#com237

Bass designed the visual elements that we often see of such products as Wesson toils, Lawry’s seasonings greetonings, Southern wipes, and Ohio Blue Flip matches. In 1970, he redesigned the logo for the Quaker Oats Company to give it a more modern look. Not to mention that the guy just looked flat-out old. Before being acquired by Philip Morris, General Foods had Bass redesign its logo. The main reason behind this is because they thought the old design was incredibly boring.. or just wasn’t selling at all. The leaf pictograph within a thin, green, open-ended line symbolizes wholesomeness, growth, strength, and dynamism (whatever that means). He has also redesigned logos for the United Ways, the YWCA, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Warner Communications, and Minolta. This guy is kind of a big deal. His logo for the Girl Scouts (and their cookies) manages to convey a sense of diversity within the organization using only one color which is green, which still won’t make me not think about their awesome cookies.

CH 13

The Eternal Jew was a Nazi propaganda film featuring heavy anti-Semitism released in 1940. The film was a powerful visual propaganda influence and relates to the uses of visual persuasion that we learn about in Chapter 4. This would be an example of very irresponsible uses of visual persuasion. The film delivered strong anti-semantic messages through its use of visual persuasion and images of Jews that painted them as monster in Germany. For example, at one point the film compares the Jews to rats and pests or vermin.

I will use gestalt theory to analyze The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. Gestalt theory looks at movement in images and how we perceive an image due to the different parts of an image. Similarity, proximity, continuation, and common fate are all principles of gestalt theory. Similarity states that objects that look similar will be automatically grouped together in our minds. So in Starry Night, the yellow stars and the blue swirls of the night are all associated with each other and create a similarity amongst each other that the brain is drawn to and sensually enjoys. The large black object in the front left of the painting is not similar to the rest of the painting and therefore stands out. Proximity is when the brain associates objects that are close to each other. Again, the swirls and stars of the background are associated with each other due to there proximity. Same with the houses in the lower foreground because they are all very close together. Continuation is idea that movement is smooth and not sudden changing. The lines in the painting are soft and short and create a soothing sense of movement for the viewer. The lines are all the same type which creates continuation throughout the image. Common fate is when the viewer groups things together due to their direction or similarity in shape and size. The stars and swirls in the painting are an example of common fate because they are all similar.

Learning about all the visual cues that contribute to an image and that the brain notices is pretty mind blowing. 

Ch 10