Semiotics within Branding - OGD401

Today, I found an interesting presentation on the semiotics of branding, how colour, shape and form affects the consumers behaviour.

Using semiotics analysis to impact how consumers think about your brand from christinacrane

I found this was an insightful and simple look into semiotics I am required to understand. It has given me a good grasp of how a brand is communicated and how a human can respond with consumerist tendencies dependant on style, colour, typeface, shape, line etc...

4 Decades of Apple Marketing - OUGD401

To gain a greater knowledge of Apples history in the advertising game. I am going to take a look at past examples to give myself a good idea of where they are today, and how they got there in the first place, from focusing on the 'people' and not the business orientated industry which was lead by IBM in the late 70's/80's, and how this has effectively stayed the same to this day. In other words, doing what they do best within the branding, promotion and advertising of their products.


1970's

At the beginning, Apple were competing with the likes of giants like IBM, and the print ads above are representative of the design trends of the time, relying heavily on type and images that often 'set the scene'. This was considered to engage the consumer in such a manor that would apply to themselves, an 'average joe' being able to buy one of these computers and become more competent and organised in life. At the time this had a huge impact on consumer culture as it had never been done before, so it seemed quite foreign to any population. Making the ads seem as 'at home' as possible to reduce intimidation and increase the notion of ease of use.

1980's

The 80's was a rather skewed period for Apple. Steve Jobs was voted out of his own company and the impact on the company was huge, you can also see the impact from the print advertisements. Starting to focus more and more on the 'business' side of the company rather than the average consumer made Apple scream to other companies that became increasingly appealing through ease-of-use, the branding and promotion of said products is evidently a large part of reaching the consumerist target audience. They made it too complicated and hardware orientated which makes for a not-so consumer friendly product.


1990's

They realised were they went wrong, why the consumer wasn't responding in the way that they had originally hoped. So they began to focus more on software in the early 90's to compete with the likes of Microsoft Windows which was a much more familiar and user friendly operating system that consumers preferred because it was cheap and could be applied to any hardware they owned. Apple were busy creating industry standard applications you can use at home, which is still being done today, but in a much more successful and obvious way. As interest was still declining for Apple products, the consumer was responding in quite a negative way to the over complication of not just the branding, but the way they advertised the products to the consumers.


Time for the re-introduction of Steve Jobs, and it's quite evident just by looking at their marketing strategies and products which is where industrial designer Jonny Ive had a huge influence on the design of the products, this meant no beige colour, and incorporated curves and differentiated the products from the rest. This alone was enough to engage the consumer by focusing not just on the specifics, but the product itself and what it represents. The print ads from 1997 onwards represent this statement perfectly:

2000's

Apple's growth in the 2000's was huge, and is continuing to grow today with the largest acquisition of the mobile market for the last few years, overtaking the likes of android. The reasons of which can be reflected in the branding and advertising strategies used. As of today, the print ads shown below give an idea of how simple they are becoming, it's almost the ultimate form of minimalism, opening the imagination of the consumers, as technology is coming to a tipping point of not being so intimidating to the consumer anymore.

Present Day

The minimisation of such technical hardware lets the consumer focus on the usability of such products rather than Apple telling them what they can do with them, the consumer can decide for themselves. Which in my opinion is the most effective way of advertising a product, as this would have seemed intimidating a couple of decades ago, today it has been well received as sales will represent. 

Study Task 06 - How To Write Correctly - OUGD401

On the 22/07/15 whilst I was visiting Leeds, I took the opportunity to pop into the university library to look at some past dissertations of Graphic Design students to get a good perspective on their written form, such as grammar, punctuation, tone-of-voice, vocabulary and referencing.

I chose the following 3 pieces of text to study:

1.

2.

3.

This task has given me good insight on where I went wrong in my own writing. Giving points and not providing sufficient evidence to back them up. I have now get an idea of what I need to focus on changing for future essay's to strengthen my own academic writing.


