyo put it this way: “Japanese girls want to have pink nipples because Japanese guys like them. For some Japanese men, the less sexual experience a woman has, the better. Little experience means she is clean and precious for them.”

It turns out some women in Japan really feel this way. Why? “Because pink is cute,” she told me.

VIA The faster Times article by Daniel Krieger: Why the Japanese are Turning Their Nipples Pink

And one last bit from a healthcare perspective: What the Color of Your Areola Tells About You (Yahoo).

Sunday School at The Sherman Foundation

2010-08-08T20:42:00.001-05:00

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole

2010-08-07T05:53:00.003-05:00

A wildly amusing monolog via McSweeney gives voice to the font that many in the "design community" love to hate. Here's a brief excerpt:

While Gotham is at the science fair, I'm banging the prom queen behind the woodshop. While Avenir is practicing the clarinet, I'm shredding "Reign In Blood" on my double-necked Stratocaster. While Univers is refilling his allergy prescriptions, I'm racing my tricked-out, nitrous-laden Honda Civic against Tokyo gangsters who'll kill me if I don't cross the finish line first. I am a sans serif Superman and my only kryptonite is pretentious buzzkills like you.

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole by Mike Lacher

For the pretentious and controlling there is a website devoted to the extermination of comic sans: Ban Comic Sans

For the highly evolved there is always The Sherman Foundation and this blazing essay: As Stupid as a Graphic Designer: The Slippery Subject of Style.

Sunday School at The Sherman Foundation: Most People are Unsane

2010-08-01T11:49:00.003-05:00

I just finished rereading Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. (They put out a very nice hardcover, 20th anniversary edition. One of the finest books on marketing ever written.) Towards the very end they reference Alfred Korzybski and his concept of insanity. It's so good I thought I'd type it up and share it.

What's the difference between sane people and insane people? What exactly do insane people do? Alfred Korzybski, who developed the concept of general semantics, explains that insane people try to make the world of reality fit what is in their heads.

The insane person who thinks he is Napoleon makes the outside world fit that notion.

The sane person constantly analyzes the world of reality and then changes what's inside his or her head to fit the facts.

That's an awful lot of trouble for most people. Besides, how many people want to constantly change their opinions to fit the facts? It's a whole lot easier to change the facts to fit your opinions.

Unsane people make up their minds and then find the facts to "verify" the opinion. Or even more commonly, they accept the opinion of the nearest "expert," and then they don't have to bother with the facts at all. (Word of mouth.)

2 of Korzybski's books are on The Sherman Foundation Dangerous Ideas Reading List. I highly recommend the General Semantics Seminar. Science and Sanity is incredible but not an easy read.

Phantom Presence

2010-07-30T04:10:00.001-05:00

In my essay Sculpture, Imaginary Worlds and Home Exercise Equipment I discussed the ideas of contrived human "presence" and "metaphorical worlds" as they relate to figurative sculpture. On a fundamental level the placement of a figurative sculpture within a space is to create the presence of "others".

A series of sculptures currently on display in Manhattan's Madison Square Park got me thinking about these ideas again.

The identical bronze nudes stand upright, arms at sides, looking straight ahead. The uniformity and formal stance remind one of aliens, the "little green men" type you see in old sci-fi movies. The alien-like quality is further reinforced by the placement of the sculptures. In addition to the four that are near entrances to the park, others have been placed on building rooftops in the visible area surrounding the park. The feeling conveyed is "invasion".

It's worth considering the context that these sculptures have been placed in. Madison Square, like many parks, is home to other bronze figurative works, memorials to Admiral Farragut, Secretary of State William H. Seward, Roscoe Conkling, Chester Alan Arthur and Admiral David Farragut. This is another example of figurative sculpture creating "presence". In this case it is about preserving the lives and memory of these historical figures and most importantly, the ideological significance they represent.

Parks are, after all, spaces where people go to congregate, to spend time in the presence of others even though they may not be interacting with one another. Memorial sculptures aren't placed on the sides of highways the way billboards are, so that the maximum number of people might be exposed to them. They are placed in environments where they might be considered, reflected upon and visited with.

You can see the ideological use of figurative sculpture to create a metaphorical world on the Supreme Court Building across from the park. These representatives infiltrate public space in a effort to shape reality in accord with the values they represent. They're like Jehovah Witnesses except they don't go door to door they wait for you in civic and public places.

Using figurative sculpture in this way has fallen out of favor for the most part. I like to think of it as a forgotten or abandoned technology. Emperors understood very well the importance of extending presence to preserve one's place in the world and to this day their images persist.

The Colony Experience

2010-07-19T13:50:00.002-05:00

The Colony Experience is a recently launched project I worked on at Campfire Media to promote the second season of The Discovery Channel’s show “The Colony”. This augmented reality, online storytelling experience taps into users' Facebook accounts to simulate a world struck by a global pandemic.

I am particularly proud of this project. Most uses of Facebook Connect we've seen over the past year simply access users photos or photo galleries to do clever tricks with images, with The Colony Experience we went way beyond that, using the details of users accounts and details about friends to create a personalized, immersive narrative experience. Additionally, we developed online videos, galleries, news stories and media updates and to bring this innovative project to life.

Enter The Colony Experience on Discover.com.

Season 2 of The Colony premiers on The Discover Channel on Tuesday, July 27th at 10PM.

Visual Literacy Reading List

2010-07-18T07:08:00.002-05:00

I am developing a project about visual literacy/interpreting images/universal stories/archetypes and have powered through several books related to the subject over the last month. I thought I'd share that list and a quick take on what I've read.

The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do
- Clotaire Rapaille
By far the most interesting book on the subject of "culture" I've read in a long time. A very enjoyable read.

Reading Pictures: What We Think About When We Look at Art
- Alberto Manguel
An excellent read for those with a strong interest in art and art history.I recommend his lecture on Picasso (video) before picking up his book.

All Consuming Images
- Stuart Ewen
I've reread this book several times over the years. A must read for any serious student of media and culture.

