GETTING HANDXI
I came across The Private Sector by chance. They performed as part of last year's Brighton Fringe Festival in a show called the Brexorcist. For the life of me, I can't get a hold of any downloadable/purchasable tracks from their touted album - apparently titled Your Mind Our Marketplace... so I can't share any direct links. I think there is a quick'n'dirty Youtube clip someone sent up after the show somewhere... (update, 09/05/18)...but wait... Graham Duff's Mixtape radio show, broadcast on TotallyRadio features this very track! here. You'll find it around 23 minutes in.... though the whole show features a range of generally handsome recorded music.
The track is basically a darkly satirical spoken word assault on the 'state of things'. It has a reflexive style of lyrical contrasts through much of it, amongst the many many highlights are the opening "Less Albert Einstein's, more Harvey Weinstein's, Less understanding, more branding", and later "Less benefit concerts, more football nonces","Less giving a toss, more Paul Ross"... they keep on coming.
I am hoping more of their content and material bubbles up soon. Certainly would love a chance to see them play live and show my appreciation. I think while the material is pretty sombre, it is hilarious, and absolutely necessary. A politically-charged critique of a world we seem to all be comfortable living in; where corporate interests dominate and are pitched in opposition to human happiness and well being. Hard to argue with that assessment sometimes.
Anyway, I threw together this collage and custom lettering as, well, fan art really. I felt this songline alone is very meme-rable, a bon mot for our age. There seems to be a steady grind toward diminished expectations in the current entertainment landscape - nothing too challenging, nothing that takes too much effort hits the spot for a great many of us.
I will resist the temptation to plunder all their insightful contrasts for similar treatment as I'm sure I won't be the only person tickled by them. Find their website here.
天高皇帝远. The heaven's are high, and the emperor far away.
This well known Chinese expression refers to a universal truth, beyond the gaze of the authorities, regulators, a rule of law, humans can and will try to get away with murder, sometimes literally. The phenomenon of nail houses; privately owned structures and homes where the occupiers refuse to cave to the pressures of forced relocation or the thug tactics carried out by unscrupulous provincial real-estate developers and corrupt local official cronies.
The expression might sometimes be interpreted as the freedom to live and express oneself at a safe distance from a controlling and overbearing state, but most accurately it defines the abuses of power by the powerful over the powerless. The central government organ - the 'Ministry' of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the Peoples Republic of China (中华人民共和国住房和城乡建设部), are happy to rubber stamp such dubious forced relocation proposals, while ignoring the many hundreds of petitioners trying to save their homes and livelihood throughout China.
*original photo credit: Reuters
Hip as puk Venice Beach-ready custom T's.
No doubt this is going to divide opinion. I have done a few anti-branding projects in the past, and I am working on a series of them right now. I want to introduce the latest, but I also felt like explaining a little more about their intended value. These started out partly as technical creative exercises; no matter what other work is on, I always have personal projects on the go, things I care about, and to keep me sharp. The idea is to take all the insight, strategy, tools, devices, and visual aesthetics typically applied to commercial messaging, and then apply them to something that is un-brandable. In this case, North Korea's nuclear threat.
By unbrandable, I mean something that is either conceptually too broad, weird, possibly also ideologically and ethically unpalatable, or a bit inappropriate. So is it at all possible to put a glossier sheen on a message that does not have one, nor indeed should have one? The answer is yes, mos def.
Here we have O'Puk Nukes then. Imagineering a campaign of banner ads and billboards that present the Dear Leader as with it, hip, but above all, winning. The 'product' is positioned as an urbane, artisanal, and irreverent consumable. There are suitable typographic choices and Korean colour palettes that further imbue authenticity –and fortuitously are loud (...so 2017/18). There are image choices and treatments with all the culty, retro, homespun, indy tropes I can cram in, that are de rigueur in so many visual identities around right now. The tone is a kind of hybrid asian-americana; a bold, breezy, surf cult feel which I think is appropriate since Kim and co. are oftentimes seen giving the US the proper runaround, so why not imagine them at play, in the most iconically recreational American way?
I'm also embracing the bad-taste-is-good-taste vibe in the copy. In the taglines and brand mark, 'Puk', as if it needs explaining, scans as fuck. So O'Puk Nukes ... 'Oh fuck, nukes(!)'- expressing dismay that anyone should have access to such things (except us of course). Within this, Korean language does not have the sound 'Ff', therefore typically when English is spoken by native Korean speakers the sound comes out as... you get the point. This is intended to play self-deprecation as a form of endearment, but also it is blunt, and this is the era of the Donald after all; we are all about telling it how it is now. So un-subtlety, employed un-subtly as a subtle brand value.
So this project is of course partly satirical détournement, but I do have a wider more serious point to make. Before you dismiss this as adolescent tomfoolery, let's look at the facts. We have a well-oiled behemoth of a commercial media machine, pumping out volumes of eye-candy and persuasive ego-massaging adver-spiel, and this effort is most effectively –and expensively– applied to FMCG and any number of other largely non-essential items, but also often rather iffy political and well-funded personal agendas. We are pretty numb to it, and we kind of thrive on it. We love it. And we hate it.
