Semiotics

Fig 1: Powers Whiskey – It’s Ours

The above advertisement is one of a range of print advertisements created to promote Powers Whiskey. The advertisement contains the tagline “Wrap up with the original winter warmer” followed by the line “It’s ours” beside an image of Powers Whiskey. The main image shows two hands clasping a pint glass. The glass contains a reflection of a landscape scene.

There are many denotations within this advertisement. These include the lines of yellow text in varying sizes, hands, a glass, a landscape scene, a bottle of Powers and the drink aware warning. The ad can be broken into three sections. The text at the top aligned diagonally, the main image of the hands gripping the glass and the tagline “It’s ours” located beside the product.

Firstly we will analyse the main image. As previously mentioned it shows two hands clasping a glass containing a yellow/ gold liquid. Reflected in the glass is a landscape scene at what appears to be sunset. There are two apparent indexical signs within this image. The first is the steam rising from the top of the glass whereas the second is the glowing light around the fingers. Both of these indicate that the glass or the liquid inside it is warm. This is backed up by the colour of the liquid within the glass. The yellow/ gold colouring could indicate warmth as well as mirror the colouring of the whiskey bottle in the bottom right corner. This colouring could also indicate the flavouring of the whiskey with the liquid resembling honey. The glass itself appears to be glowing giving the impression of candlelight reinforcing the impression of heat. Furthermore the colouring of the liquid coupled with the image could indicate a warm day. The person is not holding the glass but rather gripping it with both hands. The paradigmatic relationship between the glass and the positing of the hands indicate that the person may be seeking warmth or comfort.

The tagline “Wrap up with the original winter warmer” is coloured in yellow complimenting the main image. The text is positioned diagonally across the top of the ad drawing the eye towards the main image. The words “Wrap up”, “Original” and “Warmer” are larger than the rest of the text. This indicates that these are the important points the advertisers want to get across. These words like the image indicate comfort, warmth and protection from the cold. The dark background coupled with the light of the glass mirrors the indication of winter and the dark winter’s evenings. The tagline “It’s ours” indicates ownership. Coupled with the image of the whiskey it indicates that the whiskey belongs to us. 

The syntagmatic relationship between the elements gives both an impression of comfort and national pride. The tagline at the top coupled with the main image gives the impression that Powers whiskey provides comfort on a cold winter’s night. The reflection of the landscape on the glass combined with the tagline “It’s ours” and our own assumptions that whiskey is generally Irish give us a sense of ownership and home. The sense of home like other elements could indicate a sense of warmth and security.

The combination of the whiskey and the connotations of warmth and comfort combined with the idea that that it is winter could also indicate the myth within our culture that whiskey has medicinal purposes. The idea exists that whiskey fights against the cold and this backs up the idea of whiskey providing comfort.

Overall the advertisers are indicating that their product, Powers Whiskey, is a comforting product and one that is vital on a cold winters evening.

References

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic pipe to cowboy,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic Approaches,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic storiess,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Fig 1:  Boys and Girls. (2014). Powers Whiskey – It’s Ours. [online], available:  http://boysandgirls.ie/whats-new/powers2012/ [Feb 2014].

Semiotics

Fig 1: Powers Whiskey – It’s Ours

The above advertisement is one of a range of print advertisements created to promote Powers Whiskey. The advertisement contains the tagline “Wrap up with the original winter warmer” followed by the line “It’s ours” beside an image of Powers Whiskey. The main image shows two hands clasping a pint glass. The glass contains a reflection of a landscape scene.

There are many denotations within this advertisement. These include the lines of yellow text in varying sizes, hands, a glass, a landscape scene, a bottle of Powers and the drink aware warning. The ad can be broken into three sections. The text at the top aligned diagonally, the main image of the hands gripping the glass and the tagline “It’s ours” located beside the product.

