MTD1 week 3Communications theory

typographyDesign principles

Sender – message - receiver

Sender – message - receiverReal sender

Sender – message - receiver

Sender – message - receiver

Dove – love yourself – womenbrand

Unilevermanufacturer

Axe – attract women – menbrand

Sender – message - receiver

Unilevermanufacturer

Lever Bros.Margarine UnieBrooke BondRaguPond’sAqua-NetCutex Nail PolishVaselineCalvin Klein CosmeticsFabergeSuaveFinesseDegree deodorantBest FoodsBen & Jerry’sSlim FastLiptonDove Axe

Whatever you want to hear

consumer

Typography: another way to send messages

calligraphy

1847

1948

1851

mid 1920’s

mid 1920’s

Art deco – originated in 20’s, connoted elegance, glamour, functionality and modernity

Chrysler Building, 1928-30

Perception: (Zettl)The eye is drawn by composition.Vectors, Lines, Weights of Image.Orientation.

Perception: (Zettl)Horizontal/VerticalAlso Known as Landscape/Portrait.Portrait more dynamic, Horiz more tranquil.Why the screeen, iPad, Kindle orientations? How does this affect how they are read?

Perception: (Zettl)Figure/Ground

ApplicationsGaze Tracking Heatmaps – websitehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Pcp3iyuwkGraffiti Research Labs EyeWriterhttp://www.eyewriter.org/

Perception: (Zettl)Gestalt

Compositional ideas

• Aspect ratio• Establishing (wide) shot• MS, CU, ECU• Stable/unstable (tilt, cant)• Pull of frame edges• Direction of gaze (nose room)• Direction of motion (continuous or colliding)

Aspect ratio

Establishing shot

MS medium shot, CU close up

Stable Unstable

Pull of frame edges

Direction of gaze

Direction of motion

Mythologies -

Barthes

One thing the process of mythologizing does … is take phenomena that are cultural and historical and suggest they are natural

Critique of the language of mass culture

The images, events, and activities that surround us express an ideology (ies) – they are sign systems

“Collective representations” – film, television shows, objects, cultural practices, and the like, are sign-systems and therefore good subjects for semiological analysis. What semiology does is allow him to make detailed analyses of the process of mystification, of myth-making, that goes on, he argues, in bourgeois (capitalist) societies.

Wrestling: ancient sport or modern spectacle?

Metaphors

In groups of 3Find a media object – image or short video (less than 2 min.) that reflects or defines an American myth. (what myths come to mind? Success – what defines it“typical” nuclear family constitutes happinessthe frontierwe are what we: eat, drink, wear, drive, smoke …) and prepare a short summary of your discussion about it – why you chose it, what makes it successful, how one or more compositional elements affect our understanding of the image(s), what the essence of the myth is …