A large part of this creative endeavour is to serve as a reminder to always ask yourself the following questions: what is the message, and who is the messenger? No matter what we are peddling, truly understanding these questions helps a strong message find a receptive audience, and the audience can weigh-up who to trust.
I have an issue with hysteria and skewed perspectives; the manipulation and misinformation that is so often dispensed in our physical and digital environs. Let's be very clear though, I am certainly not a Kim apologist, nor condoning violence, or any forms of extreme, inhumane endeavour. Nor am I completely cynical about the motives and necessities of commercial transmission. I'm interested in sparking debate, the powers of persuasion, and pulling people into considering alternative viewpoints, no matter what the message.
There is no doubt that North Korea is a bafflingly unstable, and certainly roguish regime, but it is also quite clear that they are not nearly on the same scale of military might as their primary nemesis, the US. So the rhetoric and verbal chest-thumping from both sides, but mainly coming from Trump (in the hot seat right now), is tragic, but actually turning serious geopolitical and humanitarian issues into more of a bloated ego-driven war game. Also, war and a foreign threat is always good for business, and this always smells fishy. On these facts alone, I feel it's completely fair game to try and visualise this 'rogue state' in a way that leverages the iconography and visual narrative belonging to their (clearly) much more powerful foe. Wouldn't it be nice to try and get people to engage in better understanding, rather than relying on institutional spin, or worse, straight up ignorance and self-interest?
We can put a glossy sheen on anything, in this case a fictional commercial munitions wing of Kim's regime; and why not? If Trumps' PR of paradocracy can work, why can't this?
The more real these look as commercial messaging, the more people who don't already think too deeply about such issues might just do so a little more.
But it's fine, you can tell me to puk-off if you disagree.
The Beat Kit 'Remover Installer' appeared on shelves in 1984. It was a fake product created by Sean Wolfe as a nose-thumb to the then solidifying culture of consumerism. The product itself was a luridly-coloured plastic baby-rattle-come-machine-part-like object that had absolutely no practical function or use. It came replete with commercial packaging, and a vibrant brand identity which included ads, posters, POS displays, bumper stickers, basically the full compliment of marketing collateral you could have expected in the mid-1980's. "Panic Now' was the brand mantra and call to action. Slicing away the subtle soft-soaping, romanticising or any other distractingly persuasive marketing spiel we expect from the average FMCG brand messengers, the naked truth is presented: 'stop what you are doing right now, you want this in your life, no, you need it in your life, go and buy it'.
Beat Kit, a subsidiary anti-brand of Gross National Products, had other satirical-fakery to peddle too, including some indeterminate mothers-little-helper-style tablets. All in all, a detailed, comprehensive, and very nicely executed series of high-concept culture jamming, and a socially-conscious assault on the public's passive acceptance of the 'new world odor' defined by what stuff we can accumulate.
I've said this before, I'm as much of a hypocrite as the next guy. I love stuff too, but I do try. I try to focus on essentialism; this doesn't mean I became completely ascetic and stopped spending money on anything, it just means being more controlled in acquiring what I actually need. It also doesn't mean I can't have 'nice' stuff, just not stockpiling umpteen versions of said stuff, and in particular, not being seduced too much by slick messaging!
I have worked on a number of projects with a 'social' bent. I rate Mr Wolfe's work as a benchmark for anti-branding. The characteristics and tone of counter-cultural creative expression, street art for an obvious example, have been widely adopted for some time now in mainstream commercial comms. There is obviously a rich vein to be tapped; if we are thinking cynically about it, in terms of drawing on the same powers of wit, irreverence, and persuasion on a level that connects directly with certain audiences. Especially in this day and age, well beyond the postmodern and the taste for ironic, self-deprecating trends in modern messaging, where, whether it be a commercial project or something more left field, the humour and simple directness of Beat Kit offers a lot of guidance. Sean Wolfe's spirit of creative dissent is alive and well, Banksy is an obvious (if massively more successful) contemporary standard-barer.
A third of a century on from its inception, it is as relevant and thought-provoking as it was then. I do wonder how much more successfully disseminated its message would have been with all the comms channels available now?... I certainly rate it as highly, if not more so, than Shepherd Fairey's Obey anti-brand for example; mainly because Obey eventually morphed from something counter-cultural, into a mainstream commercial product line (this obviously proves the point of the traction and power in the anti-brand positioning). But generally for being more vibrant, and just more fun. I suppose it came down to how dedicated he was to keeping it going, compared to how relentless and ubiquitous the Obey paste-up narrative became. *I know Obey was not trying to say the same thing, but they do share an aesthetic, tone, era, and medium.
