Visual Identities

This article was an excellent breakdown of many basic semiotic elements (made accessable and interesting by using logos from recent culture that the audience is familiar with). The author chooses to start with the basic elements of the logos, and delve deeper into them as he tries to locate meaning/what it represents and, as he mentions in this conclusion, what it does not represent. I feel that his best example in breaking this concept down is that of the 1984 Apple commercial.

Throughout the article I found many concepts that can be related back to the semiotic analysis of the Starbucks logo. The description of stripes and their meanings stood out to me the most, as the Starbucks lgo takes advantage of stripes in their logo. Second was the issue of color--although I feel the author focused mostly on the rainbow as he was analyzing the Apple logo-- color is still emphasized as important to the meaning (and the not-meaning) of a logo.

I think that the strongest concept/idea I took out of the article, though, was in his conclusion. The idea that a symbol/sign "is not primarily what it represents but what is transforms...what it chooses not to represent," that a symbol/sign "denies as much as it affirms," is an idea that can be expanded into the social semiotic study we are in the middle of. These larger scale concepts have larger scale implications, and although I would have liked to have seen a more complex and complete breakdown of the "meaning" conclusions the author comes up with in terms of the Apple and IBM logo elements, I still think that these conclusions are important and fit into this larger spectrum. And that they can definitely be used when thinking about the Starbucks logo.

Application of Visual Identities

The chapter on Visual Identities showed me multiple insights on two prominent logos in computer development. Although our specific study does not involve comparing two distinct logos within the same market, I believe that the analysis tools of semiotics will aid us greatly in our study on the Starbucks logo. Thus, at a closer look at we can apply the analysis of the Starbucks visual invariants of how the green portrays an earthly tone and mindset to all consumers. The running stream of consciousness, similar to the Levi Strauss example, can be our best way to start analyzing, and through these conscious thoughts we can build on further to establish a more meaningful analysis. I think that this method of initial analyzing will work well specifically for my part of the project in analyzing objects from the company. In addition, the current green logo contains stripes within the image of the siren, portraying an image of fluidity between the siren and concentric circles; which is also present in the Apple and IBM logos mentioned. And lastly I believe the most important part that I can specifically take away from this reading is that to analyze logos you almost have to always put them back within their context. Thus, my analysis of the artifacts with or without the logo's presence are a key piece of evidence towards the analysis of the Starbucks logo as a whole.