The ad I chose for this blog was the Absolut vodka ad that depicted two black Absolut vodka bottles that are meant to represent the World Trade towers in New York, with the tag line “Absolut 9/11” underneath the two bottles. This ad stirred up a lot of commotion among journalists and bloggers when it was introduced to the world in late 2007. The photo was taken somewhere in Germany, and no one is really sure as to the purpose or meaning of the ad, or who actually took it.

            This ad has some interesting visual aspects, and it uses one of Burke’s tropes, the metaphor. The tenor in this metaphor is the World Trade towers, the vehicle being the two Absolut bottles. The two black bottles are placed next to each other to represent the towers, which are set against an all-black background. This shows the dark nature of the ad, and the all-white tag line shows the contrast in the ad. This ad is very simple in its visual nature, but carries a message that is far from simple. This ad also uses positive and negative space, with the background being completely blank. The tag line in this ad is the key text in the photo, because it transforms two ordinary black bottles into the towers. Gestalt’s principles take over from there, which form the shapes of the towers in our minds. This ad also uses the rules of thirds and alignment. The centered nature of the ad forces the viewer’s focus on the bottles, and the symmetrical placement of the bottles follows the rule of alignment.

            This ad, controversial as it is, is coherent in its theme. By looking at the ad, the viewer is very clear on what is being represented, yet not so much on its message. Who took this photo and why? What was meant by the tag line “Absolut 9/11”? These are questions that only the creator can answer, which causes much speculation by the general public. This advertisement shows how text influences our thought, and shows how a simple visual representation can transform with written text and the right placement. 

What's in a logo?

In 1917 British cans of motor oil that were being sold under the name, “Palm Tree Oil”, began being marketed as “BP”, or “British Petroleum”. The company wouldn’t be renamed BP for another 40 years, but the letters began appearing on the sides of delivery trucks and on pumps in the twenties. The first logo was created in 1920, by a BP employee, which consisted of a shield surrounding the letters “BP”, with small wings surrounding the letters inside the shield. The colors were originally red, blue, or white, but the colors on the delivery trucks and pumps were changed to green after complaints from local business owners who claimed the colors “stood out too much” in the more rural areas.

            The shield logo would stay the logo for another 80 years until the year 2000, when the new logo and mission statement was unveiled. The new logo would contain a sunburst of green, yellow, and white symbolizing dynamic energy in all its forms. The logo was called the “Helios”, after the ancient Greek sun god. Also unveiled was the new mission statement, “Better People, Better Products, Big Picture, Beyond Petroleum”.

            The current BP Company has five standard values that they expect all of their employees to abide by; Safety, Respect, Excellence, Courage, and the “One Team” attitude. Also, the warm colors in the company logo not only show the company’s respect for the environment, but also promote a “family environment”. Now, can a company that was responsible for the largest oil spill in history really claim safety is their first priority? Maybe, but the “Deepwater Horizon” oil spill that occurred on April 20^th, 2010, killed 11 BP employees and injured 17 more. This alone does not condemn them as a company, but in 2010 there were 14 work-related deaths (3 if you don’t include the spill) and 18 more in 2009. Despite these numbers, BP has actually been a relatively safe oil company compared to their competition. BP had a recordable injury frequency (injuries per 200,000 work hours), or RIF, of about 44.4, while ExxonMobil had an RIF of about 55. Now, both of these are below the benchmark standard for the RIF, but injuries and deaths are still occurring at too high of a rate in my opinion. It seems like the “Big Picture” for BP is making money, and as long as they maintain a standard that is acceptable by government standards that most likely will not change.

What Font Are You?

After taking the “Helvetica” quiz, I was assigned the courier font to describe my personality. When taking the quiz I answered most of the questions truthfully, but I also found a few of the answers to be too funny not to choose, so instead of going with the answer that may have best described me, I chose the one that made me laugh. Now, I don’t think this is too far off-base, because I consider my sense of humor to be my strongest characteristic, but the explanation of my font revealed a slightly different personality trait. This type of font described me as someone who “proudly goes against the grain”, and is “not afraid to let your opinions be known”, and that I “would rather be known as anything but “conventional”. Although these traits are not exactly what I was attempting to convey through the quiz, they are traits that I definitely believe describe me.

After seeing what the courier font looks like, I have to say I was slightly disappointed, and I don’t believe the quiz accurately described this type of font. The font to me seemed very simple, and it was very conventional. According to McCloud, we attach meaning to most visual stimuli based on what kind of text it is associated with, and how that text is presented. For example, there is a four panel comic strip in the book that shows a woman cooking in the kitchen. There are only two different words used in this strip, “chop” and “tik”, and both are used in different ways to help the reader understand the sound and movement occurring in the comic. The word “chop” is presented with bold, large lettering and with an exclamation point at the end, “CHOP!” This text is used in the panel where the woman is cutting a large carrot with a large knife, and the text, along with the visual, lets the reader know that there is a loud sound and a forceful motion occurring. The word “tik” is much smaller in size, its lettering is much thinner, “tiktiktiktik…”, and is associated with a picture of a quietly ticking oven timer.

The way my font was described to me after the quiz put a completely different visual in my head than what the font actually looked like, which goes to show that people apply different meanings to things based on how they are described, as opposed to something being described that has a similar visual representation accompanying it. Things that may seem out of the ordinary to some people may convey a different message to others, especially when there is not a visual representation of what is being described.

