Why irrational will affect design identity: the relationship between artwork and the public reaction - Essay Example

College Case In the movie Avatar, a group of scientist and human explorers go to another planet. In the planet, the director intended to create other species that were completely different from humans. To do this, he had to ensure that the creatures would get public admiration all through the world and as a result sell more videos. After sitting down with the films graphic designers, it was hard to come out with a clear picture of how the other planet would look like. Their main question was whether to create a planet that has been transformed and modified by the creatures such as our earth or to create a natural planet that had no modification at all. The representation of the creatures that were present in the planet was also important. They had to represent the organisms in the planet in such a way that they would look unique and admirable by people. The director being one of the most respected directors in the movie industry spent almost two decades writing the movie and creating how the movie will look like. Rationality was one of the key questions that were to be tackled to ensure that people watching the movie did not have negative judgments about the planet and the creatures. Any mistake made in the rationality would mean a waste of all the time spent in coming up with the storyline and the amount that had been spent. The storyline was great and all that was needed were graphics that could bring out the story in a more realistic and natural way. Challenges The main challenges that existed were that there was no one who had any idea about in creature that existed outside the planet. This meant that everything had to be imagined and made to look like it was real. However, the images had to blend to something that was not familiar at all to the human race. The other major problem that existed in the creation of the images is that since the beginning of the writing, there had been no software available in the market that could be used to create the visualized images. This means that they had to look for software that could be used to create images that were unique to this movie alone. Coloring was also a problem; the producers were confused on the theme color to use in the movie to ensure that the color blended with the environment and the overall nature of the planet. The color was also supposed to draw attention to the viewer and match with all the other factors of the movie. The next problem that the production team faced was whether to choose an irrational image to represent the new found creatures or if they could use a rational image. Using a rational image was a good idea but it would not create much suspense as using an irrational image for representation (Teit 233). They were therefore torn apart on the type of graphical images that could be effective in making the movie the best selling movie at that particular time. Actions taken After thorough analysis of all the available options, the directors decided to settle on green to be the theme color of the movie. This made it possible for people to relate the planet with the natural state of our planet earth. The color was also able to blend in with almost every part of the new chosen environment. The next thing that the directors did was to choose an irrational visual representation of the creatures that existed in the planet. The creatures were made to look like the feared human ogres; huge, tall and very ugly with different shapes on the faces. Anyone could notice the actual resemblance of the creatures to primitive primate that exists on earth with the only difference being that they could reason. The question still remains why the producers never created angel like creatures that people would look at and admire. Instead they chose to represent the creatures with an ugly resemblance of primates. The question is answered deep within the human subconscious mind in which humans think and react to different situations based on whether they are rational or irrational. In most cases, humans tend to like irrational images and artistic works more than rational ones because rational artistic works are monotonous and appear to be boring compared to the irrational works. For this reason, the human subconscious mind switches directly to an irrational mode the moment they notice an irrational image (McKenzie 81). This is the reason why advertisers tend to use irrational adverts as compared to rational ones. Results After these choices, the movie was produced and released into the market. After just one week, it became the largest sold movie of all times after the titanic a movie directed by the same director. The software used to create the movie is also available all throughout the internet for sale as many people demanded it. The most surprising thing is that most people fell in love with the images that after just one month, the images were used in various places as adverts, desktop images and cell phone background images and screen savers. This was unexpected from human beings who consider anything ugly to be bad (Sass 192). However the result showed that people tend to prefer irrational artistic works as compared to the rational ones. If a rational image had been used, most professionals disagree that the movie could have made it to the heights it did with the use of the irrational images. The color was also perfect and blended in not only with the people but the entire environment. The color was also able to bring out the theme of environmental conservation a key theme brought out in the movie. Making the people look green made them even worse but this was a key factor in ensuring that they were able to bring in the theme of environmental conservation. If a rational image had been used, brighter colors would have been preferred and this would have made the themes hard to bring to the clear light (McCarthy 90). Case 2 AIRTEL a leading mobile operator in the Asian and African market was faced with the situation of coming up with a theme color in their logo design that could be used to represent their brand. Being operational in many countries, it was challenging for them to come up with a color design for their logo that would please everyone across the 17 countries in which it is operational. Choosing the right theme color was very critical to the company as it would help sell their image to the whole world not just to their subscribers. They had to find a color that was appealing to all the countries and that would help them fight other major telecommunication giants. However, this was not an easy task since each country had its own culture and different colors meant different things to the different people. To ensure that they were successful, they had to come up with a color that was likely to please everyone in all countries. After going through all the colors, they found that almost all colors had different meanings in all the different countries and so this made the choosing process even harder. However, they came to note that in all the 17 countries, color red was known to symbolize bad things. Some used color red to symbolize blood; others used it to symbolize danger and so on. After some thinking, they decided to choose color red an irrational color in all the countries. AIRTEL therefore decided to choose an irrational color out of all the rational colors that were available. In choosing red color, the company risked losing customers as they were associating themselves with an irrational color. Challenges The main challenges that faced AIRTEL was that in order to chose a color to represent their brand, the color had to