Found a great manifesto expressing how I feel towards the internet.

The internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people—talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make. Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand—tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people.                             -Maureen Johnson

To read more about this manifesto and see how it came to be go to Maureen’s blog post

[pic: cc-by-nc-sa greekadman]

I. Introduction and Method
II. Analysis (with help of Panofsky’s three levels of understanding)
III. Discussion and Conclusion

I. Introduction and Method
The visual object I chose for this ‘case study of contemporary visual culture’ was a picture of label for a Sierra tequila bottle. The reasoning behind the choice of this particular picture is an interest for branding and analyzing this from signs. Basically a sign is the result of the difference to other signs. This makes it interesting to analyze brands and see how they set themselves apart from their competition. In this analysis I will discuss and analyze how a brand of tequila chooses to depict themselves in their visual communication.

This analysis will work from the theoretical framework of Panofsky and his concepts about Iconology and Iconography.  The reason I chose to use Panofsky is that his way of understanding a picture is a way that coincides in many ways with my own understanding of pictures. The thought from the start was applying a few different ways of understanding a picture (Saussere, Barthes, Peirce) and comparing the results with each other but this essay will have to focus on Panofsky due to a limited amount of space. I will start off by applying Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to the picture.  After the analysis I will follow up the analysis with a discussion and conclusion about the results found.

II. Analysis
I will start to analyze the picture by using Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to find the meaning of the picture. The first level is ‘Pre-iconographical description’: seeing lines, shapes, colors and volumes representing something in the picture. The second level is ‘Iconographical analysis’: using themes, stories, allegories and concepts to understand the meaning of the picture. The third level Panofsky uses is ‘Iconological interpretation’: linking the analysis with people, nations and periods of time.

Pre-iconographical description
The image portrays a lone Mexican sitting by a large cactus in the middle of the desert while the sun goes down in the background. One can see that the person is Mexican since he has a big Sombrero and a distinct black mustache coupled with a vest, bandana and boots which is an attire often used in the image of Mexicans. Sierra Tequila is prominently displayed by words right above the Mexican and the cactus. The colors most used are red, green, white, yellow and silver. Other colors exist as well but only as minor details on the Mexican person displayed on the bottle. The text on the bottle is written in spanish and the word ‘Sierra’ has an ”old type” font whilst ‘Tequila’ uses a more straight and modern font mixing old and new. There’s a ”branding” in silver above the wording ‘Sierra’ that says ”Jalisco Mexico” with a symbol that looks like a crown in-between. There is a framing around the picture which is in red with a gold line in the middle.  The banner on the top of the frame is green, white and red and says ‘Mexico’ in the middle.

Iconographical analysis
This part requires a bit more understanding on underlying factors behind the picture. Tequila has become a product which is only allowed to be produced in the province of Jalisco in Mexico. This explains why this is displayed in such a visible part on the label. The theme of Mexico runs through the label with the words ”hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico),  Jalisco and the decision to keep the text in Spanish on the label even though it’s an exported bottle. The choice of colors also reinforce the theme of Mexico  by having red, white, green (flag of Mexico) in the banner and almost all objects in the picture (red frame, white text, green cactus). The cactus is displayed since Tequila is made out of the Agave cactus. Showing only one cactus in a big and hot desert on the label creates a higher value in the Tequila since it communicates a limited amount of cactus to make the tequila from in a hostile environment.

Iconological interpretation
When going another level down in the understanding and analyzing the ‘world-view of time and place’ we find the importance of Mexico again. The historical context of Tequila being produced in Mexico is reflected in the image. The tradition is communicated through the old font style used on ”Sierra” and contrasted by the silver letters in a more modern font used in ”Tequila”. This mix of styles is probably because they can’t communicate themselves with only the ”old image” as Cognac or others are able to. The characteristic Mexican is displayed in the picture and communicates a message that this is what Mexicans drink.

III. Discussion and Conclusion
Each level of understanding used to analyze the picture brings a deeper understanding on what the meaning behind the picture is. The first level is the easiest to analyze and describe. The deeper one goes in levels the harder it becomes to analyze. The lower levels  also requires more of the person trying to understand the picture in terms of knowledge needed to get out more meaning from the message. This knowledge can sometimes be seen in different ways and therefore some subjectivity is added to the picture when analyzed deeper.

The other thing about understanding a picture using Panofsky’s method of analysis is that you find more things about the picture when you study it harder. Panofsky does not mention anything about how much visual communication is passed on to a person only looking at a picture for a limited amount of time. The impact of finding more understanding of a picture the more time one spends on it implies that there might be an even deeper level of understanding, than the one I have achieved in this analysis, if  even more time had been spent on understanding this picture.

Sierra Tequila utilizes the theme and concept of Mexico on several levels to create consistency and emphasize the connotation between Mexico, Tequila and the Sierra brand.

Bake Club

Great example of cross-subsidy in the ”free economy”. Butter brand @lurpakbutter creates interactive bake club web-site http://bit.ly/7VEjBV
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Synergy and the importance of discussing

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Amplifying how cheap and small the cooper is by guerilla marketing.

http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/paper_art/5.jpg

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It’s not always as it looks. Great use of 3d.

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Changing the perspective

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Sounds that are not normally noticed

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Characters building a brand

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What have you been inspired by lately?

Attention is the key to mind control. Focus enough and count the number of passes that the white team makes in the video.

Many have wondered what the secret to mind control is. The secret is there if you focus enough.

Mind control is basically an ability to hide messages in what is not consciously taken in by someone. This is a lot of what advertising tries to do with various results. An example of this hiding, is the use of signs and words that our subconscious might pick up.

virgin sex subliminal. Spelling S-E-X. Coincidence? perhaps. Other examples of hiding images in logos: the arrow in Fedex, the bear in Toblerone and a few more.

The concept behind subliminal ads and mind control is explained in a good way by McLuhan’s  Tetrad (Laws of Media). Basically what it says is that there is figure and ground. Figure is an area of attention and ground is the rest (”inattention”). Hold on, this gets complicated if you haven’t read McLuhan.

The effect that ground has changes our conception without us noticing it. Once the ground is pointed out it becomes figure and very easy to notice, e.g. the feeling of your seat at this instance. As we have noticed it’s very easy to spot the ground once it has been pointed out, but not before.

Everybody experiences far more then he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behaviour, especially in media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effect upon him.
-McLuhan (Understanding Media, p.318)

Derren Brown shows this very clearly in this movie where he manipulates two persons working for an ad agency to think what he wants them to think.

But how far can we take this “manipulation” of minds. Where does the limit between accepted manipulation and too much manipulation go? Many people think adding a single frame in a movie or changing the billboard in a sporting arena digitally to a commercial message is going to far but accepts music affecting and manipulating our mood in commercials.

I find mind control fascinating, especially since it’s very linked to advertisement. Comments?