The Costa Rican Monkey Trail

With 4 girls crammed in the back seat of a truck, this was the most horrendous road I experienced in my week in Costa Rica as it travels down and across a river bed with pot holes big enough to fit a smart car. Yet, we had to endure this half hour torture 6 times as it was the best way to get from Playa de Coco to other popular destinations. I'd be surprised if this road was even on a map, but then again, I was surprised most of the roads as they were dirt were on a map, or at least on the iphone GPS. Oh iphone how I love you. It comes in handy when trying to avoid a police check point when your driver has an expired license. Then again, I hear bribing works well too.

But yes, most roads are dirt, and the asphalt ones lack rules. Yet it remains harmonious and by far the kindest driving I have ever experienced. With very few traffic lights and stop signs, it develops a flow. If no one is in a rush, than no one can get angry. Even the honking was of a different vibe. Costa Ricans would honk to let you know as they crossed every intersection cause it wouldn't have a stop sign, but you never heard one of those loud lay on the horns to tell someone to move. These are only a few facets of the design of the Costa Rican driving system because I would have difficult describing everything as it really is an unique experience.

Then when I come home and check my email, I find this call for submission for a NYC.gov project, Greenlight for Midtown Project. The complete opposite as it sets up more rules and regulations to control traffic and direct it, but that is design for you. Good design assesses each individual situation and provides what is necessary for the desired outcome, which is generally fast and safe travel.

We All Want to Be Jonathan Goldsmith

The most interesting man in the world occasionally enjoys a beer. However, it must be a beer good enough for a man with the brute and class of his stature. He is a man’s man, in love with women and booze as he travels the globe seeking excitement. He is the Dos Equis man!

This campaign, created by Euro RSCG, promotes a persona that men aspire to, but at the same time find slight humor and amusement in as well. Dos Equis was never a popular beer, nor a good on for that matter, but it had just enough mystery in the brand to support the platform of the most interesting man in the world to take it up a few notches. This is advertisement done successfully. The agency shows the consumer something with supportive reasonable belief, and then is able to market it to a whole new ballpark: sophistication, cleverness, and class, while sporting a bit of a rough edge and rugged boldness. Essentially they created a whole new class of people. They created the most interesting man in the world and the class of people who want to be like him.

This character creation is a tool that many advertisements utilize to create an illusion that their target market can mentally relate to. The most interesting man in the world “lives vicariously through himself” as Will Lyman narrates on one of the commercial spots, but the every man lives vicariously through him whenever they drink Dos Equis. These thoughts are now associated with the brand name, activating multiple states of mind through sensorial, emotional, and cultural contexts.

Many advertisement campaigns focus to bring out their viewer’s explicit memories of such things as the simplicity of childhood games or the anxiety of a passionate first kiss to relate to their product as promising a similar feeling. This method relies on the memory of the viewer. However, the Dos Equis campaign approaches the problem from an opposite angle in presenting the viewer with explicit memories not of their own to therefore internalize and create an emotional tie with. The sensations of amazement and empowerment that the viewer gets when watching the most interesting man in the world are firing synapses that will replicate when choosing to drink a Dos Equis later in time. Emotional associations are being made. In the commercials, the character always ends with the line, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” This ‘choice’ is also quite important to the associations being linked and the perception being formed. It insets in the mind that it is not the beer that makes this man the way he is (as so many other products try to imply), but and interesting man like this is making a choice to choose this product. It is the same choice our viewer will make, connecting the two people, as well as their memories and experiences.

Beyond these emotional ties and associations, the advertisers of the campaign utilize pattern in the formula of the commercials for mental organization. Diane Ackerman, author of An Alchemy of Mind (2004), expands specifically on this idea known as the rule of 3. We, as humans, organize our world into patterns so as to better comprehend incoming sensory information. Twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. Ackerman goes on to say that “we’re so in love with patterns that we obsessively create our own, often in threesomes, such as morning, noon, and night; Macbeth’s 3 weird sisters; the three wise men; ready, set, go; the genie’s granting three wishes; small, medium, and large; ABCs; Goldilocks and the three bears; the three little pigs, and so on. Three seems to be our pattern on choice,” and it is in sets of three that the gathered facts of legend are told about the most interesting man in the world. “We learn what repetitions to expect,” and advertisers feed this anticipated outset by presenting in trios that do not disrupt our pattern-expecting behavior.