1. "In what ways can user experience inform graphic interface design for online services?", firstly, I like how Ellen has began with a question in the title. I feel this gives the reader a brief outline of what the essay is answering, rather than having a very short answer as the title (Funnily enough, all 3 I have chosen use this exact element, a question for a title.). Her introduction is well scripted, she has thought hard about the things she will be mainly focusing on, and has given a brief description of some of the acronyms she will be using throughout the essay. I specifically like how she has engaged with the reader, meaning she has thought thoroughly about how she is communicating her message and what points she will be focusing on in each chapter. Continuing onto the 1st chapter, she starts off by using a short paragraph to emphasise the main focal points to ensure the reader knows what she will be talking about. This is always useful and will ensure your message is always fully understood. Overall, I like her style of writing and think she has hit the nail on the head on structure and I feel the essay makes great sense. The conclusion is pretty much the opposite polar end of the introduction and goes hand in hand. Almost as if the intro was written in past tense, focusing on what hypothesis were correct, which were wrong and if she eventually managed to catch the essence she was looking for throughout the essay. Which I think she has, this paper was an insightful and interesting read.

2. "How can advertisers influence emotional responses?" - A pretty broad title by the sounds of it. One thing I noticed however is how her title has no subject matter, who's emotional response is going to be triggered by these advertisers, the consumer? designers? But this is not derivative of the actual body, it is quickly made clear that Anna is focusing on consumer which is an important factor I feel she should have included in the title. The introduction tells the reader she will be focusing on the psychological aspect of consumers, how they respond to advertising techniques and the morality of manipulating the consumer mind. Moving swiftly onto the first chapter, she uses a rather long paragraph to introduce you to the 'responsibilities of the advertiser'. I feel the long passage is acceptable because she focuses on another author's research, this preps the reader and tells you what kind of things she'll be investigating and where the evidence is coming from to back it all up. I feel this writing is a little less focussed on design and more towards advertising which is slightly unusual but she makes it work through extensive research and evidence in her text. Anna's use of technical vocabulary throughout her essay proves an impressive feat I have yet to refine myself. Her conclusion solidifies this statement, by namely focussing on the author's she studies throughout the essay to affectively end the paper with statements earlier proven in the previous chapters.

3. "Is planned obsolescence an essential element of global capitalism" - Again, this is another focusing primarily on capitalism, which I have studied myself. This is a very difficult question to answer as it is very popular and there are many theories surrounding the area Bethany had chosen to focus on. Her introduction is almost a list of what her chapters will be focusing on, whilst I appreciate this straight forward approach, I am starting to see how your essay must be fully thought out before beginning to write the intro, as they have all pretty much looked as if they had written the introduction after they'd written the whole paper. Telling the reader what they are going t investigate and what topics within their question they will be striving to answer. Bethany provides an outstanding amount of referencing from a wide veriety of sources which I feel is extremely important as obsolescence relies heavily on statistics and data, which is clearly evidenced within her writing, she herself is not making the statements, she is gathering a healthy body of research to provide sufficient evidence that her question is indeed correct. I feel the conclusion is a little spoon fed, again she has used an almost list of chapters in each paragraph, for example "Chapter one showed...", "Chapter two showed..." and "Chapter three focused on...", which I don't think is necessary and the structure should explain this for you, instead of having to individually explain which chapter focussed on what.

The major thing I have taken from this exercise is that I failed to split things up into chapters, chop it all up and make it flow. I made the mistake of letting myself go off-topic and get in a bit of a tangent. Which I have now later learned from my mistakes and will ensure this doesn't happen again through proper preparation and a planned structure.

One huge asset I have gained from these dissertations is to answer the questions in the introduction, then conclude at the end by summarising each chapter and whether you were successful in your endeavours.

John Berger - Ways of Seeing - OUGD401

I have chosen to study John Berger as his television series, 'Ways of Seeing' covers many theories I need to make evident in my writing, such as the study of semiotics, and more broadly, the sociology of culture. 

This is hugely beneficial for me to fully understand what I'm talking about in my academic writing. I found the episodes extremely interesting, how us humans behave in our environment varies so much yet having reactions to certain elements of it exactly the same.

To understand how the world is interpreted is the ultimate weapon for designers. It enables us to become more connected with the consumers and how they behave. 

