Midweek thoughts on English society and culture
The Autumn colours are nice and make photographs more interesting, but it gets dark early in the afternoon. In summer I go out at two o’clock on a Sunday to take photos. This week I was ready to come home by two thirty having rushed to take some photos before the light changed. The weather is changeable, it’s either dark and cloudy or bright and sunny, but very cold.
13, November 2013 | Categories: culture, philosophy, Ramblings, writing | Tags: British culture, British society, England, happiness, Iconic, Iphone, Starbucks, Victorian buildings | 1 Comment
The Year of the Ox!
The Year of the Ox
1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009
People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric; but make very good friends. They are suited to all kinds of pursuits from the technical to the creative. They are easy going but quite stubborn. They speak little but when they do speak they are eloquent and speak after giving the subject a lot of thought. The Ox may be stubborn but can always be relied on to carry a heavy burden. (more…)
5, April 2011 | Categories: Astrology, NeoDigital Art, Ramblings | Tags: Chinese, Great Expectations, Humour, Iconic, Neodigital Art is social and open to everyone, Photography and Neodigital Art | 1 Comment
Spooky!
Spooky!
Horoscope Aquarius
Sunday 03 April
Keep a pen and notepad handy, and a camera and your mobile. Today is all about thinking and having the most brilliant ideas you have ever had. Make sure you write them down, photograph them, talk them into a recording device and keep them to hand. Your mind is really operating at the very top of its gearing, and this can see you quick-witted too.
Isn’t that spooky! I had just finished writing some notes in a notepad and I checked my email and got this horoscope. I am planning to go out this afternoon to take photographs for my Neodigital Art blogs and so I checked my mobile (cell phone) was fully charged. Actually it rang, it was still on GMT and the alarm went off; that is my emergency alarm in case I sleep through the clock. It went off a hour late because I hadn’t altered it to dreamless time. I feel constantly tired since altering the clocks an hour; I wish the dreamless ones would leave them alone. You cannot save daylight! I say it every year, twice a year; it makes no difference. (more…)
3, April 2011 | Categories: NeoDigital Art, social networking, Uncategorized | Tags: camera, Humour, Iconic, neodigital, Neodigital Art is social and open to everyone, Photography and Neodigital Art | 1 Comment
My Exhibition
Victorian Art Gallery
If you have been following my Neodigital Art blogs, you will know that it is an art form based on photography and the finished images can be printed out for an exhibition or they can be uploaded to a server to be viewed online. When I thought about an exhibition, I thought about my local art gallery. It’s a traditional Victorian building and has the grandeur that the Victorians were so fond of creating. (more…)
31, March 2011 | Categories: NeoDigital Art | Tags: April Fool, Art Gallery, David Cameron, Dreamless, Humour, Iconic, neodigital, Neodigital Art is social and open to everyone, park, Photography and Neodigital Art, The public | 6 Comments
Iconic Branding…
Iconic Branding
I wrote this blog as a guest blog and posted it on http://www.Sharisax.com and I liked it and so I have posted it on my own blog. It is meant to be funny…
Chinese students
My Chinese students haven’t been getting on well for a while; one insulted the other yesterday. Insults are serious stuff in China and can get you murdered in your bed for insulting someone. Honourable student number One works hard and didn’t take the insult well. I helped Honourable student number Two who hasn’t been working hard enough and has been playing computer games instead of doing assignments. I rewrote her assignment for her and that took a while; I left the Harvard referencing to her and the bibliography too. I can’t do everything; my grapes needed harvesting in Farmville. I had an email from Honourable student number Two saying she is unhappy and intends to work hard and be more like hard working Honourable student number One. I may have eased tensions for a while.
Branding and Iconic branding
There are lots of brands and many of them successful, but what makes them iconic? They are sort of pervasive. Iconic brands like Google and Coca Cola use all means possible to promote the name and the brand. Mc Donald’s is considered by many to be iconic; Facebook certainly is. Coca Cola benefitted from their bottle being used as a subject for ‘pop’ art by Andy Warhol. Iconic brands have a symbol, even the blue F that represents Facebook is displayed in the tab of a browser as a favicon. Facebook has a favicon, a blue F; LinkedIn has a favicon, a blue In; I have a favicon, a small pirate ship; now Shari wants a favicon! I think perhaps attention to detail is important in creating iconic brands. The names are important. They are often quite silly when they start out; but unique. We have names like Yahoo, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Mc Donald’s, Burger King and so on. They all have visual images to represent them, even if at times they can be tiny.
Jesus Christ is the most iconic person and the symbol of the cross is the most widely accepted; it’s still going after 2,000 years. That is typical iconic branding. Jesus offered unconditional love, a basic need. Some companies offer social interaction, some drinks, (water is basic) others are a representation of another basic need; food. To take your brand or idea to iconic level, look at primitive and basic needs. Sex works well of course and is used to sell. I tried to think of an iconic brand based on sex; maybe Victoria’s Secret? No; a brand, but not iconic…
Sex in advertising does appear to over shadow the product and I can’t find an iconic brand that uses sex! I must invent one and make a billion pounds. I found this quote while doing a little research:
‘In the animal kingdom, the massive size and impressive quality of a peacock’s tail is used to signal to females the size of handicap that a male can endure while also meeting his basic needs. This is known as the handicap principle.
In humans, the tendency to show off how much we can afford to waste has resulted in gamblers risking the loss of a million dollars on the turn of the card, kings building palaces with hundreds of rooms, and rappers covering themselves in gold and silver as part of “bling” culture.’
That explains why Rolex, Cartier and Gucci are iconic brands; they are ‘bling’ and the human equivalent of a sexually attractive peacock’s tail. I thought that being a writer attracted the opposite sex, but apparently it is not that. It is commitment and enjoyment that is attractive. If you are committed to writing or anything else creative to the point of obsession; like me, the opposite sex finds this attractive. You can commit to anything creative, photography, art, writing or even a commitment to something like pop culture or even Harley Davidson’s can be a turn on. I could get a Harley and take hot babes for rides on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe not; I have been through my biker phase once. I do need an iconic brand to promote with a new Facebook page. I think the Pesky Punctuation Page was a good idea, but not iconic. A Dead Writer’s Society would be more iconic because it’s a bit; spooky.
I never wear jewellery, I’m blingless. I do wear a watch, its a few year old and needs a new strap. I can’t find anywhere that sells the straps I like! I’ll have a lot of straps specially made when I’m really wealthy. I may join that group of people that have promised to give away half of their wealth by the time they are 65 years old. The guy that runs Facebook is the latest to sign up. Do I want to belong to a group that has nerds in it like Bill Gates? Maybe not… I wanted to be a philanthropist at an early age. I became fascinated with the idea after reading Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. If I had a billion pounds, I could do rather a lot. What would you do? That is a good subject for a blog. What I would do if I was a billionaire…
I could make that the subject of my next blog…
10, December 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Bill Gates, billionaire, branding, Facebook, Great Expectations, Humour, Iconic, Mc Donalds, Philanthropist | Leave a comment