While on the subject of leveraging counter-cultural street cred for capital gains, check out the Blackspot Unswoosher. A footwear product from Adbusters Magazine, which, while touting the 'most ethical'(sic), organic, recycled, union made, right-on sneaker on the planet as an antidote to the life-sucking mega-corp sinners (Nike, most pointedly), they are in fact maintaining the same amount of commodity fetishism and continuing the cycle of conspicuous consumption that they purport to be combating! A meta-oxymoron, assuming they are self-aware, at all. I mean, surely you can't on the one hand be pushing International Buy Nothing Day, and then be creating a cult of cool around a fashion product, no matter how right-on its provenance? That is just a personal criticism of what I believe to be a glitch in the Adbusters agenda, I am more focused here on how it represents successfully positioning and messaging their product by leveraging a counter-cultural aesthetic....and certainly, no argument, if we can be honest and admit we are going to still want stuff, holding up right-on-ness as a core aesthetic would be fantastic. I suppose these things serve to highlight the pickle we are in, caught between our desires and our conscience, but certainly, this is precisely the psychological space in which creative communications thrive.
Anyway, perhaps a cheeky wee reboot, a Beat Kit 2.0 model shouldn't be out of the question? Here's hoping. I for one fell under the spell of this must-have item - the Remover Installer was actually produced and sold in limited numbers, in case anyone is reading this and wondering. I'm sure he gets all warm and fuzzy knowing that he successfully got people (me) fetishising his non-product. Bravo that man.
“As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard.", a private person once said.
He continued, "...When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?". That private person was, in fact, a rather public one; David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, quoted from his book Confessions of an Advertising Man, 1963. Master-puppetmaster turns culture jammer. Awesome. It is a fascinating trick of the human mind, to crack on in your endeavour, while deep down your conscience is at odds with it. A debate for another day, I won't judge, I'm as much a hypocrite as the next man.
On the subject of billboards though, I feel they hold a strange allure. In the case of the image I took above; an enormous, blank sheets of aluminium glinting in the sunlight, it was tragic, and majestic. Planted a hundred miles from any kind of civilisation, I was really drawn to it. It appeared like Arthur C. Clark's monolith in 2001, an eerie, geometric counterpoint to a barren, vast green expanse. A similar feeling I have about seeing wind turbines dotted across the horizon in remote wilderness'. A beautiful contrast.
Their incongruous placement, or juxtaposition can actually add to a scene. Controversial I know, and undoubtedly I am of a generation so bombarded with signs and signals, that I am slightly immune to it, it is so normalised. The world of marketing and commercial transmission reaches so deeply into every realm, it is expected. But I think it is more about there being a wider appeal toward the aesthetic of disruption. Where something anomalous, something that breaks the pattern, something unexpected, can be much more stimulating than the safe, warm blanket and mug of cocoa that is expected continuity. The image is interesting because of the object planted in the field, otherwise, it would just be a field.
Clearly in this case the scene would not hold its ominous, conflicted charm if the billboard had an actual ad or political propaganda statement adorning it; it's emptiness gives it a tragicomic quality, to whom, and about what, am I supposed to be broadcasting, way out here in the himalayas? I suppose What Mr Ogilvy was criticising more was not the physical object, but rather the corrupting of, or violation of a natural environment with the steady creep of consumerism. Agreed. But in this case, captured and imortalised as a motif, I find that 'corruption' is precisely what stimulates my cerebral cortices.
Putting my designers hat on, I can relate to the thrill of problem-solving and finding elegant solutions; through innovation, working on efficiency, ergonomics, inventing products, processes, devices and all manner of industrial, scientific and technological boundary-busting. Sadly, when it comes to environmental issues, and in particular our increasingly more hazardous AQI levels, serious psychological and behavioural shifts need to take place, accompanied by lifestyle changes, and letting go of purely capital-driven decision-making.
As much as I value the design thinking behind this or that pollution mask, or discretely elegant domestic air purifier as immediate industrial solutions to combat pollution on a personal level, it is just symptomatic of the anthropocentric belief in our supremacy over the natural world. That environmental conditions can be tamed, and we can indefinitely find neat solutions allowing us to plough on into an ever-worsening situation, while making ourselves a touch more comfy along the way. The problem isn't going away, but rather than slow down a bit, let's shop our way out of it. Or, possibly... get busy dabbling in transhumanist ideals of meddling with our own physical evolution? ... "nothing too drastic mind, but as long as we don't have to give up the Escalade baby, hook us up!".
Anyway, I believe in the show being more effective than the tell, so here is some marketing collateral for just such a (possible) near-future technocratic solution . Is it so hard to believe that with enough bio-tech advances and a sufficiently desperate public, that we wouldn't consider a surgical intervention to a dire health concern if it was on the table?
Sure, sealing up your nostrils and implanting a genetically engineered membrane in your mouth might seem a bit extreme. Sure, you will be taking all your dietary and nutritional requirements through an atomiser - also available through the Technocratic Solutions Store - but you would at least be breathing. Sure, rendering yourself a fully paid-up member of the mouth-breathing ranks might seem like a cultural back-step, but let's look on the bright side...