Subliminal Seduction
-Wilson Bryan Key
A classic. A bit heavy on conspiracy theory but some of the the ad deconstructions are fascinating. You have to give it props, Marshal McLuhan wrote the introduction.

Ways of Seeing
-John Berger

About Looking
-John Berger
A classic on the subject of visual literacy.

The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man
- Marshall McLuhan
One of McLuhan's lesser read books and one of my favorites. The book is primarily a collection of 2 page essays, many deconstructing advertisements or aspects of media.

Decoding Advertisements
-Judith Williamson
A very serious semiotics perspective on advertising. I wish the writing style wasn't so academic but the deconstructions are excellent.

@ Barney's 7.16.10: Whimsy & Violence

2010-07-17T12:15:00.005-05:00

Why are there shoes on the mannequin's heads? This says carefree whimsy. This says let yourself go. It's ok to be frivolous, to be silly. There are no rules, go ahead, put shoes on your head. While you're at it, needlessly spend piles and piles of cash.

In contrast to the whimsy was a theme of violence on the floor.

Kidnapping.

Beheading.

Chicks with sticks.

Disaster Biopics & The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector

2010-07-16T05:35:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening I saw The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector at New York's Film Forum, the latest documentary in the genre I refer to as the "disaster biopic". I would include in this category the 2008 documentary Tyson, the thoroughly postmodern film JVCD (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and the E! True Hollywood series. (I highly recommend both Tyson and JVCD.)

The Agony and Ecstasy is a sloppy piece of documentary filmmaking. Much of it consists of music playing over courtroom video with captions describing the music or it's production. A bit disjointed and hard to form any opinion of the murder based on the film. What is amazing are the one-on-one interviews with Phil Spector himself, a true musical genius who's prolific output in the 60's and 70s is mind blowing. He's also out of his mind. His, sometimes justified, egomaniacal quips, his impression of John Lennon and his gripes with Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney are endlessly amusing.

One of the most interesting and bizarre revelations is that the crazy hairdo Spector sported in court was a tribute to (former Detroit Piston) Ben Wallace.

Related Post: Postmodernity Now

Film Forum website: The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector

Norman Rockwell (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas)

2010-07-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

I've never been a big fan of Norman Rockwell's work. The earnest American ideals and the 40's/50's sentimentality has never held a strong appeal for me. The narrative makes me suspicious as well. Are these reflections and idealizations of existing values or scripts with sociopolitical agendas to live by? On a related noted, I always viewed "Sex in the City" as being a contemporary form of Norman Rockwell. Narratives about characters pursuing idealized lives which, more than reflecting contemporary society, supplied an updated script for people to live by, replete with props (drinks: cosmos, shoes: Manolo Blahniks) settings (Meatpacking District) and vernacular slang.

Despite my personal preferences there is a lot to be said and much to think about when considering Norman Rockwell's work. His paintings are masterpieces of storytelling and art direction. It seems that Rockwell thought of himself as a movie director, painstakingly casting the models he used as reference and selecting the props and clothes himself. He would go so far as to buy clothes from people on the street to get the right piece for a painting. In essence, he meticulously crafted single frame stories.

American directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are avid collectors of Rockwell's work. Their collections are on display at the Smithsonian in an exhibit titled Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The podcast on the Smithsonian site features interview's with both. Their breakdowns of the pieces in the exhibit are great, the kind only a director could give you.

Below left: "Freedom from Fear" by Norman Rockwell. Right: A tribute to Rockwell and still from Spielberg's film "Empire of the Sun".

Below: 3 stills from "Minority Report". Moments of idealistic Americana appear often in Spielberg's films. In this scene a classic family at the dinner table moment is punctured by the action of the film. (Tom Cruise's character Tom Anderton, clinging to a police officer wearing a jet pack, pounds and then bursts through the floor of the dining family's apartment.)

Related Links:

NPR.org: Spielberg, Lucas Celebrate Rockwell's Iconic America

Vanity Fair Article: Norman Rockwell's American Dream.

Clotaire Rapaille on Reptilian Marketing and Nike's "Just do it" as American philosophy.

2010-07-10T09:50:00.004-05:00

French psychologist and research marketer Clotaire Rapaille on Reptilian Marketing, SUVs and dominance and Nike's "Just do it" as American philosophy.

Clotaire Rapaille doesn't appear until about the mid point of this video but his observations on intellectual alibis and the "reptilian hot button" of dominance with regards to SUVs are quite interesting.

I've been doing a lot of reading on universal stories, archetypes and visual thinking. Clotaire Rapaille's book, The Culture Code (An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do) is up next.

The Poetry of Destruction: Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space

2010-07-10T07:57:00.002-05:00

The Grammar of Porn: 2010 Eizo Pin-up Calendar

2010-06-17T08:39:00.006-05:00

For years I've wanted to do a piece on the grammar of porn, the "template" poses that are endlessly repeated in adult photography. The 2010 Eizo Pin-up Calendar cleverly reveals the underlying visual structure of pornography without indulging in it. Brilliant.

Thanks for sharing Kathleen.

Visual Tropes: Pastoral Farmlands

2010-06-14T04:15:00.002-05:00

A sure sign that a processed food product is terribly unhealthy: the use of naturalistic imagery, particulary lush pastoral scenes and edenistic farms. In this subway poster Ben & Jerry's doubles down by using the cornucopia visual metaphor.

If you pay attention you'll notice how rampant the use of naturalistic imagery has become is in the selling of garbage foods. Even Frito Lay is doing it to peddle potato chips. Legal restrictions regarding verbal food claims are strict but the high level of visual illiteracy allows marketers to say whatever the hell they want with pictures. Absurd.

From the Frito Lay website.

Related Sherman Foundation posts:

Paradoxical Food Advertising & Caregiver Abuse

Infantilizing Reality with Imaginary Worlds

Sculpture, Imaginary Worlds and Home Exercise Equipment.

David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve

2010-06-12T09:31:00.002-05:00

Fascinating talk on the relationship between the spaces that music is performed in and how music develops in response to those environments.