Firstly we will analyse the main image. As previously mentioned it shows two hands clasping a glass containing a yellow/ gold liquid. Reflected in the glass is a landscape scene at what appears to be sunset. There are two apparent indexical signs within this image. The first is the steam rising from the top of the glass whereas the second is the glowing light around the fingers. Both of these indicate that the glass or the liquid inside it is warm. This is backed up by the colour of the liquid within the glass. The yellow/ gold colouring could indicate warmth as well as mirror the colouring of the whiskey bottle in the bottom right corner. This colouring could also indicate the flavouring of the whiskey with the liquid resembling honey. The glass itself appears to be glowing giving the impression of candlelight reinforcing the impression of heat. Furthermore the colouring of the liquid coupled with the image could indicate a warm day. The person is not holding the glass but rather gripping it with both hands. The paradigmatic relationship between the glass and the positing of the hands indicate that the person may be seeking warmth or comfort.

The tagline “Wrap up with the original winter warmer” is coloured in yellow complimenting the main image. The text is positioned diagonally across the top of the ad drawing the eye towards the main image. The words “Wrap up”, “Original” and “Warmer” are larger than the rest of the text. This indicates that these are the important points the advertisers want to get across. These words like the image indicate comfort, warmth and protection from the cold. The dark background coupled with the light of the glass mirrors the indication of winter and the dark winter’s evenings. The tagline “It’s ours” indicates ownership. Coupled with the image of the whiskey it indicates that the whiskey belongs to us. 

The syntagmatic relationship between the elements gives both an impression of comfort and national pride. The tagline at the top coupled with the main image gives the impression that Powers whiskey provides comfort on a cold winter’s night. The reflection of the landscape on the glass combined with the tagline “It’s ours” and our own assumptions that whiskey is generally Irish give us a sense of ownership and home. The sense of home like other elements could indicate a sense of warmth and security.

The combination of the whiskey and the connotations of warmth and comfort combined with the idea that that it is winter could also indicate the myth within our culture that whiskey has medicinal purposes. The idea exists that whiskey fights against the cold and this backs up the idea of whiskey providing comfort.

Overall the advertisers are indicating that their product, Powers Whiskey, is a comforting product and one that is vital on a cold winters evening.

References

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic pipe to cowboy,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic Approaches,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Glenn Doyle (2014). Lesson 7 – Semiotic storiess,[online], available: https://moodle1314.dkit.ie/course/view.php?id=2170[Mar 2014].

Fig 1:  Boys and Girls. (2014). Powers Whiskey – It’s Ours. [online], available:  http://boysandgirls.ie/whats-new/powers2012/ [Feb 2014].

Why does the dog wag its tail? Because the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.

Wag the dog highlights the Medias ability to sell a fictional event as fact albeit in an extreme fashion, in fact an entire business is somewhat built around this with magazines such as Heat and OK. Each week stories adorn the cover of these magazines updating us on the scandalous events of the lives of so called celebrities. Headlines such as “It’s all over” are designed to grab our attention, designed to make us buy the magazine to find out more. But how much truth lies within these headlines? While recently discussing a similar topic on The Wright Stuff on Channel 5 presenter Richard Madeley told the story of walking into a newsagents and seeing the headline “Judy leaves Richard” something which he was unaware of. On reading the story inside he discovered however that the story was merely referring to a weekend trip his wife was taking without him. Quite a mundane story yet the headline suggested otherwise in an attempt to attract readers. They are developed for entertainment purposes rather than fact.

This is not a new phenomenon. In 1964 media buzz created a moral panic surrounding physical conflict between a small number of Mods and Rockers on Brighton beach. The story depicted that violence broke out on a mass scale with one paper stating that mods and rockers would “bring about disintegration of a nation’s character”. Stories relating to these subcultures were also misleadingly depicted with one headline reading “Mod dead in Sea” after an accidental drowning and other headlines containing the word violence when the main story portrayed no such thing. The media which had once encouraged these lifestyles by displaying tips on how to be a mod or rocker were now using the same culture they helped to create to sell newspapers.

This is not to say that all stories in the media are completely untrue. Stories are derived from fact but for entertainment purposes in some cases are dramatized. Would we be so eager to engage in media without the element of entertainment? The entertainment factor in a way turns serious stories into a drama, a soap opera so to speak creating a story we can engage with. In the media its important to be entertaining and first. Mistakes can be fixed afterwards.