We began at a time where the appliance of science and technological innovation was employed as a crutch, a patch-up job when things went wrong - as if your human form was the pinnacle of evolution, and maintenance was all we demanded.
We knew the story of mans' evolution didn’t end there.
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I don't often gush. But I love this piece. It has been replicated around the globe, and honestly I can't track down where it first appeared, but certainly the tiles have been glued up in Brighton and London for a year or two, maybe more?? Culture jamming at its best. No poh-faced doom-watching, just a really sweet (pun intended) jibe at the cheery face of a serious social concern. Gentrification, at its worst, basically means forcing local communities, typically on low income out of their neighbourhood due to its inflated rent hikes, directly tied to inflated popularity as a trendy new(old) des-res part of town for the hip and urbane. The more faded, shambling, gritty, industrial, 'urban', "authentic", the better. A huge draw for a certain type of individual. The certain type of individual who is downwardly mobile, and requires kooky, throwback confections to accompany their whimsically erudite tastes and visage. Just in case you are feeling particularly worthy, take a wander over to Edible Geography . A great article discussing the wider debate and a study from a few years back conducted by NewYork-based urban planning academics, discussing this very issue. How you can affect and measure the development of social space, amenities, the transference from local economies based on production proper, to leisure and retail-oriented models. Food for thought (sorry).
The world burns, we'll be throwing a tea party in our Doris Day sun dresses.
One of the strings to my bow happens to include once-upon-a-time being an industry nominated UK Bartender of the Year. Of the many hats I have worn in my life, working in F&B was one of the most rewarding and valuable experiences for me; in terms of developing super-refined soft skills, as well as seeing the immediate impact on a customer/client for a job well done. It could be hard work for sure, but the personal satisfaction, pride and of course fun was a worthy reward.
Working in many areas of the industry before, during and after my student days in the UK, I stepped away from that world while in a role as head bartender and management team for an award winning boutique UK restaurant and bar group. This role required a great deal of time devoted to attending training, workshops, tastings, ambassadorial roles at industry events, competitions (winning one or two along the way), and of course one of the aspects I loved most, developing new recipes, creating menus, pairing and balancing flavours to complement food offerings.
As someone who thrives on being hands on, and being of a creative bent, this line of work was fantastic... Anyway, let me introduce Wetwork.
The aim here is to present both formal and informal creative work associated with the ontrade, but also serve as a point of contact for any consultation or commissions that might come my way. This may relate to the service side, the product, the venue itself and of course any VI and marketing-related needs. I was prompted to put this together after doing a little bit of moonlighting recently as consultant, staff trainer and duties on the comms side for a few restaurant and bar venues in Beijing. I've also had a couple of recent magazine features on cocktail-related matters.
So expect to see design work, plus a handful of words, photography and indeed recipes that may be of interest to any folks fond of liquor, spice and all things ice.
I am currently on retainer with Edumaxi, working on a variety of design needs including instructional design, book designs and branding work for their clients. I was also tasked with giving them themselves an updated identity.
They are an established New Zealand-based company with an impressive list of global clients including most of the major private education providers in Asia, McGraw-Hill Education amongst others.They operate two branches, educational design and corporate consulting and as they grow and their profile increases there was need to better and more clearly represent themselves with two distinct faces that belonged to a cohesive whole. As well as a new hierarchy, they wanted a more contemporary and striking logo and palette.
Since their core values revolve around education, shared knowledge and support (hence the group of abstract figures huddled-up in the centre of their original logotype), it was important to keep some visual metaphor for this while simplifying and becoming more memorable. We settled on this clustered primary circles direction.
Part of my pitch to them:
...Circles represent completeness and inclusivity; overlapping and interlocking forms implying collectivity and connectivity. You are a multi-faceted organisation with global reach... The logo mark can be decoded as an abstracted group of individuals, colleagues or partners, equally they can be viewed as spheres of influence...
The typography is a Clarendon face. It obviously has a traditional 'established' look and feel but of course is much bolder and punchier than a lighter serif would be; this speaks to the aspect of their market where they should not appear too sober and corporate - it should convey an air of established success, while still seeming human and approachable. To this last requirement, the lively high chroma palette helps the overall weight of the type seem friendlier. I enjoyed working on this and feel it's a pretty strong and fitting brand mark.
Here's some exerts from the guidelines:
I was dragged out of retirement to help with consultation on setting up a new bar in our Beijing neighbourhood, Fang Bar. I say that like it took much persuading! In a former life I was a 'drinksmith' of some renown and have moonlit more than a few times over the years, so I jumped at the chance to get my hands wet again. I will give another post on the drinks themselves – which are pretty special if I do say so myself, and make great use of local produce and personality – a good drink always requires a good story behind it too. But, in addition to this I was asked to help with VI, menu design and copywriting. I think the results are decent for the relatively shallow budget.