How Do Humans Respond To A Brand? - OUGD401

Branding strategies

In an article over at 'TechEBlog', they have an interesting post relating to products if you'd have "Ever looked at a bottle of Nutella or a package of Pringles and wonder what the packaging would look like if Apple had designed them?". They have included some great packaging re-designs to illustrate the statement:

Red Bull

Toffifee

And my personal favourite, Nutella

There are more available @ http://www.techeblog.com/elephant/photo.phtml?post_key=162255&photo_key=51526

This adds to my idea of established brands. If a brand is well-known, it gives you the freedom to be able to shave unnecessary visual aids, whilst still maintaining the brands recognition through repetition, thus effectively establishing itself with the consumer as it would have with its original more complicated branding.

I consider myself a modernist. So I'm all for only giving whats necessary for the consumer to establish the connection between a logo and a brand, which takes around 400 milliseconds (source: http://www.slideshare.net/brandstory/how-your-brain-sees-a-logo-design) During this time, a lot of things happen, you will first identify with the colour of the logo, you will then recognise the shape and form of the logo, this information is then stored in the visual cortex of the brain, where all logos you have identified with previously are stored. This means once you've seen a logo and associated it with a brand, when you see it again, the process is simplified, you will then begin to match visual patterns with previous experiences with the same pattern stored in your memory.

A test shown that logos can change behaviour - "When scientists showed an Apple logo (subliminally) to some students, and an IBM logo to others, the students that saw the Apple logo performed better on a creativity test.". With the test only being subliminal, it is amazing that because one logo looked different from another can trigger different emotions in us without even knowing about it.

This just goes to show, a brand as simple as Apple can cause so many complicated reactions such as the above. Impulse kicks in and the consumer will be more inclined to purchase from a company that has a brand which makes you feel positively.

Study Task 05 - Practice Based Research Workshop - OUGD401

This session was for a greater exploration of the techniques, process and essentially the journey needed to make a successful argument. 

To fully understand your hypothesis and what you are trying to communicate, you must first decode you're chosen area of research and identify ways in which they are executed in order to make full sense of what you are communicating/designing.

Technique, Content and Communication.
As technology is the widely regarded as the pinnacle of consumerist behaviour, looking into how the products are branded, advertised and perceived in order to create such a movement in today's society will give me a healthy insight on how to execute my practical work. Using Apple as a main focal point, with their increasingly minimal and simplistic strategy, which uses the product from an industrial design standpoint to create desire and want for the product in question. Take the newly released Apple Watch for example, it uses a rather cleverly thought strategy which takes advantage of status and wealth by having a 'base' model for under £400 and another using materials such as gold with a price tag of over £10000 with the exact same internals. In other words, letting the 'product speak for itself' which is closely reflected in the advertising of the said product, which will be documented in a later post.

Research, Analysis, Exploration, Evaluation and Testing
As previously stated, researching into past and present design strategies within technology and how they have evolved will give me a good idea of how to best illustrate my chosen hypothesis. Explore the different theories of which design is interacting with the consumer and the behaviour in which it provokes. Well proven ideas such as semiotics and the less known psychological theories of graphic design. By not just limiting myself to one design strategy, it would be useful for me to look at as many companies as i possibly can and compare how they choose to represent their brand. Throughout my own design process, my practical work will be presented in a critique in order to gather relevant information on what I could improve, change and maintain the same. All of these processes will help me gain a better understanding of how technology is branded and why it is branded in such a way to attract all kinds of demographics.

Proposal
My practical body of work will be heavily based around the Apple Watch and what it represents. The question I will be answering through my design is, 'How does a brand effect the choices of a consumerist society?'. By analysing current strategies used by apple will give me a good grasp of how they want their products to be portrayed, and what it is that makes people want to purchase something they desire, through almost manipulation of the consumer purely by the branding and advertising strategies Apple uses. By using strong links to my written work I will use my findings from within the essay to continuously back up my practical work, not letting it better too much from the original hypothesis will allow me to look more in-dpeth of the problems that arose within my text.

Essay Development Task - OUGD401

To develop our possible talking points, I had made a mind map on what I found might be possible routes I could take within consumerism.