Photoshop Cream

2010-06-05T10:34:00.002-05:00

The secret to Madonna's success. Hilarious.

Animated Cartoons are all about "Ass Play"

2010-05-25T16:45:00.021-05:00

If you've never noticed, animated cartoons are all about "ass play".

The hips and buttocks play a central role in defining the overall gesture and movement of many characters. The way Bugs Bunny's butt sticks out borders on "presenting". (See The Sherman Foundation post on Fashion And Display Behavior.)

The older Looney Tunes cartoons are the best and richest examples of the subtle and pervasive featuring of butts and "ass play".

When characters take on a different persona, pants/shorts/skirts often play a central role in defining that characterization. Much of the slapstick humor in cartoons involves abusing a character's tail and characters being hit in the ass with something.

In contemporary cartoons the ass is celebrated and used overly in comedic gags.

Leave it to the Simpson's not to be subtle about the appearance of a butt.

If you want to see Bugs Bunny's penis Click here!

On Melodrama: TV is all about "Making Faces"

2010-05-25T07:08:00.000-05:00

I don't watch much TV, I watch lots of films but not very many television programs. Far less than I should given my work and interest in media, culture and pop-culture. One of the benefits of watching little TV is that when I do, I am overwhelmingly struck by the characteristics and exaggerated characteristics of the television program format.

In the past month I strayed way outside of my comfort zone and watched Survivor (I never watch reality TV), CSI Miami and the final episode of Lost. What really stood out for me is how much TV is about people "making faces" at one another and by extension the viewer. In the final episode of Lost most scenes end with a close-up and hold on an actor making a dramatic face into the camera. Most scenes "procedurals" like CSI Miami are loaded with shots of actors making dramatic faces.

What would an episode of CSI Miami be like if all of the frames that included dialog were edited out? (This would be the most interesting way to reveal the melodramatic "face-making".)

If I shortened the long, dramatic shots on actors making faces in CSI Miami I wonder how much it would shorten the episode?

It would be fun to storyboard out the close-ups on faces in each episode of a full season of CSI Miami and look at them side-by-side.

Melodrama
Answers.com defines Melodrama as:
1a. A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts.
1b. The dramatic genre characterized by this treatment.
2a. Behavior or occurrences having melodramatic characteristics.

Violence and over-sexualization in media get a lot of attention, but what is completely overlooked is melodrama. In addition to "face-making" I would include "attitude" and "posturing" as expressions of melodrama in television shows. I speculate whether Melodrama is to blame for increasing sarcastic and snarky behavior exhibited in society. The kind of behavior recast in shows like Glee and iCarly).

The rise of reality television makes perfect sense if you see it as a purer and more raw expression of melodrama (stereotypical characters, interpersonal conflict and exaggerated emotion). The overly drawn-out scenes in reality programs when contestants are being eliminated are filled with dramatic "face-making" shots.

Final thoughts on television.
I don't believe that televisions are devices for transmitting and receiving moving images and sound. That definition makes sense if you look at the object in the room. If you examine process, a more accurate way of defining television is: a device for eliciting patterns of emotional response from human beings. People look at television in order to go on an emotional thrill-ride filled with ups, downs and loop-de-loops. (Given how bad most of the writing is it can't possibly be about narrative and telling stories.)

"The face" of melodrama.
If I had to "put a face on" Melodrama it would most certainly have to go to actor David Caruso (Horatio Caine on CSI Miami). No one hams it up like David.

Life's Sweet Ironies: Cancer Causing Sun Screens

2010-05-24T19:32:00.005-05:00

As it turns out, sunscreen products may be cancer accelerants. Lab animals coated in a vitamin A-laced cream developed tumors and lesions up to 21 percent faster than animals treated with a vitamin-free cream. Only 39 of the 500 products tested were considered safe and effective to use.

Via AOL News: Study: Many Sunscreens May Be Accelerating Cancer

WASHINGTON (May 24) -- Almost half of the 500 most popular sunscreen products may actually increase the speed at which malignant cells develop and spread skin cancer because they contain vitamin A or its derivatives, according to an evaluation of those products released today.

AOL News also has learned through documents and interviews that the Food and Drug Administration has known of the potential danger for as long as a decade without alerting the public, which the FDA denies.

On the Perception of Time, Temperature and Banking Institutions

2010-04-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

As a child I found it curious that banks always had signs with the time and temperature displayed. You still see it occasionally, usually on older banks. I often re-notice it when I spot a bank that's a classic representative of an earlier decade's architecture.

I recently re-asked myself that question: Why did banks have signage that included the time and temperature? One reason, I suspect, is that it helped position banks as local institutions and part of the community. Sharing that information acts as a public and civic service. It also transforms a bank into a point of focus within its surroundings. It gives people reason to "look to" the bank. This is where the practice becomes treacherously clever. By anchoring themselves to fixed, universal aspects of reality it presents banking institutions as part of the natural order of things. Immalleable, unquestionable, and irrefutable presences in the world.

You will submit: Behavioral Messaging Placement in Television Programming

2010-04-17T10:49:00.001-05:00

A recent WSJ article (What Your TV Is Telling You to Do) reveals that NBC has been deliberately inserting storylines and character actions into television programs in an effort to reinforce eco-friendly attitudes and behaviors. The shows cited include The Office, 30 Rock, Top Chef, Heros and Law & Order.

Excerpt: The tactic—General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal calls it "behavior placement"—is designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows. And it helps sell ads to marketers who want to associate their brands with a feel-good, socially aware show. (end)

Although the efforts are positioned as being benevolent and supporting socially positive ends I have a couple of big issues with this. First. The entertainment industry has always rejected the idea that the content they produce — specifically content that is violent or sexual — impacts and influences individuals or society at large. Although they tie the examples in the article to specifically positive sentiments, the article and quotes from a TV executive indicate a recognition that repeated exposure and reinforcement "mainstream" the attitudes and behaviors that are portrayed. This is mind blowing. I can't believe anyone in the entertainment industry would admit to being able or capable of shaping mass behavior.