The creators continue to follow through with our expectations in a cultural and historical manner as well. I don’t know who comes to your mind when you see the Dos Equis man, but Sean Connery is the first association I make to this mysterious character. A classy elderly man, always composed, while being slightly bad-ass with a taunting British accent. He always plays and exciting and adventurous character in his films, the first of which comes to mind is Entrapment. “A cross between Ernest Hemmingway, Bill Murray, Burt Reynolds, Royal Tenenbaum, and Don Draper, the most interesting man in the world barkens back to a mid-century concept of what a man’s man should be.” The commercials utilize our semantic memories of history and popular culture to deepen our associations and experience with Dos Equis. As synapse patterns fire in remembrance of something, that pattern strengthens to be more easily called again, as in practice makes perfect, and by bringing forward more and more associations, Dos Equis will be on a person’s mind more often with more links.

However, as with all advertisements, the creative directors research, strategize, and manipulate familiar situations of humor, empathy, and so on to reach their target audience in the best way they feel possible. Yet in most cases, the viewer doesn’t always believe what they are told in television commercials, and the world’s most interesting man doesn’t always drink beer either. So in the associated point of the Dos Equis commercial, if you are going to drink a beer and if you are going to believe in a televised message, it mind as well be Dos Equis.

Designing Perception

Yes, these are nude women with paint on them, but take a second to contemplate the actual process of painting such a scenery and appreciate the multiple planes being engaged to create such an illusion, especially with the woman and the book. From any different angle, these images would not register as a book or park bench, well maybe the bench. The lines we see crossing the body are in actuality going in all different direction and angles to come together to form what looks like a single line. This is a skill to be admired, for the prefabrication and planning it takes is not a skill many of us possess or can even imagine.

Perception has No Rules

"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly" - Dalai Lama

Traditionally, His Holiness is thought of as the latest reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others. However, some people are so enlightened that there are no rules. They transcend the conventions of reality, or our perception of reality.

Dr. Oliver Sacks, a British neurologists, wrote a short narrative study, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." It tells of Dr. P's story, a talented musician that progressively loses his ability to recognize faces and make certain visual associations, but instead uses sound and music to function through everyday tasks. For instance, he would recognize people by their voices but could not physically see them. He only saw pieces... a nose, ear, etc but could not mentally construct them as a face, nor recognize his own for that matter. When viewing some of Dr. P's artwork, Sacks realizes the progression from a naturalistic style to cubism and abstraction over time. Many would see this as a natural development in an artist. A development in which the artist expands their knowledge and skills, referring to the quote that now they understand shape and form to such and extent that they can break it. Yet, Dr. P is different. He actually views the world in a cubist and abstract way. There is no higher thinking to it. He simply sees shapes that the rest of us do not because of our automatic ability to associate and group things of understanding so the brain does not get overwhelmed with sensory information.

So the Dalai Lama may be bestowed with heightened knowledge of the world, but it does not apply everywhere. This is also why children and mental patients are able to create works of art worth notice and appreciation as well. As opposed to the studier as the Dalai Lama refers to, this category of artists simply hold a different perception of the world, and one they act on impulsively. The child does not go in with paint with the intention of living up to Rembrandt and Picasso. He just 'does.' And with that said, it makes you wonder if famous cubist and abstract artists, like Picasso, were indeed avid studiers or more simply mentally altered or 'ill' later in life.

Designing How We Learn

Technology is increasingly being used to shape the way we learn, from programs such as Baby Einstein (which is apparently bull#$*%) to Your Baby Can Read (which involves much more advanced brain development skills of which we do not know the consequences yet of screwing with for later in life of the child).

However, something that was mentioned to me was Spreeder, an online program for adults to develop their speed reading skills through identifying the shape of the word as opposed to having to sound it out or say it in one's head, which I do myself. It looks legit as well as promising, and even if it is not, you can still enter your own text into it and get some needed school reading out of the way regardless : )

It allows you to enter your own text, choose your words-per-minute as well as goals and so on. If anyone tries it out, let me know how it works for you.

www.spreeder.com

Snow Day for Pratt!!

It's amazing that I can find out about a snow day, not from looking outside the window or searching the radio and news stations in the morning, but from an instant text message directly from the schools database. Oh how technology has evolved to make our lives easier :)

Telling me where I can't live in a design friendly way :)

So I came across this interactive map, which I thought was well designed in a unique way to relay the demographics information of NYC. It breaks down the city into areas, such as Fort Greene, and basically shows in a colorful, simple, and aesthetically pleasing way as to how many New Yorkers are living in areas beyond their means. Yea, nice thought to have as I will be looking for an apartment in the city in the next few months.

Toy Design on Steroids!

I came across this some how doing research and was blown away by the technology and the detailed thought process that went into the creation of this 'toy.' I like the way in which the characters can leave the platform as well as interact with each other to the point of physical contact as seen with the bird and machine. The machine seems typical and mechanical in such technology, but the organic nature of the bird creature from film takes it to a whole new level. Very impressed and can't wait to see what else starts emerging in this line of design!