Mainly focusing on technology and the semiotics of tech branding in the history and how it compares to todays marketing strategies.

How does it effect consumer behaviour? Does it have a positive or negative effect on our day-to-day lifestyles? These are just some of the questions I need to consider which I extracted from this task. It helped me get a grasp of how to incorporate more than just the main hypothesis to solidify and back up my existing subjects.

Study Task 04 - Structuring Your Essay - OUGD401

During this session, we looked at how to correctly lay out your academic writing.

This was extremely valuable to me as I often tend to go off on a tangent on a certain subject within my essay writing and lose sight of my hypothesis and what I'm really trying to answer.

Resource:

This was provided to help us get a grasp of how we should structure and essentially organise our text. The reader must be able to flow through the writing and be able to consistently understand how a point contributes to proving your hypothesis.

Introduction

Briefly introduce my topic and my hypothesis. What theories am I going to be associating in the text? And more importantly focus on the question at heart, which is 

Paragraph 1

Semiotics in technology branding and advertising. Explain how it impacts the world around us and the attitudes of those who endorse it. Look at theories and use citations to briefly solidify my understanding of the concept.

Paragraph 2

Technology in the past. 70's/80's were exciting times for computing, why and who were they made for? Focus on advertising as companies like Microsoft and Apple focused on this to translate the product, branding was not such a big aspect of technology at this point.

Paragraph 3

The evolution and how fats paced the 90's/00's progressed in terms of branding design and how products were communicated to specific audiences. 

Paragraph 4

Focus on very recent technology and how brands are perceived as today (As an extension of man). The competitiveness of simply having a successful brand can give a product the edge in todays market. Touch on the controversial Apple Watch range and what they represent.

Conclusion

Finish with explaining how in such an image conscious society, and how us as humans become more and more obsessed with owning the latest and most expensive of mobiles, laptops and tablets. How branding is becoming increasingly minimal and how it will effect the future of the industries branding strategies.

Study Task 03 - Summarising and Referencing - OUGD401

There are many forms of referencing such as Chicago, MLA and APA, but this study task is solely based on the Leeds College of Art referencing system; Harvard.

Referencing is the easiest and most basic way of citing sources within your academic writing without having to type the whole source within the body, instead, you would use a bibliography at the very end of the essay. A bibliography lists all of the sources you have used in your research, this allows a smoother reading experience reducing the need to keep tracking to the next line of text.

Summarising is when you give your reader a condensed version of key points made by an author. This is the preferred method of citing points you wish to make within your writing, this is because it is easier to translate the point you're making and the reader will understand it more clearly than if you were to just copy a reference word for word. However, when applicable, it can be more effective to use traditional referencing rather than paraphrasing, it is up to the interpretation of the writer.

During this session we set out to find books in the college library that would best help us in the process of backing up statements made during the writing process. To do this, you need a solidified and grounded hypothesis of what you set out to research.


Hypothesis.
To investigate and identify the uses of visual semiotics within advertising, how it impacts designers and how they choose to represent technology in various consumer markets.

Books I had found that could be useful.

Wally Ollins On Brand

How Cool Brands Stay Hot

'How cool brands stay hot' makes excellent points on age difference and how technology is  impacting the current generation of users and the previous generation, they refer to these generations as X and Y, Y would be in regards to myself (19~ years old) and X being my parents (40+ years).

This could be useful in many ways as I could use it to pursue points of attitudes towards certain brands and how it is represented and perceived within different age groups. Are they branded to a younger audience? Could this be received as intimidation to the Gen X'ers? 

'Wally Ollins On Brand' seemed like a good go-to for how tech has been represented in the past all the way up to today. I want to focus slightly on how tech was branded as being for business, big calculators for people in offices. Ollins makes some great points on the current branding strategies; “In a visually sophisticated age (present day), with competition increasing exponentially and products/services becoming increasingly similar, design remains the great differentiator. Design always has been an immensely influential power in creating differentiation and it always will be.”

I realise that by choosing to study consumerism, and having a hypothesis such as this, I have not made it easy for myself. There are so many variables I could look into, with part of it being semiotics, branding and advertising it's going to be difficult to cram it in at 3000 words.