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Project: Branding the Species
Project: Branding the Species
The other night I was reading Naomi Klein's No Logo hoping to bore myself to sleep (it didn't work). Not really thinking about my project, I nevertheless stumbled upon an interesting bit that has opened a wide new direction for me I hadn't considered before. Here are the parts I found interesting:
Earlier, she had said something somewhat related:
When I read the word "screwdriver", I had a mini-ecstatic moment, so to speak. Instantly a light bulb turned on above my head, as I remembered something from the past which very much related to what I was carelessly just reading. The previous quarter I was enrolled in 21, which was Vasa Mihich's color class. One of our last assignments was to take an existing photograph of an object, turn it black & white, assign a color to it, paint a square on a canvas colored that particular color, and paste the object at the center of the square. The color was supposed to "evoke" a feeling to the B&W photograph and give it "life". As an example of that, Professor Mihich showed us the work of a previous student, which was a hex nut (used in construction) with the background color red. Now when I was reading Klein and I saw the word "screwdriver", my mind immediately jumped to that picture in my head of the hex nut, since both are items used in construction.
Now, you may ask yourself, what does any of this have to do within the context of my project? Crazy to think that hex nuts, screwdrivers, and colors have anything to do with branding the human species, eh?
Thinking about what way to present my project, in what visual language to present my research findings, I believe that my previous project in Color class will lend itself perfectly to branding the human species. I mean, going back to the original Klein quotes, it is clear that she is talking about taking things that are very mundane & ordinary (such as screwdrivers & hex nuts), and using branding magic (i.e. the use of color to evoke an "emotion") to display it in a different light. How cool would it to have the color represent what I'm trying to say about the human species, what I'm trying to say about the marriage of ecstasy & fear, and what I'm trying to say about mysticism, eroticism, and flow. It is, I believe, very minimalistic, to-the-point (hopefully), and a creative & personal way to do my project.
The issue then became, well...how many of these do I make? How many is enough? How do I determine the number, and the content of them? Surely my instructors were going to nail me on that, I thought.
I ruminated on the answer to that question for a day, until just a few hours ago, reading through my previous research, I came up with a concrete answer to my dilemma: an illustration of the Five Steps to Mysticism. Each of my images will be a representation of each step to mysticism, with a different color assigned to each. Perhaps even a quotation from poetry to further illustrate the concept.
This post was meant primarily to explain my thought process regarding this tentative direction where I'm headed towards. Hopefully with this new idea I'll be able to redeem myself from the hot mess of my previous idea, as this one I believe is grounded concretely in my research, and stands well against the rubric I have created for myself.
My assignments for Professor Mihich's class:
"In an essay appropriately titled 'How to Brand Sand', advertising executives Sam I. Hill, et al. team up to tell the corporate world that with the right marketing plan, nobody has to stay stuck in the stuff business. 'Based on extensive reserach, we would argue that you can indeed brand not just sand, but also wheat, beef, brick, metals, concrete chemicals, corn grits, collard greens, and an endless variety of commodities traditionally considered immune to the process.'"
Earlier, she had said something somewhat related:
"With the wave of brand mania has come a new breed of businessman, one who will proudly inform you that Brand X is not a product but a way of life, an attitude, a set of values, a look, an idea. And it sounds really great —way better than that Brand X is a screwdriver, or a hamburer chain, or a pair of jeans..." [Emphasis mine]
When I read the word "screwdriver", I had a mini-ecstatic moment, so to speak. Instantly a light bulb turned on above my head, as I remembered something from the past which very much related to what I was carelessly just reading. The previous quarter I was enrolled in 21, which was Vasa Mihich's color class. One of our last assignments was to take an existing photograph of an object, turn it black & white, assign a color to it, paint a square on a canvas colored that particular color, and paste the object at the center of the square. The color was supposed to "evoke" a feeling to the B&W photograph and give it "life". As an example of that, Professor Mihich showed us the work of a previous student, which was a hex nut (used in construction) with the background color red. Now when I was reading Klein and I saw the word "screwdriver", my mind immediately jumped to that picture in my head of the hex nut, since both are items used in construction.
Now, you may ask yourself, what does any of this have to do within the context of my project? Crazy to think that hex nuts, screwdrivers, and colors have anything to do with branding the human species, eh?
Thinking about what way to present my project, in what visual language to present my research findings, I believe that my previous project in Color class will lend itself perfectly to branding the human species. I mean, going back to the original Klein quotes, it is clear that she is talking about taking things that are very mundane & ordinary (such as screwdrivers & hex nuts), and using branding magic (i.e. the use of color to evoke an "emotion") to display it in a different light. How cool would it to have the color represent what I'm trying to say about the human species, what I'm trying to say about the marriage of ecstasy & fear, and what I'm trying to say about mysticism, eroticism, and flow. It is, I believe, very minimalistic, to-the-point (hopefully), and a creative & personal way to do my project.
The issue then became, well...how many of these do I make? How many is enough? How do I determine the number, and the content of them? Surely my instructors were going to nail me on that, I thought.
I ruminated on the answer to that question for a day, until just a few hours ago, reading through my previous research, I came up with a concrete answer to my dilemma: an illustration of the Five Steps to Mysticism. Each of my images will be a representation of each step to mysticism, with a different color assigned to each. Perhaps even a quotation from poetry to further illustrate the concept.
This post was meant primarily to explain my thought process regarding this tentative direction where I'm headed towards. Hopefully with this new idea I'll be able to redeem myself from the hot mess of my previous idea, as this one I believe is grounded concretely in my research, and stands well against the rubric I have created for myself.
My assignments for Professor Mihich's class:
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