The bar is an intimate and informal joint. Great product and fairly polished service, without the pretence of an 'uptown' bar. The bar is also trying to integrate with a neighbourhood in 'old-Beijing', which means of course it is part of a wave of hip pseudo-bohemian gentrification, but in decor and attitude the guys are treading lightly. The identity and collateral therefore wanted to be, understated, not flashy, but certainly not too consciously antiquated as so many jazz-age, speakeasy, 'discerning dispensers of authentic libation' establishments will want to do these days. Yes, I put brass rivets in there, but that's the only nod to a 'vintage purveyors' provenance, I swear. Essentially, it was drawing on traditional asian publishing vibes.
The remit for the primary print collateral; the menu, was to be compact in format, with clean and legible bilingual copy presentation. This was a really nice and technical design exercise requiring a light touch, minimal graphic design, and perfectly matched bi-lingual typography was the order of the day – this is so often so lazily done and really needs a good understanding of both latin and Chinese typographic styles. I think it ticks those boxes.
Grievous Bicycle Harm (GBH). I can neither confirm nor deny any knowledge of the actions leading up to, during, or after these heinous acts were delivered upon our bicycle brethren. I have documented since early 2009 numerous crime scenes and those unfortunate survivors, now forced to eek-out meagre existences in varying conditions of disgrace and physical burden. Suffering under the tread of the automobile rampage, a cautionary tale documenting the abused, abandoned, and driven into bondage.
Citizen Designer: Perspectives on design responsibility
edited by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne
I often dip back into this anthology when I'm in need of reassurance about the value of design work. Obviously you have got to eat, and that means working on projects that sometimes don't necessarily tie-up with your broader ethics. If you are fortunate enough to be plying your trade on projects that 'matter' and make a living, that's great, but it is not always possible for most people. Commercial design work is how you get to do what you love and keep afloat, possibly making room for other pieces of personal interest or pro bono. I feel that you can try and sneak a little love into your workflow even if not every piece of work you do permits. There is great persuasive power in visual communication, and so many creative voices out there with something to say/show. This book is an inspiration and I would argue essential reading for all those in the design professions. I particularly enjoy the chapters with Sean Wolfe (of Remover Installer fame) , Sara Little Turnbull, Tucker Viemeister, Mr. Keedy and Kalle Lasn, but it's all good.
Consider your responsibility, and the power at your fingertips.
TYPOCUTESY
There are peculiarities in the Asian visual landscape. A very specific ocular discourse, but within this there is a particularly strong fondness for a certain kind of expression - the Cult of Cute. This cult of cute has been widely discussed over the past decade, most often focused on Japan, but this is a global phenomenon, just much more keenly observed across East Asia. With a kaleidoscope of manga, cosplay, lolitta, gamer culture, pachinko and porn, Japan is easily identified as the high temple of imaginations running wild; kitsch, bizarre, a little wrong sometimes, but fundamentally very often 'cute'. In Japan this is known as Kawaii.
China is equally drawn to this form of expression. From the bubble font used on the ubiquitous video portal Youku.com, to the anime avatars created by the Public Security Bureau, JingJing and ChaCha*. These two represent a rather unsettling image of protectors of the people as bug-eyed, adolescents; an internet-monitoring, crime-busting, avatar duo. Trust, obey.
“Authority figures often put on displays of cuteness to reach out to the masses.”
(Garger, I. 2007, Global Psyche: One Nation Under Cute)
What is this fascination with cute? Well there are a couple of signifiers that lead to it. First of all, in societies where there is a certain degree of emotional repression, as is unquestionably the case in East Asian countries like China and Japan; socialisation relies on deference to your seniors and authority figures. Carrying a demeanour of childlike innocence, an emotional dependence on others is often seen to be triggering sympathy as a form of respect. This is particularly true of Japan, but still very present in Chinese society. The social ceremonial traditions are much less rigid in China, but these same hierarchies do exist. Where the adult world presents certain social and emotional restrictions there will be a certain amount of introversion. This circumstance allows for the obsessions with gaming, cosplay and other ‘behind closed doors’ ways of letting your inner being loose.
An aspect of this cutesy state of mind has been termed pedamorphosis - a retention of child-like characteristics. Moving around Asian city streets and riding the subway, you are surrounded by ads that play on a fixation with youth and the inferred sense of fun and abandon this represents. There are obsessions with animated worlds - see the Chinese box office takings for Transformers the movie, or indeed the door panels of middle-aged LGV drivers festooned with Optimus Prime decals; anthropomorphic baubles hanging from cellphones, querky thumb drives, if not in fact whole backpacks in the form of turtle shells or lego blocks, and furry hats with ears, there are many many signs that cuteness is en vogue in East Asia, and not just for the kids.
A second factor is the sight of a baby, which causes an involuntary feeling of great joy in most of us (unless you are of the psychopathic persuasion). A chemical reaction takes place and our brains light up when we are confronted with said infant because we are ALL actually hard-wired to nurture and protect our offspring, therefore it provokes a softening and compliance in us that is actually hard to fight for most, even when the offspring are not of our own bloodline. This translates into the world of visual communication where, if in fact a baby is not literally present, then form, texture and colour palettes that allow us to draw connections with that emotional response toward babies is often employed. Examples of this are over-sized heads and eyes (in figurative human representations) and overall plumpness of form, amongst other things all reminiscent of a baby.
