Semiotic analysis of the new Pepsi can

So I’ve been drinking a lot of caffeine laden beverages this week, and looking at the Pepsi can on my desk I just noticed that it has a new logo and design which is quite different from the old ones.  I will present a quick semiotic analysis of this.

New design:

Old design:

last years can designs

What is interesting is that the format: the formal layout right away struck me as being very “web 2.0.” The design is very minimalist with no excessive clutter or visual distractions. The background has a single color gradient, and when placed on a desk the shadows reflecting off the can seems to give this single color a two tone color gradient, that is reminiscent of the drop shadows/reflections that was a brief design fad of web 2.0 logos (take a look at iTunes coverflow for an example). The use of a non-serif text and all lowercase also has been a frequent design choice in web 2.0 sites. The logo itself has also been reduced, containing no textual information. The color and stripes in the Pepsi logo of course denotate the United States, which connotates patriotism and allegiance. This also makes a good example of how branding tries to rearrange signs, in this case trying to associate love and loyalty to a brand and product as opposed to a country.

The Pepsi logo also strongly reminds me of the Obama logo, which tries to connotate modernity, change, and patriotism.

Obama campaign logo

So taken together this is a set of codes that signify the modern and cutting edge. Of course the goal of branding is to transfer these connotative attributes to you as the consumer of the product. The outcome of this phatic relationship is that by drinking Pepsi you are also modern, networked, and social. Which is consistent with past branding strategies (“Pepsi the taste of a new generation”).

Final Exam Due Date?

Dec 17, 2008 2:30 pm  (as on Oncourse)

OR

Dec 18th, 2008 2:30 pm (as told by Jeff in the class)

I am confused .. along with a few others…

Bluetooth to combat drink-driving (British Police)

Bluetooth to combat drink-driving (British Police)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7773424.stm

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/12/10/exclusive-safety-fears-as-police-text-motorists-about-drink-driving-86908-20959405/

I thought this is very interesting for the police to use the current technology and wanted to share this.
Basically, the police carrying a device and near the pubs or clubs, they send messages to the Bluetooth enabled cell phones. In this way, they say they can discourage the drunk driving.
I thought this is a clever way to prevent car accidents caused by the drunk driving. However, the counter argument was that it can increase accidents. The argument is.. if the drivers receive messages while driving, the messages can distract driving, leading to more accidents.
Interesting use of the current technology~!

Interactive water board

Check out this really inspiring video of an interactive design concept called “The WaterBoard”. An amazing example of designing for experience.

 It is an interactive board on which the users can manipulate the flow of water. The users can use a whiteboard pen to create lines, obstacles and objects in the path of water, and the water changes its path accordingly. Use a whiteboard eraser and water adjusts accordingly. It responds not only to whiteboard marker & eraser, but to human touch as well. And not just touch of hand, but the whole human body! The most fun part is seeing the plants and the lifeforms grow in water. It also gives a temporal quality of water. After a certain period, the stagnant water becomes stale, develops a greenish goo and little insects start circling above it.

It was truly an enjoyable experience for me, just watching this video. Cant believe how pleasurable it would be to interact directly with it. You dont believe my words…….check out the video for yourself

How remediation works very well in Star Wars…

When I was taking one of the Social Informatics class last semester, we had a discussion on Remediation. In class, the movies, Star Wars and Matrix were largely discussed. Here is one of the remediation examples.

When I was watching a YouTube video again last week, I thought about the remediation and about how it could work well in terms of interaction culture.
Even though, as in the video above, Lego is not actual part of the movie, Lego was used to recreate Star Wars character. When the video started, the very famaliar music from Star Wars played. Even without watching the video and the characters in the video, a lot of people can figure out that it is a music from the movie, Star Wars. Then, if they see the characters in this YouTube video, they can understand somebody recreated Star Wars in a funny way. Anyone who knows about Star Wars can understand what the signifiers and the signifieds are in this video.

Here is another video… haha… I just wanted share this video because everybody is getting stressed because of the finals. Just for some laughs..

The Game Pad Design and Book Holding

When we look into the design of these portable video game consoles, we can easily identify their similarities. Take the most two popular at present handheld game consoles – Nintendo DS Lite and Sony PSP for example. They both constructed in a brick-like shape, with LCD screen in the middle, direction keys (D-pad) on the left and other buttons on the right. They also have two shoulder buttons on the top of the console. Why they both look like this? It has to be the reason of the first modern game-pad – the controller of Nintendo’s Famicom. If we take a look at the Famicom’s controller, we can see there are the cross-shaped D-Pad on the left and the ‘B’, ‘A’ button on the right side.