Excerpt: TV has always had the ability to get millions of people to mimic a beloved character. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City" stopped in at the Magnolia Bakery, fans of the show wait in long lines for the once-quiet shop's $2.75 cupcakes. When Jennifer Aniston as Rachel on "Friends" cut her hair, salons across the country reported requests for the shaggy, highlighted, layered look known as "the Rachel."

This is the power of persuasion that NBCU hopes to tap. "Subtle messaging woven into shows mainstreams it, and mainstreaming is an effective way to get a message across," says Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBCU Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, which oversees the effort. (end)

My second issue is that once such methodologies and processes are instituted they will expand and become more sophisticated. Recognizing that you are able to influence social behavior don't you need to formulate policy on the types of social behaviors you seek to change? This is inherently political. If these programs are tied to the types of sentiments that clients want to be associated with and the behaviors they seek to reinforce there is the potential for this to become grossly insidious and mercenary.

The Ever-Exapanding Semantic Landmass Between Reality and Delusion (Where Most of Us Live).

2010-04-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

As clever as it is, Mark Twain's blunt materialistic quote "Buy land—they're not making any more of it” fails to take into account the imaginary worlds that people are so heavily invested in. The process of culture is in many ways the construction of worlds, unreal as well as the one we think of as real. Each culture is in effect the collective, time-binded creation of it's inhabitants. Just one possible configuration out of endless possibilities.

In contemporary American culture I would argue that the unreal supercedes the real in many ways. The unreal people and places generated from celebrity culture, the entertainment industry and the arts occupy a powerful place in peoples minds, shaping the culture at large and shared, collective values. For many I suspect that the number of relationships they have with fictitious people and places far outnumber the "real" ones in their lives.

Illustrating my point, this week Forbes published the "Fictional 15", their annual ranking of the 15 richest fictional people. They apparently take this quiet seriously, evaluating carefully the factors that would determine each's wealth. "Topping the list this year is newcomer Carlisle Cullen, patriarch of the Cullen coven of vampires in the Twilight series of novels. Cullen, age 370, has accumulated a fortune of $34.1 billion--much of it from long-term investments made with the aid of his adopted daughter Alice, who picks stocks based on her ability to see into the future. "

The lists of Fictional Companies and Fictional Cities & Towns (Wikipedia) are both engrossing and fascinating to peruse, particularly the companies. The list of cities and towns fails to mention Springfield (The Simpsons) and Hazzard County. Clearly this entry needs more development.

Related Sherman Foundation Posts:

Sculpture, Imaginary Worlds and Home Exercise Equipment.

Infantilizing Reality with Imaginary Worlds.

On a tangential note, this week I can across the Munchausen Syndrome. "Munchausen syndrome is a type of factitious disorder, or mental illness, in which a person repeatedly acts as if he or she has a physical or mental disorder when, in truth, they have caused the symptoms. People with factitious disorders act this way because of an inner need to be seen as ill or injured, not to achieve a concrete benefit, such as financial gain. They are even willing to undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to get the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill. Munchausen syndrome is a mental illness associated with severe emotional difficulties."

Tropes Wiki

2010-04-10T15:00:00.003-05:00

TV Tropes is a wiki site that categorizes the common plots, narrative devices and character archetypes found in storytelling. Apparently it started out as a wiki of those things as found in TV programs put expanded to include all narrative forms. The breadth and depth of this site is phenomenal.

This site is an endlessly amusing and invaluable resource for any devotee of pop culture and storytelling. I only wish the site was more elegantly designed.

An example entry from the wiki:

Applied Phlebotinum
Phlebotinum is the magical substance that may be rubbed on almost anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Some examples: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, a sonic screwdriver. Oh, and Green Rocks. And wishes. In essence, it is the stuff that makes the plot go. Without it, the story would grind to an abrupt halt. It's science, it's magic, it's strange things unknown to science or magic - the reader does not know how Phlebotinum would work and the creators hope he doesn't care.

CSI and its spinoffs come with phlebotinum by the liter. Their favorite kind appears to be Luminol, the substance that reveals traces of blood. Luminol is real, though it's not nearly as convenient as it is on TV.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device"
—David Langford, "A Gadget Too Far", as a corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's third law

Logorama by Marc Altshuler

2010-04-10T13:24:00.001-05:00

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Thanks for sharing PJ.

The Sherman Foundation. The Dangerous Ideas Reading List

2010-04-10T12:00:00.004-05:00

22 books that changed my life. 22 Books that you and your children should never, ever read. (In no particular order.)

Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
— Alfred Korzybski

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism
— Jonathan Culler

Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
— Nietzsche

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
— Howard Bloom

Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon
— Ishmael Reed

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
— Julian Jaynes

Life Against Death: the Psychoanalytical Meaning of History
— Norman O. Brown

The Decay of Lying
— Oscar Wilde

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
— Al Ries & Jack Trout

Metaphors We Live By
— George Lakoff

Rules for Radicals
— Saul D. Alinsky

The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali
— Salvador Dali

Prometheus Rising
— Robert Anton Wilson

The Master and Margarita
— Mikhail Bulgakov

Magic by Misdirection
— Dariel Fitzkee

Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture
— Stuart Ewen

All Consuming Images: The Politics Of Style In Contemporary Culture
— Stuart Ewen

General Semantics Seminar 1937: Olivet College Lectures
— Alfred Korzybski

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
—Thomas Kuhn

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
— Richard Rorty

The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
— Aleister Crowley

Psychopathology of Everyday Life
— Sigmund Freud

The Future of Publishing

2010-04-01T07:04:00.001-05:00

A good "story" cleverly told. Well done.

The Post Apocalyptic Bobbleheads: Sculpture by Thomas Sherman

2010-03-14T09:32:00.008-05:00

The Post Apocalyptic Bobbleheads.

I constructed 125 of these by purchasing Roger Clemens bobbleheads from McDonald's, sawing them apart with a handheld circular saw, rebuilding the armature and covering them in plaster, hot glue and industrial spray foam.

