2016-09-15

模倣子 Some Thoughts on Branding

Displaying frap.jpg

It's a Frap!

So we see the progression from the name, to the prominent name around the image as the logo, to just the image, larger and larger. The image alone becomes the icon, and then it can be placed on things like clothing, toys for children who don't drink coffee, etc. and it makes sense, it works, because all literal references have been erased, even to the point that the image itself has become so abstracted that the original meaning of not only a mermaid, but a two-tailed (two-legged, with legs wide apart) "siren" who seduces and kills men is lost, replaced by a vague, brand-differentiated "special" mermaid, with only positive, if ill-defined, qualities, but most of all of the cultural "force" of the original.
The use of acronyms, such as IBM, FBI, IRS, KGB, GOP and so on serves a similar purpose. The letters are still there, but their meaning has long since been lost, for the most part, most people don't know what they even mean, and so they become mere placeholders for an abstract idea, the reality of which is free to vary and "float" from one individual mind to the next, giving it significantly more power.


Memetic Index

No comments:

Post a Comment