Famicom controllers

Sony PSP-1000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The layout design of such game-pad was possibly come with the experience of the way a person holds and reads a book. Book is a kind of traditional things people will carry around and read. When people read books, they will open the book with both hands and give pressure on both thumbs to against the force from the spine of the book. In the meanwhile they will also use their other 8 fingers to support the book against the gravity. In a game pad, you will use you’re your thumbs to press the D-pad and buttons, and use other fingers to hold the pad. The thumb is giving pressure to the pad and the other fingers are fighting with the gravity from the weight of the pad.

How about shoulder keys? When you read a book, sometime you will insert your forefingers in between previous pages to “mark” that particular page so that you can go back and forth anytime without remembering the pervious page number. That is also very similar to what you will do when you use the forefingers to hit the shoulder keys in a game controller.

The text of the book is in-between your two thumbs while you are holding your book and reading. Same thing happens while you are holding a modern handheld portable game console. You see contents through the LCD screen in the middle of your two thumbs.

To sum up, the interaction of a Game pad has a lot of similarities with the interaction of a traditional paper book. It is highly possible that the idea of the game pad layout design was come from the experience of a person reading a book.

Plea to Jeff…

Is there the slightest possibility of final paper deadline (safe) extension to Monday 15th?

Would any of you like to request an extension of final class paper to 15th Dec, Monday?

Tiny Phenomological Analysis of “Elf”

I was watching “Elf” and noticed something I have never noticed before.  (Thanks Jeff for making me deconstruct everything.)  So here’s a shot at a teeny piece of analysis:

The main father character (Walter, played by James Caan) is supposed to elicit a feeling of growth.

There are 2 scenes in Elf that work in parallel: the board room scenes.  In the first scene, Walter is trying to convince 4′5″ Miles Finch, who is alone, to work for him.  While this is happening, his elf son Buddy (Will Ferrell) comes in and aggravates Finch.  The scene goes out of control and Walter banishes Buddy from his life.

In the second board room scene, Walter is talking to his boss Fulton (played by a heafty 5′7″ Michael Lerner) and Fulton’s entourage and trying to pitch a story to him.  During this scene, Walter’s second son Michael comes in saying Buddy has run away.  This time, Walter does the right thing and goes to find Buddy, even though he is getting fired.

First, we see a contrast in the size of Walter’s adversary, first a little person (Finch), then a large man (Fulton).  Finch is someone Walter is trying to hire where as Fulton is Walter’s boss.  In this, Walter starts off not being able to stand up for his new son against someone small, but then grows to stand up agaisnt someone large in stature and in position.  Second, we see that Walter goes from not being able to stand up for one of his sons to being able to stand up for both of his sons.

In these two things we get a sense of growth and an overcoming of bigger challenges.

Rants about a new camera

The video is an enactment by a troupe for the recently launched Nikon D3x, which horrifyingly is priced at a whooping USD 8,000 !!!

While I loved the video, the enactment, I also looked into the connotative meanings that I was getting out of the video. What was also interesting is the curiosity, whether the speech (I do not understand any German) actually corresponds to the texts that is written in the sub-title.

This could be a clip from an old Hitler Movie, or enacted directly with the script for this camera release.

The harsh criticism is so evident from the piece that it makes you hate the camera company for an instance.

In the last act, where he surrenders his NPS membership, it makes all of those relying and swearing by Nikon feel the same.

It looks like as if its the end of the road for numerous Nikon fans. This is also signified from the mass exodus of the people from his office when he asks all those who had pre-ordered the camera to leave his office.

Within this act he also takes a shot at he current economy and the state of the current surviving cameras. His dialogue on “No need to change systems” is so suportive of the loyalty with the Brand. Having that loyalty with a person of this stature meant a lot. So when the person gets furious, it is a harbinger to the times to come in reality. In the photographic fraternity, some critics mention that perhaps the D3X would go down in history as Nikon’s biggest failure.
With the change in the tone of the protagonist, after knowing that Nikon has announced a camera that is just double the megapixles and way exorbitantly priced, it appears as if the act is postmodern. The whole sequence of shot here signifying that the public is not to be taken for granted and Nikon cannot do such a thing based on loyalty and the support it has enjoyed from its supporters so far.

I think this clip is a great example to understanding of almost all that we have learnt in this class this semester.

Question for Jeff, would this be an example of remediation?

EndNote ACM style file offer

I have an EndNote style file for ACM reference format (which I very gratefully received from someone else who was nice enough to pass it on) that I have found to be very useful. EndNote allows you to pull your citations in directly from Word, and the BEST part is that it will automatically take care of  all the numbering involved in the CHI format for you!

It appears that I can’t post the file here on the blog, but I would be happy to pass it on to anyone who is interested. So if you are, email me (hwiltse@indiana.edu)! =)