Recognizing that this could easily become a repetitive exercise in styling, I devised a way to make them unique, to give them souls. On small pieces of paper I wrote secrets about myself and buried one inside each of the sculptures.

I am no longer in possession of these pieces and have no idea who is.

More art by Thomas Sherman on flickr

Mourning Poem

2010-03-14T09:18:00.005-05:00

Withhold your breath
I'm airborn

Stand your ground
I'm buried alive

Washed up
I burst into tears
I burst into flames...
fire away

-ts

Which is it?

2010-03-13T03:00:00.001-06:00

An excerpt from my memoirs, "Tears of a Crocodile Clown".

Which is it?
I've always thought of myself as being Irish, and I am, partly. There are other nationalities mixed in but I'm not really sure of the percentages. My grandmother's maiden name, on my father side, was "Kelly". Clearly Irish. Her family was from County Mayo. My grandfather's name, my surname, is Sherman. I've never been clear on which nationality it's most closely associated with.

My friend Kiara grew up in the Westchester area of New York but her parents are Irish. They came over from Ireland in the 60's. I met them once back in 2003. Kiara had driven into the city to rescue me from the sweltering heat, lack of running water, and the 14 floors of stairs I had to climb in the dark with a flashlight to get to and leave my apt during the great blackout that year. Upon introducing myself to her mother she asked "what's your last name?". "Sherman" I replied. "Well, you're either a brit or a nazi, which is it?"

(Although I was a bit taken back initially, I was mostly charmed by her hilarious, forthright manner. I find both of her parents to be amiable, loving, and very, very funny people.)

Other excerpts from Tears of a Crocodile Clown:

Sick Days (early bouts with megalomania)

Tears of a Crocodile Clown. Early Ambitions: Science vs Art

Vulva: Vaginal Scented "Perfume"

2010-03-12T16:30:00.001-06:00

I'm having trouble believing this is real. A company called Vivaeros makes a naturally scented (and flovored) "perfume" product called vulva. I'm no longer shocked or amused by anything. (Even when the guy in the video for this product smells the wet, sweaty cycling seat.)

Website: Smell Me And: Vulva

Vulva Video spot: on YouTube.

A Taxonomy of Bitches

2010-03-09T14:56:00.006-06:00

I had conflicting thoughts about posting this. The form is actually very similar to Allen Ginsberg's list poem's format. Found on the floor of a 3rd grade classroom. There are 99 types of bitches in total. See the entire list on "I Am Not Lying". Unreal. Maybe faked. Inappropriate on some level but I embrace the inappropriate.

My favorite: 62) "Stain on your pants bitches".

My favorite

99 problems (but a bitch ain't one)

Best Portrait of Me (maybe ever)

2010-03-08T20:58:00.001-06:00

Photography, Direction: Beth Jaffee
Mink stole: Her grandmothers
Sun glasses: Prada
Inspiration: a great bottle of wine
Smirk and swagger: mine

Tooth Decay

2010-03-08T14:10:00.003-06:00

I took a pic of this rather dramatic quite smoking psa in an NYC bodega. The tooth to me just looks pulled, not necessarily rotten and decayed.

All hail Kathryn Bigelow

2010-03-07T21:29:00.003-06:00

A great movie, magnificently directed. Congratulations!

Kathryn Bigelow wikipedia entry.

Oscar 2010 Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Fresh Coons!

2010-03-06T13:58:00.004-06:00

No. It's not racist (not directly), and this photograph wasn't taken in the deep south. It was snapped in Detroit on the corner of Livernois & Warren.

My friend Dave called the number. Raccoons. They come in jumbo and regular. Call for yourself (the area code is 313).

Reading Pictures: Raped & Left for Dead

2010-03-02T14:10:00.000-06:00

My friend Kelly was commenting on the great number of images in this month's Vogue Magazine (March) where the model are posed lying about (actually quite common). Her observation though got me thinking about a narrative theme in fashion photography that I call "raped and left for dead". I seem to recall seeing this much more in the 90's that I do now. I couldn't actually find an example in this month's Vogue. There was a jeans ad circa 1991 that was a quintessential example and the ad that triggered my conscious recognition of this narrative. Unfortunately I can't find it. The examples here are a bit obvious, the more interesting are the ones subtle to the point that they register only in the subconscious mind of most viewers. A more extreme, related theme are "death fetish" images. These days I see many more images of models (male and female) that simply look "left spent".

I haven't seen a dominos / rube goldberg thing online is some time

2010-03-02T13:29:00.001-06:00

But this is a good one.

Ok Go "This too shall pass"

(props to King Friday)

How to sell Xbox to teenage boys.

2010-03-01T20:31:00.003-06:00

Via Copyranter via Kim.

Ads/videos like this really shouldn't surprise us anymore.

But that bottom, it's like a Hippity Hop for men 18 and up.

Photography: 2010 Winter Olympics

2010-03-01T11:10:00.000-06:00

Amazing photgraphy from Boston.com's "Big Picture" section. Big thanks to King Friday for shooting me the link.

Sunday School at the Sherman Foundation: Roger Ebert is a man. You are most likely a big pussy.

2010-02-28T09:25:00.003-06:00

This month's issue of Esquire magazine has an incredible profile piece on Roger Ebert: Roger Ebert: The Essential Man. This man has a rare and beautiful inner strength and a hell of a lot of hearth. I am humbled, inspired and in awe.

t has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television's most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.

Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can't remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn't happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn't as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz's ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren't they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

Campbell's Soup Can's Neuromarketing-Led Redesign.

2010-02-22T09:24:00.001-06:00

Via Fastcompany (I love the title of their piece: "Waiter, There's Pseudo-Science in My Soup" Magazine )

The Wall Street Journal reports that Campbell's has just unveiled a rebrand of its canned soups, spurred by two years of "neuromarketing" analysis. The new cans hit supermarkets this fall. Campbell's said traditional customer feedback wasn't telling the company why soup sales weren't doing so hot. "A 2005 Campbell analysis revealed that, overall, ads deemed more effective in surveys had little relation to changes in sales," the WSJ says.