Information at your Finger tips

I ran across this video about a year ago and found it very interesting in the advancement of technology, which in time, can revolutionize the way we as consumers interact with our world. As well the field of advertisement and branding as we know it. This is truly global information at your finger tips! It brings a whole new meaning to the letter "i" than the iPhone.

"Banner Blindness" and perception

"Banner blindness is a fact. Similarly, there are now several experiments that confirm that banners still have a behavioral effect, and no experiments have concluded they do not."

iMedia Connection recently posted an article about the effect of banner ads on internet users. (http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/25737.asp). It's interesting because it's true! When on a website, I ignore the side ads and especially the top of the page as I am on a mission for the content in the middle that I have specifically searched out.

However, in this article, Franck Largeault claims through his research that there is still mental perception occurring. Sensation is the act of receiving, translating, and transmitting of raw sensory data, in this case the banner ad. Perception is the interpretation and organization of this sensory data. In Aldous Huxely's book, The Doors of Perception, describing his experience on mescaline, Huxely describes his deduction of a mental filter. When on mescaline, Huxely's filter is widened/removed, overwhelming him with sensory data that other wise would be unnoticed by the average state of mind. He goes beyond the contextual ideas of function to focus on form. When seeing banner ads, we are aware of their primary function and enable our representational skills of past memories and experiences to ignore them. We literally avoid looking at them, as the article reiterates.

In a high school psychology class I took, I remember watching a film about an experiment of tracking the eye's movement. In the experiment, when the person walked into the room, they picked out their friend in the crowd and directed their attention to that person. When asked what they observed in the room, they primarily said the people they personally knew and recognized. However, when reviewing the footage from the camera on the eye, which detected the instantaneous and invisible movements of the eye that are so quick that they are consciously unnoticed. In this viewpoint, the subject had also focused on the attractive girl in the back of the room along with many other details of his surrounds that asked about had no conscience recognition. The brain had gather all of this sensory data but only that data that the conscience felt relevant was processed. This plays into Largeault's experiment stating results that though we do not look directly at a banner ad or remember the content of it, the ad can still affect our recognition and association of the brand when seen else where, because we are still picking up on the visual sensory data of it.

As a consumer I hate banner ads, the distraction they impose, and the effort put into ignoring them. They bother me to do something that I frankly don't care about and in that I find annoying. Yet as a designer, I understand a new purpose for them that when designed correctly, my consumer side could also find to appreciate. I've always enjoyed ads that are visually appealing or enticing or that ad some comedic relief to the day, and I believe if banner ads where directed for this purpose, they would be more successful. Not directly through the click-through rate by which they are measured now, but overall brand recognition.

"Largeault's research suggests that the more visually simple the banner design is, the more effective it becomes.[...] You cannot convey any information with such a banner, but you can implant it in someone's memory." This should be the proper use of banner ads that all designers should take note of so that our consumer sides can exist with out disdain for one's self.

Yay blogging

Hi.

so who knew blogging had so much more to it than just your thoughts... there are layouts Too!

Yay for feeling like I'm back in middle school in the age of Myspace, with flowered backgrounds, sparkly pictures and whatever else kind of clutter one would find on the internet to add to their page and make it that much more cooler. As annoying as it was, I tried to stay away and for the most part have been successful.

I never much understood personal blogs cause honestly I don't care if a stranger is eating cereal or got a promotion and so on. I have however found myself often perusing through design blogs on layouts, photoshop techniques, up and coming technologies, programs, etc. So I figured if I'm going to do this, mine as well make it good looking.

Easier said then done. I figured out myspace quicker than this and that was at a pre-adolecent age with no trivial knowledge of the internet for the most part!

In looking for some pre-made templates (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/desk-mess-mirrored), which I still haven't been able to figure out how to upload, I came across this overly used design idea, but I found still some what cute. This finally brings me to my point of this post, that I found most interesting is the addition of the iPhone (old stylized paper and an iPhone. not a contradiction at all!).

I've STILL never used one! and I'm at that point that I'm feeling left behind. I remind myself of a grandparent who keeps saying they've gotten along fine so far without it, so why do they need it now kind of attitude. There is a Senior ComD course being taught at my college (Pratt) that is primarily based for the semester on creating ads and apps for the iPhone. I wouldn't even know where to begin!

This I noticed has been a big debate among creative professionals as to where the market of advertisement are going. I've had professors say print is dead, as well as the 30 second spot. Others who refute it and say there will always be a market for the 30 second spot cause that's where the most money goes to. Print isn't dead, but it's just not growing. Internet ads are annoying an most poorly done, but is a wide expanding market that will wipe out all others, and so on and so on! Frankly, it's confusing and quite exhausting.