“What difference does it make if it’s true? If it’s a story and it breaks, they’re gonna run with it.” – Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean Wag the Dog 1997

Scio Design Update

So over Christmas Iv been working on different designs for the different elements for Scio. These include the logo, the leaf, the tree and the postcard. We played with the idea of a website over Christmas and I also began that however the project has turned back to the app. The design is inspired by a mix of Celtic and Abstract design:

Logos:

Below are 6 ideas for the logo:

 

Below are leaf Ideas:

Below are Tree ideas:

 

Below are the postcard ideas:

Below is an idea for a font:

Below is the world map:

 

Below is an example of the website:

Overall there is still a lot of work to be done regarding design. 

 

Scio and Design update

So thought id update you all to how Scio is getting on. Scio has changed quite a bit since my last post. We still have the tree however the structure has changed slightly. The project is still a data visualization however instead of tracking info from the app it tracks the info from twitter. The app is now working through twitter and allows people to tweet Ireland. The app will then add a hash tag to the tweet and allow us to track them. These tweets will appear on the map. The objective of this is to allow people to be involved in something at home and personify Ireland and allow people to express their feelings of being apart from their home country. I personally really like this idea. I had my doubts about the app beforehand as I felt it didn’t really relate to the tree and felt like two separate projects. I feel more confident about the project now that both the app and the tree have a stronger relationship to each other.

In relation to design it hasn’t officially changed much however we are having a meeting about it Monday (Dec 16th) to discuss peoples ideas regarding it. I have however changed some of the designs for the next presentation seeing as the idea has changed. I based these ideas on general chit chat regarding design among the group and some personal research into Celtic design. 

The current leaf design:

 

The inspiration for this comes from abstract leaf designs and Celtic design.

The tree follows a similar idea as you can see on the app:

 

I have also been playing with the idea of using the leaf design as the logo as it will be the most identifiable element of the whole project. All of this will be discussed however on Monday.

Our final presentation of this year takes place Wed 14th of Dec. When we receive feedback from this I hope to carry out the designs over Christmas so as to give the group as much time as possible to work on the other elements.

 

Design Update

Below is an outline of what was presented in relation to design for our first presentation:

The tree which is a three dimensional structure can be set up in any public space. The tree will sit on an image of the world map roughly where Ireland is situated with roots connecting all the countries. The map will be quite simple so as to not distract from the data appearing on it.

The style of the tree will depend on the technology we use however for the moment we are looking into making it somewhat modern and abstract to catch attention as its main purpose is to display a social message however we don’t want to make It too complex as we will need to be able to access the wiring inside and we don’t want to draw attention away from the information.

The leaves on the tree will vary in colour depending on what country it is representing at that time. The colour scheme for the leaves will reflect real leaf colours depending on the time of year so greens, yellows, oranges and browns.  To represent winter the leaf will be covered in frost. We chose these colours because they portray the emotions we want Scio to evoke. So for example orange for joy, green for calmness as these are the emotions you would generally associate with home.

A similar colour scheme will be used for the app with the leaves being a predominant feature. For Android phones there will be a leaf widget on screen. When you get a message from a contact a symbol will appear beside the leaf and the leaf will change colour depending on the sender’s location. As you can see there is an image in the center of the screen. This image will represent the time of day in the senders country.

So for example if the sender is in Australia the image will be a general representation of Australia and its colour scheme will depend on the time. The app will contain country representations for the most popular countries with a generic option also available. This is to make the app a bit more personal.

When you click on the leaf you will be taken to the conversation. This will be as simple and minimalistic as possible because we are aware that when people emigrate its family that they want to stay in contact with and we want it to be easy to use for people who are not so familiar with technology. For the app we will use a web-safe san-serif font as studies have shown that a user engage with a site better if the font is clear.

The contacts list will be of a similar style with people still being represented by their leaf. So Scio doesn’t get cluttered and to keep it personal there’s a restriction on the number of contacts you can add.

Finally we have Branch Out which is the Augmented Reality feature of the app. When the user views another Scio user through their device leaves will appear to float around them.