So they turned to "science." Campbell's hired Innerscope Research Inc. to conduct tests on a whopping 40-person sample to see what design elements produced the most "emotional engagement."

The team clipped small video cameras to the testers at eye level and had them later watch tape of themselves shopping for soup. Special vests captured skin-moisture levels, heart rate, depth and pace of breathing, and posture. Sensors tracked eye movements and pupil width.

I would have really liked to watch how the neuromarketing research was translated into actionable recommendations that fed into the design process. In my experience, even processes as seemingly straightforward as usability testing for websites run into problems of interpretation. For instance, you can observe that most visitors to a website click on a narrow number of links when visiting a site and searching for something but it doesn't really tell you "why" they did or directly offer up answers to solutions for design problems. (The last thing any designer wants is a nerd with a clipboard standing over their shoulder directing the design.)

Focus Groups
Something that should have died a long time ago but ignorantly persists is the use of focus groups in advertising and corporate design initiatives.

Several books have come out in recent years with fascinating insights into human decision-making processes. Among them: Jonah Lehrer's "How We Decide" and Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational". In one example from "How We Decide" Jonah Leher describes a study by University of Virginia psychologist Timothy Wilson. He had a group of students taste and rank several brands of Jam. The students were able to rank the jams very much in line with the results of a consumer reports study. A follow-up group of students were asked to fill out a questionnaire and explain their choices. The results were inconsistent and correlated poorly with the consumer reports study. It seems that thinking too much and being forced to rationalize decisions leads people to consider variables that are unimportant and confusing to what one actually experiences and feels.

Upside Down Celebrities

2010-02-20T21:55:00.003-06:00

You can view the entire series, and there are a lot of them, here. Thanks Allan

"I don't have freckles, they're little cancer kisses"

2010-02-20T20:30:00.002-06:00

Today's Shermanism: Cancer Kisses (freckles)

The Aesthetic Definition and Reversal of "Grape".

2010-02-19T04:28:00.006-06:00

Grape, more than any other artificially created flavor lacks verisimilitude. It never tastes anything like grapes. It actually tastes like "purple". (Dave Chappelle's brilliant bit on grape drink (sugar, water, purple) touches on this.)

Two of my nieces both hate grape flavored things. They both say that it tastes like "medicine". My theory is that, in a beautiful irony, the attempt to use grape flavoring to make medicine appealing to children actually did more to destroy the appeal of grape flavoring in food products. Could the food manufacturing industry sue the pharmaceutical industry for destroying the equity of a flavor?

The Poetry of Destruction: Aerial Shots from 9/11

2010-02-19T04:17:00.002-06:00

These newly released aerial shots from 9/11 capture more than anything else I've seen how massive and devastating the fall of the towers was. Horrific and breathtaking.

You can see the entire set of photographs here: Newly Released 9/11 World Trade Center Aerials. Props to Quinn for posting on FB.

Brands leave their mark on children's brains

2009-11-15T15:31:00.001-06:00

Truncated excerpts:

The idea may be "unpalatable", but companies seeking an edge over their rivals should ensure that children are exposed to their brands as early in life as possible.

This was demonstrated by presenting students with a range of real and fictional brand names and asking them to indicate as quickly as possible whether a brand was real. If a brand had been experienced from birth, the students were quicker to recognise it as real than if it had been encountered from age five and up. A second experiment showed that students were also quicker at accessing information about early encountered brands compared with late-encountered brands, as indicated by the speed with which they said a product was or was not made by a given brand.

These findings resemble classic "age-of-acquisition" effects, in which people are more proficient at processing words they encountered earlier in life.

Combined with prior research showing that people generally feel more favourable towards words and pictures that they find easier to process - a phenomenon called the "fluency effect".

BPS Research Digest: Brands leave their mark on children's brains

Soviet Deep Sea Garbage Dump

2009-11-15T10:15:00.003-06:00

A spectacular image. I would love to see big high-res stills, the video's is a bit obnoxious and the quality is iffy. Still, it's an amazing sit. My next dive trip?

Via Colors Magazine

The Visual Miscellaneum

2009-11-14T21:20:00.000-06:00

Picked up a copy of The Visual Miscellaneum (website for the book) this evening, one of the best books of data visualization I've seen in some time. , Very well designed, amusing topics explored, a very fun and interesting book.

From the author's site: Reduce Your Odds of Dying in a Plane Crash

Amazon Link

Between the Folds (a Documentary on the art and science or origami)

2009-11-11T04:08:00.003-06:00

Another fascinating look at how engaged minds can take something simple and beautiful. In this case the folding of paper. Below, a video from the Filmmakers@Google series.

About: Between the Folds chronicles the stories of ten fine artists and intrepid theoretical scientists who have abandoned careers and scoffed at hard-earned graduate degrees - all to forge unconventional lives as modern-day paperfolders.

Official site for the film: Between the Folds.

A full list of featured artists can be found on this site.

Quote Pull: Endless Summers

2009-11-10T21:05:00.003-06:00

A great paragraph from a piece called Endless Summers (on Larry Summers) for the December issue of Vanity Fair

"People plant a little wheat. People demand to eat a little more bread, and the thing self-stabilizes. But it was [economist John Maynard] Keynes’s central insight that it’s not always that way. And it’s not always that way in particular because leverage [i.e., borrowing] can create situations where, when prices fall, then people have to sell, and so they fall faster. When asset prices fall, capital values fall, and, therefore, people are in less of a position to lend, and, therefore, other people are forced to sell. And there’s a whole set of these vicious cycles. You can also have a change in gestalt where people who had perceived things as safe all of a sudden move things from the concept of being safe to the concept of being risky, and if they’re risky, they don’t want to hold them. And so you see a large scale of abandonment. And I think in one way or another the leverage, the vicious cycle, the change in gestalt, the unwinding—that’s the financial crisis.”

