Product and corporate branding through images

STOP

The ubiquitous stop sign.

The real stop sign?

The octagon shaped stop sign is one of the most widely recognized signs in the world. But if you’ve never seen a stop sign before and don’t understand the language written on it, there is nothing about the sign that tells you to stop. Stopping is a very fundamental sign for all people, so why isn't the universal symbol for stopping something that we can relate to, such an opened hand in your way? The communication of ideas, messages and complex concepts has always been a challenge for people, especially when dealing with different languages and different ways of looking at the world. There are some universal symbols and images that convey a lot of information which  connect with people quicker and in a more meaningful way. Therefore in this blog I will briefly cover how we instinctively use signs and pictures to communicate information and how this could help companies better brand themselves.

Back to Basics

People are very visual and since the earliest recorded information (art) on cave walls, on bits of wood and bone, people have tried to convey as much information as possible using the limited media that was available. Some of the earliest writing in the world took the form of pictograms where a drawing of an object was used to represent an idea to convey meaning. One of the earliest forms of writing is from the Sumerian civilization (Early Bronze Age era circa. 3000 Before Common Era (BCE)) located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq.

Early Sumerian writing

This form of what we would classify as writing, called Sumerian cuneiform, was made up of a series of symbols that represented items of everyday commerce, developed for book keeping and accounting. Symbols such as grain, cattle, goats, hides and slaves then later on the location of these important commodities were also included into this system, such as rivers, mountains, sea etc… This wasn’t the only vocabulary in the ancient Sumerian language but these were the most important signs for everyday commerce that needed to be recorded and tracked.

Sumerian writing used over 3000 years

For example, the symbol for god or heaven was a star, the symbol for man was the bust of a man, the symbol for food was a bowl and the symbol to eat was the symbol for man and a bowl together. The ancient Sumerian language is a great example of how simple drawings developed into abstract writing symbols. The simplicity of this system over the course of 3000 years eventually spread throughout the Middle East and became a common writing system for many cultures just as Latin did in Europe.

Branding a Message on Wall Art

Another example using images to convey information is in the spatial relationship and size differentiation between images. The ancient town of Çatal Hüyük (pronounced Chatal Houyouk) (Neolithic era circa. 6000 BCE) in modern day Turkey has some very interesting wall paintings that convey clear messages based on the size of images and the relationship between images.

Bull hunt at Çatal Hüyük 

The famous ‘bull hunt’ wall art scene, shows many men surrounding a bull and they are much smaller than the bull which is almost 40% of the entire image. The bull in ancient Middle Eastern cultures was a symbol of power, virility and strength. Therefore the enormous size of the bull represents the overwhelming strength and power the bull has over the much smaller figures. Of the many figures surrounding the bull, none are touching it except for one sole figure on top. Standing right on the back of the bull there is a figure of a man and this conveys the message of dominance and power over the bull, which in turn elevates the power or influence that man has over the other men in the scene. This might look to us as simple and cartoon like but there are may complex messages relating to power, influence and control wrapped up in this one image.

This type of messaging through art has been used all through history until the late middle ages in Europe less than 500 years ago. Here is one example using the Last Supper where Christ is in the centre of the image and all the figures are all looking at him. Christ is almost three times as large as the other figures and covers the scene from edge to edge and top to bottom.  

The message here is the importance of Christ,
figuratively and literally  

Again the artist’s message is to convey the power, dominance and importance of Christ over his apostles. This type of art changed with the invention of perspective drawing in the 16th century CE (Common Era) which changed the way we represent the world through drawings. Moving from an emphasis of size and position to perspective drawing which relies more on the rules of optics and mathematics, changed the way we represent the world from a symbolic to a more literal way.

  

American Dominance?

These concepts in art are not only relegated to the past. Many years ago I was given a lapel pin in the shape of a rectangle with the American and Canadian flags joined one on top the other. One thing that struck me was that the American flag was on above the Canadian flag. I found this odd, thinking of the actual geographical positioning of the two countries where Canada is north of the United States of America.  

Equal Partners?

The message the distributors of this pin were trying to make was to show the superiority and dominance of the USA over Canada. I've included a similar example of the the original lapel pin in the form of a flag and another lapel pin where the countries are positioned side by side. Do both of these two images convey the same meaning?  I think not.

Semiotics

These are examples of how to interpret signs and symbols which falls under the study of Semiotics,which  includes road signs, pub signs, logos, alphabets, drawings, paintings and photographs. There is some debate among professional as to how all these “visual signs” fall under the umbrella of Semiotics. Given such a broad definition, the main point I suggest the reader takes from this definition is how important visual signs are to human communication. A helpful quote from Daniel Chandler’s online resource on Semiotics is as follows: “Semiotics represents a range of studies in art, literature, anthropology and the mass media rather than an independent academic discipline.”. I like this quote since it encompasses not only a wide range of subjects but it is directly applicable to market research and how marketers should apply the theory of semiotics when designing logos and visual advertisement.

Even with our current abstract alphabet system we are hard wired to respond to these ancient messaging systems described above. The reason we still respond to these older forms of conveying and receiving information because they still work. The point of this blog is to inspire some creative ideas for companies in the designing of logos and images to help their branding strategy. When you only have a split second to get your message across I think the best way to do it is not with the same company name styled logos that we see every day, but a logo or image that not only identifies the company but says something about what the company does or their corporate message.

The Rise of Emoticons, or, the Return of the Ancient Messaging System

How are you feeling?

Even though cell phones have become one of the most widely used communication tools in the world, the use of text based communication through phone text and emails is very popular. One would think oral communication would be far simpler and more effective than text based? We are more text based than ever before, yet we send billions of text messages, tweets and emails (each) every day.


I consider the simple design and use of emoticons to be very similar to ancient Sumerian writing. Neither are complete communication systems, yet each use simple yet effective images and this is a powerful addition to text based communications. The increased use of emoticons in daily texts and emails is a throw back to using simple images to convey a lot of information. You can’t say everything you need to with emoticons but you can convey information, ideas, and in this case emotions. 

Which of these logos describe what the company does?

Modern Logos
Take a look at the logos of some of the most popular brands and companies today what do you have? The logos are abstract and most are based on the name of companies rather than what they do. You could easily argue that companies do far too much to be represented by a single image, but the essence of what a company does can be summed up by an image, if the image is designed correctly.

Common logos today such as the one for Apple don’t really convey much meaning when taken out of context. The Apple logo pays homage to the epiphany of Sir Isaac Newton and the story of the apple falling on his head which lead to his theories on gravity. But the context of that story is needed, to understand what the apple represents. In and of itself, a partially eaten piece of fruit does not convey anything about the company Apple.

Take a look at my example of how to make a statement about Apple from the image below, a simple image of the Apple logo representing the Earth demonstrating Apple’s dominance of the Earth.

Apple is king of the world...

This example only conveys the power and importance of Apple and not what it does. Taking my example a little further, here is Google superimposed over and around the ‘Earth-Apple’ logo. Does this take the meaning even further, that Google is ever more powerful and dominating that Apple? The point here is that as people we still see the world in very simple and basic ways and regardless of language or age, we do respond to simple images that convey lots of meaning and by tapping into our natural tendencies, companies can deliver their message more effectively.

...but Google is king of the universe.