ABCDEF 123456 (This is an example of courier font)

Cartoon Analysis

For this assignment I chose an old black and white “Peanuts” cartoon drawn by Charles Shulz, the creator of the famous franchise. This cartoon shows Lucy in her famous psychiatric booth reading a newspaper when Charlie Brown comes up to the booth requesting help. The cartoon is a moving image, which really allows for the lines to flow more and show what emotions the artist was attempting to portray in the cartoon. The cartoon opens with Charlie brown approaching the booth, and the manner in which Charlie is drawn suggests that he is feeling down or depressed. The upper half of his body, or torso, is leaned over and his shoulders seem to be drooping. As Charlie approaches the booth, his eye line points to the ground in front of him and he then slouches into a stool. As he begins to speak, his body straightens, and Lucy and his eye lines’ meet as he says, “I think I need help”. By having their eye lines meet Shulz is showing the interaction between the two and indicates that conversation is going to occur. Shulz’s depiction of lines really shows the emotion of the characters as the cartoon progresses. Along with the lines used for the characters, Shulz uses the background lines to point downhill and force focus on the interaction that is taking place. Everything on the right of the psychiatric booth is above everything on the left, which forces the reader’s line of sight towards the action in the cartoon. There is also a small hill directly to the left of the booth which also points down towards the booth which again forces the reader’s eyes toward the action in the cartoon. One of the elements of art absent from this cartoon is contrast. Every color in this cartoon seems to blend almost seamlessly, everything except for the white fence in the background, which is a dull white. The fence stands out but only because it is white, but the white isn’t bright enough to stand out substantially. The main color used in this comic is a dull gray which makes the atmosphere of the cartoon seem even more gloomy and depressing. This carton is very simple in nature but the lines used really allow the reader to focus on the action, which is a technique used in many cartoons and other forms of art.

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1600&bih=783&tbm=isch&tbnid=FPtwLVX4o1iTdM:&imgrefurl=http://pactressia.tumblr.com/post/11238062249/i-think-i-need-help&docid=0hwmxvsUqNimFM&imgurl=http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lst7nouNR91qbdq9so1_500.gif&w=500&h=300&ei=msxDT_7cO4Li0QH4q6jFBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1136&vpy=157&dur=187&hovh=174&hovw=290&tx=179&ty=121&sig=116078873748960317326&page=1&tbnh=104&tbnw=174&start=0&ndsp=31&ved=0CFwQrQMwBg

Play Ball!

When trying to find an image or visual artifact that best represented me, I found the search difficult, but luckily I found a picture that I think represents me exactly. Most people see military personnel and assume they that must always be serious, that humor is not a part, nor can it be a part of their lifestyles. I can tell you from personal experience that this is very untrue, and in fact without humor in our lives we would probably all go crazy. When I first saw this picture of soldiers playing baseball using a mortar tube, I couldn’t help but laugh and think about all the stressful times in which comedy had relieved my stress and helped me continue on doing what was required of me. When looking at this photo, you may notice a few things. All of these soldiers are carrying rifles, wearing bulletproof headgear, and are probably deployed in a combat zone, but they still found time to laugh. This is me in a nutshell. For five years I worked in a job that required me to have a certain level of discipline, but I always found ways to entertain not only myself but those around me, which is why I can relate to this picture so easily. The military was a huge part of my life for a long time, pretty much my entirety of my young adulthood, and that time period provided me with as many funny moments as it did serious ones. I believe that this picture not only represents me as a person, but shows a side of military personnel that most have never seen.

http://img.docstoccdn.com/thumb/orig/1018676.png

Our group project

The group project we were assigned in this class was less of a group project and more of a group of people who were assigned different objectives to accomplish, in other words it was more individual than any group project I had worked on in the past. A collective identity was never really associated with our group, but “social-loafing” and “free-riding” were greatly diminished due to the individual work that was required. When we did work together, we had a good group synergy and communicated our ideas openly and honestly, which I thought was great. Everyone was able to share their opinions without the threat of scrutiny, and I know at least my interpersonal needs were met. With everyone sharing their ideas evenly, no one really assumed a strong leadership role, which again wasn’t really necessary due to the individual responsibilities. Interdependence in our group really only began to take shape once the annotated bibliographies were posted online. According to the project guidelines, we were each to find three articles on our subject, read them, and provide ways to find the articles as well as a short summary of each article. The final project will be based on 6-8 articles, so by each of us reviewing three articles, we were able to distribute the work so that the entirety of the project is not solely on the individual, which is interdependence. The way this project was set up allowed to us to have individual responsibilities as well as share information amongst each other to lighten the workload, which in my opinion is the best way to accomplish a large task.

Groupthink and the Penn State Scandal

“Groupthink” is a state of mind that causes an organization to believe they are impervious to problems, which can lead to some very poor decisions. This thought may be what turned the child abuse scandal at Penn State University into the fiasco that it is today. Penn State University had been known for its “old school” mentality, especially on the football field, which was associated with a good moral foundation throughout the school. This perception of Penn State may have caused the organization to believe they were untouchable, and that no harm could possibly come to them. Of course, they were very wrong, and some very horrible allegations of child sex abuse were placed on an ex-coach, someone who had been thought to be a very upstanding citizen whose charity organization had helped many children in poor socio-economic situations. When these allegations first surfaced, groupthink at Penn State was at its most prevalent. People in a position of power failed to act on a very serious incident that had been reported to them, maybe because they thought it was impossible, and that there was no way that someone who had held a position so influential at the university could commit such heinous acts. Maybe it was the idea that it had been going on right in front of them, and they had failed to notice that caused this. Either way, groupthink could have been a major factor in these failures to act and Penn State University will be forever be remembered by this incident, when it could have easily been avoided if those in positions of power had not allowed groupthink to cloud their vision.