Deep Water (Documentary Film)

2009-11-08T08:25:00.001-06:00

In 1968, 9 men set out to be the first to sail, non-stop and single handedly, around the world. The film, Deep Water documents the attempts of these men to complete their voyages.

The chronicle contains none of the themes and story lines one would expect to find in documentary about a great race. There is no classic rivalry played out between two men until the bitter end, no come from behind victory by an unlikely contestant no harrowing survival and no man against nature overcoming. Instead, the narratives turn inward as these men are absorbed by their isolation over the 10 months at sea. The end is an unexpected and heartbreaking anticlimactic tragedy and the best documentary I've seen in a long time. Tt is "a movie which will reduce the hardest of hearts to a shipwreck" (The Daily Telegraph).

I was tempted to write a summary of the story but I think I've said too much already. Just watch it.

Wikipedia entry: Deep Water

IMDB: Deep Water

On a related note there is a good piece in this month's Vanity Fair by James Wolcott, "I'm a Culture Critic Get Me Out of Here: Amid the smoldering wreckage of popular culture, the author blames Reality TV, which has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior and murder." (December, p.146)

Inforgraphics: Resurrected, Feared and Seeking Converts

2009-11-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

Via Rufus Via Nixta

Heritage as a theme in fashion and brands

2009-10-21T08:30:00.000-05:00

Given all the talk of the decline of America's preeminence as well as all the chaos and uncertainty in the world right now it should come as no surprise that people are looking back at earlier times in American life with nostalgia. A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal reported on the "American Heritage" trend in fashion. Varsity sweaters, newsboy caps, tweed, argyle sweater vests, checked shirts and shawl-collar cardigans are all on the comeback.

(WSJ:Designers Mine American Heritage for Rags and Riches)

This may be more accurately described ads the peaking of trends that have been in play for several years now. Things like argyle, have been around for several years now. Lacoste's comeback and Pan Am bags are old news. In New York City bars and restaurants the "hunting lodge" has been in full effect for many years.

Ralph Lauren has always been the master when it comes to capturing and romanticizing American Heritage.

I actually have a theory about the aesthetic narrative of Ralph Lauren for women.

There is a cliche moment in many films, a morning after moment between couples, the woman is dressed in the button up shirt the man had on the night before. There are many ways to read this: symbolic submission, a symbol of their coming together as one. She on some level has crossed over INTO his world

The aesthetic narrative behind Ralph Lauren is that moment on a larger cultural scale. Ralph Lauren leverages iconography and symbolic imagery more effectively than any other fashion brand. It is a storybook narrative of a classic, eastern-seaboard America. A folklore or industrious and wealthy men who's patriarchy is so powerful that even the women's clothes seem fashioned from "his" world from things pulled from "his" drawers.

That ain't no woman, it's a man, baby!
-Austin Powers

(From my essay: The Aesthetic Narrative of Ralph Lauren for Women)

A few years ago Canadian Club wiskey ran a heritage campaign that celebrated dad with the tagline "Damn right your dad drank it". It didn't do very well. I think they were on to something but missed the mark by centering the campaign on dad. Grandpa, more often than dad is the guy esteemed and revered as cool in a young mans eyes.

Related Previous Essays:

Life's Sweet Revenge. Part 1

Life's Sweet Revenge. Part 2: Decadence

Life's Sweet Revenge. Part 3: Pop Decadence, The Candy Macabre and Bourgeois Estate Sale

Facebook and Twitter Stats

2009-10-18T11:35:00.004-05:00

Both pieces below Via Hitwise Intelligence:

Facebook accounts for 1 in every 7 UK page views

Facebook accounted for 14.5% of all UK Internet page views during September 2009, equivalent to 1 in every 7. The social network is the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK, but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views. As the table below illustrates, it currently receives more page views than Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube combined.

Twittered Out?

On the heels of yesterday's rumor that Twitter is close to securing an additional $100 million in financing, which would place the company's valuation in the $1 billion range, I decided to take a quick look at Twitter's market share of visits to see if the hype is matched by site traffic.

Another angle on measuring new user adoption is to track the volume of searches on "Twitter." As we can see in both visits and searches, Twitter appears to have hit a resistance point as of April 2009.

To explore the hypothesis that slowing and now decreasing market share of visits may be attributable to the drop in new users, we can turn to our Experian Hitwise Clickstream report that shows new versus returning users from the top Twitter traffic sources. Here's a table for those traffic sources in April 2009.

Talking the Talk (The language of your target audience)

2009-10-16T09:10:00.001-05:00

Pepsi AMP's “Before You Score" iPhone app categorizes women into predictable, unimaginative stereotypes and gives guys pickup lines tailored to each "target". I'm really surprised by the apparent controversy and backlash (Via Mashable: Pepsi and AMP: We Apologize If Our App Was In Bad Taste). It's not shocking. In fact, it's very lame. The stereotypes themselves are cliche and pedestrian: Aspiring Actress, Artist, Bookworm, Goth, Nerd, etc. The girls in the cruddy illustrations — this may be the most revolting element — look like trannys. The copywriting is utterly stupid (the first pickup line for the "princess" type is "I'm so rich my driver has a driver". This is controversial? I wouldn't be surprised if the controversy is manufactured PR.

AMP Energy Website

This does however give me the opportunity to discuss something I've been thinking about, the widening gap between the language of consumers and that of marketers.

Coded language has always served the purpose of creating a differentiating identity that bonds insiders of a group as well as a membrane that keeps outsiders shut out. In general, verbal expression in contemporary culture has become increasingly loaded with color, profanity, shock and appall.

The language of advertising, which always presents a kind of theatricized reality, is constrained not only by federal law but the desire on the part of marketers to say nothing that could possibly offend anyone. The result is an unwillingness or an inability on the part of marketers to speak to their audience the way that members of their audience speak to one another. This becomes painfully apparent when a product or brand aspires to be edgy or is targeted at youth or urban markets. One of the reasons the ironically-sexist advertising for Axe deodorant has been so successful is that it "talks the talk" of its target audience. It talks about what their young male audience talks about — girls — and it does so in a way that makes you feel as if you're listening in on the banter of these kinds of guys. Most advertising, including that bullshit for Pepsi's AMP, doesn't tread anywhere near the reality or voice of their audience. It doesn't even dare to be as provocative as an episode of Entourage, Weeds or even Sex in the City.