To illustrate this, by far the most ubiquitous ornamental deity you will see around China is that of the ‘laughing Buddha’. Whats not to like? He’s grinning from ear to ear, has comically oversized features, a big round belly, usually rendered reclining and at ease, the classic representation of health, wealth and happiness. This is quite a celebrated and still prized physical form that many parents actually encourage in their kids - one fifth of Chinese kids are clinically obese according to recent reports. Maybe this is some conscious, strange attempt to maintain these cherished baby-like proportions as the child grows, maybe not, but at least I am confident it is the above stated associations that make him easy on the eyes of those doting, spoon-weilding Asian parents and grandparents.
LET'S GET TO IT THEN
These points basically led me to observe that in typographic and isologotype selections, as with many other arenas in the Chinese visual landscape, there is a real trend toward injecting said cuteness. Precisely because the Gestalt of softer, rounder, chubbier strokes, and in some cases overall proportions of characters, combined with either candy colouring or other vibrant palettes, stimulate associations with childhood. I wanted to test this theory. This phenomenon, as stated, is witnessed throughout the streets of East Asia, but let me share a very simple and controlled research observation: I spent a day combing the length of one of Beijing’s busy kilometre-long city centre shopping streets. The aim was to catalogue how many instances of ‘cute’ were to be found in the shop front signage, logo design and typographic choices in their branding. Results show that in at least sixty percent of the businesses along this stretch, there were definite ‘cuteness markers’ on display.
THE EVIDENCE
The demands of Chinese characters to be rendered legibly - both simplified and especially traditional forms, usually dictates a careful stroke and clean, often fine, or in modern simplified renderings, squared off line. The other typical presentation is that of more cursive esoteric script, especially for businesses seeking to portray a ‘traditional’ or heritage slant, restaurants often run this. Further still there is some play with the various historical incarnations of the written form, ‘large seal script’, ‘clerical script’ to name just two, but what I was able to confirm is that no matter what the business type; from musical instruments, to pets, to convenience stores, apparel, DIY, the signage presented a friendly, cutesy type selection. By friendly I mean the opposite of commercial or corporate, either presented in an uber-heavy line, bubblegum colour palette, bubble-letter form (bloated, no sharp corners), drop-shadowed comic book header and indeed iso-logotypes with out-and-out cutesy graphic elements - cartoon mascots or other iconography. I collected photos of over 60 instances in a street that contains a little over one hundred shop fronts.
IN CONCLUSION
This missive should accomplish two things. First it is to illustrate that Gestalt on a basic level is how we make sense of the world, beyond joining the dots in the literal visual sense, it is also how we draw intellectual conclusions about stimuli based on social and cultural learned norms. Second, by looking at this case study of ‘cute’ branding in Chinese small businesses, we can recognise the Gestalt principles at work; whereby the pedamorphic socialisation many Asian citizens grow up within, prepares a well defined visual hook for branding professionals to hang identities and broad visual comms on, tying together the cognitive processes of form recognition and intellectual inference.
I believe this observation very clearly represents a link between our ability to perceive visual elements and form emotional responses. Knowing what we know about how our perception of things works, and how we apply the Gestalt principles in our reading of form, it is also easy to acknowledge how connections are made, memories and associations triggered on the intellectual level where these recognition principles equally apply.
While the observations cited in this - let's be honest, rather whimsical and rigorless case study - are referencing mainly small-scale independent enterprises, it does also exist in the national and internationally prolific brands as well. In some of these cases, the physical forms did not all betray similarity, but in those cases there were other contributing factors that tapped into the Cult of Cute. The desired response from the businesses presenting their moniker in this manner is simply to catch the eye and draw in custom and this is happening regardless of whether their product has any relation to youth culture, let alone actual infant or child-related merchandise. I believe that despite the obvious appeals to a certain generational demographic, cuteness does have much wider appeal. Also, though this is a widely documented Asian phenomenon, it is not exclusively so. Western audiences are equally pleased by imagery and iconography that is playful, youthful and pedamorphic. Western audiences are equally prone to getting wobbly-kneed and goo-goo-ga-ga over imagery that stimulates the nurturing instinct.
Austere and overtly formal type use in brand marks and related graphics present a certain image that will imply class, sophistication, sincerity and so on, but I do wonder if, presented with two equivalent products or services, one branded thus and the other presented in candy-colored bubble-type, there will be a very different appeal and arguably a more powerful inherent leaning toward the latter. On many levels, I would hazard, this cult of cute definitely extends internationally as well. Just how far can this basic pedamorphic instinct be put to work? What manner of distinctly adult-oriented message might we apply it? A further exploration would be interesting to tag just how many other products, branding and message was being carried on the back of cartoon avatars, pudgy type or candy colour palettes? Something for the future, when I have a slow minute perhaps.