Data Visualization take two

As our project is heavily based around data visualization I have been looking into some examples of visualizations similar to what we have planned as well as some tips and tools for creating these. I started by looking at tips for data visualizations. These included:

1. Keep it simple
2. Have a specific message you want to communicate
3. Select the right form to show your data. E.G. bar chart, pie chart etc
4. Use titles to describe the visualization
5. Exclude redundant data and don’t cluster it with unneeded imagery
6. Add hierarchy to your data. Some data will be more relevant than other.
7. Use a clear design
8. Look at other examples showing similar data
9. Revise and Edit
10. Know your Audience
11. Tell a story
12. Get interactive
13. Avoid 3D as it distorts the information

I then looked at some of the tools people use to create data visualizations:

1. http://www.wolframalpha.com/
2. http://www.chartjs.org/
3. http://visual.ly/
4. http://www.wefeelfine.org/ (This one explored human emotion)
5. http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/revisit/
6. http://www.betterworldflux.com/
7. http://www.betterworldflux.com/
8. http://www.google.com/drive/apps.html#fusiontables
9. http://www.dipity.com/
10. http://jpgraph.net/
11. http://circos.ca/
12. http://topsy.com/
13. http://twitter4j.org/en/
14. http://www.wordle.net/
15. http://tagcrowd.com/
16. http://www.vuvox.com/

I then looked at data visualization and emotive design and found a slide show from The Tableau 2013 Customer Conference which talks about the impact that design and emotion can have on a visualization focusing on Fireworks injuries and Twitter TV Sets.

http://datablick.com/2013/09/13/using-design-and-emotion-to-create-a-data-visualization-with-impact/

Some examples relating to this area were:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
• http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2013

Some examples related to emigration were:

• http://peoplemov.in/
• http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-migration/world-migration.html
• http://migrationsmap.net/#/USA/arrivals

Data Visualization research

Having looked into the theory behind data visualization I found works from Edward Tufte who is credited as a pioneer in the field of data visualization and Nigel Holmes who was one of the first information designers to bring data visualization to a large mainstream audience having worked at Time magazine making explanation graphic visualizations.

Edward Tufte coined the term “chartjunk” which refers to the useless decorative non informative imagery that can oversimplify and distort data. He believed that data visualizations should be data rich. Tufte uses the example of Dr John Snow’s data visualization on the cholera breakout in London in 1854 as an example of how data visualizations can reveal the solution to a problem. By analyzing the position of the points he used to plot peoples death Snow noticed that the breakout occurred prominently around the Broad Street Water pump therefore locating the source of the problem and allowing it to be dealt with.

Unlike Tufte Holmes uses graphics to help explain the information. Both men have different approaches to data visualization however both have a valid point. Tuftes point highlights that sometimes imagery can distort the data. Holmes theory focuses on the use of imagery to explain the data. Both theories should be considered when designing data visualization.

“Sometimes decoration can help editorialize about the substance of the graphic. But it’s wrong to distort the data measures – the ink locating values of numbers – in order to make an editorial comment or to fit a decorative scheme” – Edward Tufte

“Too much illustration gets in the way of the info; too much reliance on abstract data can leave the reader floundering in a sea of lines and numbers.”– Nigel Holmes

Reference: http://www.slideshare.net/thompsonkaren/data-visualization-theory

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Scio so far

So I thought I would take the time to explain Scio so far. Scio has three parts:

1. A tree sculpture placed on a world map on which the roots stretch to the countries the users are in. The leaves on the tree represent the different users and the color and image on the leaf is dependent on what time of year it is and time of day in the different countries. 
2. A mobile application which keeps people connected.
3. “Branch Out” An augmented reality feature of the app that helps you find other Scio users when abroad.

The mobile app will display a leaf as a widget which will show the time of year in the persons they are connected to country and the time of day where they are so as to give the feeling of a constant connection.

When you click into the app you receive a feed of information from the other user keeping you updated on their goings on. 

The tree is a base for all this information representing it as a data visualization with the roots showing the volume of emigrants while the leaves represent specific people without giving away private information.

Branch out allows the users to point at a crowd of people and identify other Scio users. When a Scio user is identified leaves will appear to dance around the persons indicating that they have Scio. 

The aim of Scio is to connect people to their families and culture as well as display the social message of emigration in Ireland at the present time. 

Overall we still have a lot of research to do but we have the ball rolling so its a start.