See also (previous posts):

Axe Deoderant

Ironic Sexism

Graphic Designer vs client

2009-10-16T09:05:00.000-05:00

100 Greatest Hits of YouTube in 4 Minutes

2009-10-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

The web-video version of a "clip show". Short form video content condensed and compiled.

Via How It Happened

Technology: Foreseen/Unforeseen: (Mobile Phones & The Segway Scooter)

2009-10-15T07:58:00.002-05:00

One of the most fascinating aspects of technology is it's unpredictability. We are about as good at predicting what will stick as we are knowing what will be a smash-hit pop song or movie. Even more confounding are surprising ways in which technology is ultimately adopted and used.

See my previous essay:
Technology and Culture: The foreseen and the unforeseen.

A piece in last month's Economist: Eureka moments: How a luxury item became a tool of global development, discussed the remarkable impact of the mobile phones on developing countries.

How did a device that just a few years ago was regarded as a yuppie plaything become, in the words of Jeffrey Sachs, a development guru at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, “the single most transformative tool for development”? A number of things came together to make mobile phones more accessible to poorer people and trigger the rapid growth of the past few years. The spread of mobile phones in the developed world, together with the emergence of two main technology standards, led to economies of scale in both network equipment and handsets. Lower prices brought mobile phones within reach of the wealthiest people in the developing world. That allowed the first mobile networks in developing countries to be set up, though prices were still high.

Compare the mobile phone initially "regarded as a yuppie plaything" and the Segway scooter. The Segway at the time of it's unveiling was declared a revolutionary invention that would transform the world (in particular developing nations) but has thus far turned out to be a rather silly plaything. In most of my sighting the scooter is being used for marketing promotions. Of course, it may be too early to tell what will become of the Segway. Afterall, if history teaches us anything, it's that nobody knows anything.

Image above from my post titled: Chariots of Hummus

Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man

2009-10-14T15:36:00.003-05:00

Participation = Destruction #5 (Ok, I've destroyed my television. Now what?)

2009-10-11T11:46:00.006-05:00

2 interviews with authors related to my theme of Participation = Destruction.

KERA Think interview with Bob Garfield, author of "The Chaos Scenario, Amid the Ruins of Mass Media, The Choice for Business is Stark: Listen or Perish". I agree with Bob Garfield's somewhat bleak outlook. The disintermediation caused by technology will create more economic destruction and general chaos in the coming future. That said, his lament over the end of the ad supported content model makes me cringe a bit.

I've been thinking about the classic, harsh criticisms of traditional media. Books like Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.(Paperback). It will be interesting to view all of this again in 10 years. Was television evil? Was it great? Was it a great loss? As the techno-media landscape continues to go through this incredibly disruptive period of change the perspectives get more and more confusing. And interesting.

NPR's On the Media: Digital Delusion: an interview with Matthew Hindman the author of "The Myth of Digital Democracy".

"Conventional wisdom says that the Internet has democratized politics by giving a direct voice to citizens. And while the bar for publishing - via blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos - has never been lower, there’s a difference between speaking and being heard."

Destroy Christmas!

2009-10-11T10:49:00.005-05:00

This morning on NPR: Ho Ho No: Retailers Open Christmas Season Early. Despite, and because of the weak economy and growing unemployment, Christmas is already hitting retail shelves.

This trend continues year after year getting ever more ridiculous. In 2006 I wrote:

...the 3rd week of July and they already had some Halloween candy and Autumn decorations out. The shelf-life window for holidays keeps getting opened wider and wider. Where does it end? Holidays overlapping one another? Maybe we'll start to see holiday mash-ups. Wearing costumes and going house to house to exchange gifts. With the divorce rate what it is and the remarrige configurations getting more and more complicated many people are already do a house-to-house visitation style on Christmas. We already have the evil stepmothers why not add costumes. (Holiday Mashups)

It's a greedy "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs strategy" that retailers are engaging in. There is only so far you can stretch symbols and traditions before they break. They either become meaningless and collapse or become shells of their former selves. Santa could come simply to stand for "sale". The ultimate potential outcome is the destruction of Christmas. Which I find a rather delightful thought to entertain.

Anyone care to entertain a guess in which year Christmas will slam up against the 4th of July?

Related: Revisionist Shermanism: How the Grinch (tried to) Save the World.

"Civic Pride Product"

2009-10-10T14:50:00.003-05:00

Last night at dinner someone described beer to me as a "civic pride product". By this he meant that people in different cities, parts of the country (and perhaps world) embrace, identify with, and defend this type of product as a part of their cultural identity. What else could be framed from this perspective? Newspapers? Baseball teams?

Un/Certainty: (Lack of) Ethics in Documentary Filmmaking.

2009-10-10T14:32:00.004-05:00

NPR's On The Media Posdcast, True Enough: Ethics in Documentary Filmmaking. An interview with Patricia Aufderheide on her study of (and problems with) ethics and truthfulness in documentary films.

Some of the revelations:

"Winged Migration": The birds were not wild birds but raised for the intended purpose of filming them.

"March of the Penguins": Penguins are not monogamous and mate for life, as the film would lead us to believe. (They mate seasonally.)

In "Mighty Times" Supposedly historical footage was reenacted.

From a wildlife documentary shoot:

We tried to shoot a few, and missed both of them. Unbeknownst to me, the [animal wrangler] broke the next rabbit’s leg, so it couldn’t run. So we got one. On the next take, they then asked, “Should we break its leg again?” . . . the DP [director of photography] was sitting there, saying “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do it,” but nodding his head yes. I made the decision, let them break it. I regret it. It eats me up every day. I can sort of rationalize this, that it might be killed by a natural predator. But for us to inflict pain to get a better shot was the wrong thing to do.