BITE THE WAX TADPOLE
Cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies
The Chinese written language is picto/ideographic. Each character is an abstract graphic representation of an object or concept. It differs from Latin/Arabic/Cyrillic, which have an alphabet made of arbitrary symbols that when arranged in specific ways generate a learned meaning; in and of themselves they provoke no useful insight whatsoever.
Bold Leap. I propose that a culture raised on a pictorially representational language has a higher propensity toward understanding literal visual stimuli; tapping more directly into visual memory triggers than a language that relies on conjuring your own images, drawing your own visual conclusions. This is of course not to say definitively that Latin-rooted or alphabetic languages are more precisely articulate and poetically expressive or that Chinese is limited in that regard, but I do believe that this difference lends itself in asian cultures raised on ideograms to at least facilitate a high degree of readiness to respond well to graphic stimuli.
Branding communication in China has some pitfalls, particularly in terms of integrating with international communication and lingua franca. An example of this is in brand names. Coca-Cola, which has been in the Chinese marketplace for more than half a century, had a great deal of trouble finding a suitable expression for its name in the Mandarin language. Often, foreign brands trying to bed into China opt for homophonic matches in existing chinese words - chinese words combined to sound-a-like the foreign language name, with sometimes hilarious consequences. Coke had variously been presented in outlets as “female horse fastened with wax”, “wax flattened mare” or, my personal favorite “bite the wax tadpole” (蝌蚪啃蜡), these being various literal translations of the chinese characters chosen purely for their approximately similar spoken pronunciation. They did finally arrive at an official trademarked name, translating literally as "to permit mouth to be able to rejoice" ( 可口可乐), a much more appropriate match for the product.
You can see how, relying on our mental processing of associative image memory, undesirable associations might be made with these bizarre descriptions, in this case, of what many regard as a perfectly pleasant and tasty beverage. This is an area of global communication where there is a lot of scope for misunderstanding if not outright ridicule, loss of business or even causing offence.
So, what has been discussed so far and what should we hold on to?
*The visual interpretation of stimuli is tied directly to emotional response triggers based on established memories, catalogued understanding and rationality, all of which can be utilised in communicating on conscious and subconscious levels.
*It can also help us identify specific themes in design and what exactly they are tapping into.
WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT THEN?
The principles of Gestalt refer to a series of sensory perception rules that help us to make sense of the world around us, understand what we encounter, but more than this, be able to read between the lines, draw conclusions and help us avoid walking into walls. In the case of design, it is employed to help us engage with an object, media, language or environment put in front of us. It helps to convey meaning, positive/negative association and make inferences on extremely subtle levels. My aim here is to illustrate these principles by analysing branding and visual identity in east asian culture; in particular signage, where, as will hopefully be made clear, there is a definite flavour and a particular set of cultural circumstances that conspire to create it.
“If we move up the levels of perception, we can move inside to “the theater of our mind” and notice what and how we represent things that we have neurologically picked up via our sense receptors and seemingly present them to ourselves again... This facsimile of the world that we re-present inside our “mind” (our mental processing) provides us the “languages of the mind” by which we can “run our own brain” and ... in that way we induce ourselves into mind-body-emotion states.”
(Hall, L.M. 2010)
How we see and how we understand what we see is not built on an innate understanding of all images, events, scenes, objects, circumstances. We are not born unto the world with this knowledge, rather, how we perceive, or process information, is based on a kind of rapid-fire deductive reasoning. Johan Goethe and Emanuel Kant, among other esteemed thinkers in our recent history, talked of the process by which we come to reading our environments and interpreting information, but it was Christian von Ehrenfels who gave us a clearly defined set of principles, die Gestalt, through which to describe this. How, when we gaze upon, particularly visual form, we have the capacity to gather together composite elements and are able to draw conclusions from them - generate a complete whole. Our sensory understanding is built on these principles. These principles not only allow us to communicate ideas through literal, representational meaning, but also on a more subtle, elegant and playful level. This works on a visual plane, but through it we can describe and convey quite complex ideas and emotions as well. In the following text I hope to introduce how this understanding of the Gestalt principles provides an invaluable tool for designers and communicators to challenge and engage intended audiences by relying on the core perceptive abilities of the human mind.
First up, a little introduction of how vision works, as this is essential to the wider connections I hope to make on how we associate stimuli on an emotional level that in turn triggers response or action. As titled, I have selected a rather unusual case study to demonstrate this. Later on I will be referring back to this in analysing aspects of east asian culture and through this frame, discussing sensitivity to graphic form, cultural factors that affect taste and desirability - the so-called ‘Cult of Cute’, and how this is manifested in graphic design iconography, typography and branding.
READ BETWEEN THE LINES
Speaking to the purely form-based application, when we are presented with a graphic image, symbol, logo, icon, whether it be a linguistic character, figurative or abstract form, our ability to recognise is based on one or more of the following Gestalt principles:
* Similarity dictates that if an item we are presented with resembles something we already know, we will apply that preinstalled sense of what something ‘looks like’ on top of this new item.
* If we come across a series of separate(d) items, we can draw a conclusion that they are related to one another, this is pattern recognition and draws on senses of unity and proximity. Related to this is spotting anomalies or breaks from a pattern.
* If we come across an incomplete item we can fill in the blanks, this relies on closure and common fate.
* Similarly we are able to follow a suggested visual path across a plane if we have been provided with at least the beginnings of a line, real or implied - this is the principle of continuity.
Based on these visual abilities we can interpret visual input. But does this work?
How vision works is important to us. Without getting too bogged down in the bio-mechanics of it, I will try to summarise the process. Information enters the eye in the form of light as reflected off surfaces. The back of the eye does a little filing of RGB in its rods and photoreceptors, among other things, then the signals are fired off down the optic nerve, on into the visual cortices. This is where it gets really interesting; where depth perception and form are ‘triangulated’ between V1 and V2 (there are 4 visual cortices, V1-4), but most useful for us here is that in fact what we see is not so much continuous motion but an editing together of frames or snapshots of the outside world. What is allowing us to see smoothly as we cast our gaze around relies on a back catalogue of recognition of forms and objects; this goes down in V3/V4.
Our visual sense of the world is entirely based on assumptions we can make from images we already possess (a collection we obviously continue to build on throughout our lives). We recognise an edge/line and basically assume or accept its logical continuation and then any changes or anomalies because we’ve seen it all before essentially (not exactly the same scene and arrangement of course, but similarities are there and conclusions can be drawn). This is what allows us to keep from tripping over an uneven paving stone or walking off the edge of a tall building, or similar mishaps...
Of course this process of perception can be explained through Gestalt theory. ALL our minds have selforganising tendencies, coupled with making sense of the world around us based on a catalogue of visual memories, it is pretty clear how easy we find it to complete partial images (closure), recognise pattern (similarity), follow implied lines (continuity) and so on. A step further, it can also explain how other stimuli is perceived and processed in the mind; taking associative inferences from the written and spoken word, colour, music and all other forms of sensory stimuli as well. In other words, Gestalt refers to intellectual reasoning as much as it does to a visual comprehension of the physical world before our eyes. From a creative point of view, a good grasp of these principles allows us not only to express form in a visual way, but also for very subtle, suggestive communication on many levels. Based on past experience, informed by cultural, social and environmental norms, we can all interpret visual cues and relate to meaning inferred through language, text and subtext by association and recall.
I've been working steadily over the past couple of months to produce Bob Blunt's latest book. It's a travel fiction novel - or 'faction' as Bob prefers to describe it, following the experiences of Don Laridis, an Aussie who decamps to South Korea in need of a change. The story is kind of a travelogue and subtle expose on a foreign lands unfamiliar nuances and moral fabric. The character has thrown himself into a new career as a teacher, and things don't work out quite as he planned. He finds himself caught up in a tale centred around the apparently quite intense and ultimately ruthless private education racket.
It's a good read. Vivid, dialogue-driven, it has great pace and the over-arching tone, while not sinister certainly conveys a sort of scuzzy or at least sheen-less perspective on this particular world. To this end I needed to convey a similar vibe in the art.
I was commissioned for the jacket, typesetting, overall design and to manage the publishing, but also to create some custom illustrations to punctuate the prose - around twenty in total. I opted for a quite stripped-down distressed look, to help convey the 'tarnished' characters and experiences described in the book. There are a couple of fairly surreal passages in there too, so a darkly humorous edge was also required. The jacket and endpapers have spot illustrations lifting out key imagery from the narrative and for the cover itself I went for a classic device; placing a head front and centre - we are following a man's personal voyage of discovery and change. The colour palette draws not only on the Korean flag (it's a travel novel after all), but also some of the wonderful vibrant neon shades so loved in S.Korean traditional dress and cultural iconography. I think the results are great, Bob's pleased anyway (!)
I recently completed a 'rapid' turnaround book design for Racemaker Press. It is a rather handsome biography, great photography and a really interesting perspective charting the growth of motorsport in America from a behind the scenes guy; someone who managed and orchestrated the most wins of any racing team member in the history of the sport.
The drivers are the names you remember, the limelight is on them and they enjoy the celebrity and the accolades but I love finding out about the quiet men, the guys who go about there business holding everything together - the brains behind the operation so to speak.
Anyway, the book looks great. No expense spared on paperstock and binding, a contemporary design presented in classic style. i really enjoyed creating a style for this type of publication, especially the jigsaw puzzle of image selection and fitting - what to present full bleed for maximum impact, how to pace it so there was a good mix of pure image spreads with more sober body copy and everything in between. Apart from the tight turn around time, which inevitably caused a few speed bumps (pun intended), alongside my already pretty heavy workload, it was tight!