blend in all the countries that AIRTEL had business with. To do this, they would require a color that was rational in all the countries. The other major challenge that they faced was that choosing a rational color would mean the obvious and they would not look unique. For example, color white was a rational color in almost all the countries that were involved. However by choosing color white, the company would not look unique but would be normal since many companies use the color white. Their major challenge was developing a business color that would not only make AIRTEL unique but would also portray a good picture of the company. This meant that when someone looked at the color, they would automatically connect it with AIRTEL. Finding this right color proved to be the major challange. The other challenge was that most of their competitors had already chosen different theme colors and so choosing the same colors would not be good for the company the company therefore had limited colors to chose from the available options. They therefore had to come up with a unique color that no company had used and that would blend among all the participating countries (revlin, & Richard 188). Actions taken Selling their image to the public was one of the many worries that the company had. After thorough analysis of the available colors and their meanings, the company settled on color red an irrational color in all the participating countries, among all the colors. The decision to choose this color and make it the theme color was reached after analyzing the human behavior (Le 31). This is because thoughts and most emotions happen behind our unconscious mind. It is estimated that about 65%of brands preference are mostly driven by elements of emotion. Taking this case study, AIRTEL decided to choose the irrational red color over other rational colors because of the way that people reason. It is funny and ironical to note that most irrational designs are more appealing to the public compared to the rational designs that exists while the opposite is expected from normal people. Customers therefore rarely look at the negative attitudes connected with color red but instead love the beauty that the color is giving the mobile telephony service (Ariely 90). This is a total proof that irrational in many cases draw public admiration. The company also decided to color all the images associated with the company red including the company logo. This was to make everything appear irrational. By doing this, they did not mean that the company itself was irrational. Results After adopting their theme color to red, it was expected that the number of subscribers will either rise or reduce due to the effect of the color red to the theme. However, there was no significant change in the number of subscribers. This is a clear indication that even though the color red symbolized bad things in the community, few people even noticed this when it became the theme color. This is contrary to what we could expect. The main reason why most people never saw the negativity associated with the color red and only linked the company to the red color was because people themselves act irrationally. This means that when someone notices an irrational image, they switch to the irrational mode and now use their irrational reasoning to judge the image. However when they notice a rational image, they use their rational mode to make judgment of the image (Hamill 112). This explains why some teenagers are known to be seen wearing clothes with danger signs on them. This is not because they don’t understand the meaning of the symbols but because they judge the symbols irrationally since the symbols themselves are irrational. The reaction here can be summed up that human actions are decided by the manner in which the brain perceives the available choices. This is in complete violation of the economic theory of human rationality. However, there is a lot of neurobiology that is involved in the choices that we make in our everyday life. This theory suggests that humans are more concerned by the quality of their products and services as opposed to the other factors that do not concern them much (Armstrong 412). Case 3 For most musicians and top performers of various events, organizing the event and informing fans of the scheduled venue and artists presents is always done through posters. Most posters contain lots of images that are used to design the poster and make it look beautiful. However the kind of images to put inside the poster has always proved to be a problem and concert organizers are known to spend lots of time in making these posters. Since the posters are usually informal, it is hard to know the right kind of images to use. In his last visit to the united kingdom, Chris brown the organizers of Chris Brown were faced with this predicament. They were faced with the situation of choosing the right picture of Chris brown that could be used in the poster. The picture had to attract more people and ensure that Chris brown was presented at his best (Haberler 57). Choosing the right image would mean that the organizers had to select among the millions of Chris brown photos that were available in the internet. Chris brown has all manner of pictures; some are official, others are devilish, while others have graphic designs that makes his face look older and in a discarded shape. However of all the photos, only a limited number could be used. Anyone could take a wild guess and hope that the organizers went for the most official pictures that made him look official since this would be the most rational thing to do. However this was not thecase but instead the organizers did the complete opposite (Zimbardo 134). The organizers were also confused on the theme color to use in the posters to create more attention. Challenges Finding the right image for the concert was the major problem. The right image was that which could fit into the size of the posters, the picture had to blend with the theme color and ensure that the poster got much public attention. The size of the posters was also a challenge that the organizers faced. They had no right idea of the right size to use so as to attract much public attention. This means that the posters did not have to be too small to be noticed and at the same time they needed not to be exaggerated in size hence make them monotonous (Cialdini 109). The theme color was also a problem for the organizers. They were not sure about the best color that could bring in more fans to the concert. The same color also had to not only blend in with the theme of the concert but also blend in with the images chosen for the posters. Since it was not the first time that Chris Brown was visiting London, they had to ensure that all the images and colors in theme colors from past events were completely left out. They were therefore left with a limited number of images and colors that they could use for this particular poster. This was to ensure that the concert was unique in its own way and not copying the previous concerts of Chris brown. Making the posters to be formal and rational or making the poster look irrational was also a challenge. This was in fact the major puzzle that they needed to solve. Choosing a rational poster would look boring but at the same time sell the picture of the musician as formal. However the attention that it would cause would be less since it is not unique. Choosing an irrational color would attract much public attention but would sell the image of Chris brown in a negative way especially to some conservative people (Gladwell 21). The organizers therefore needed to be smart to solve this puzzle. Actions taken After many considerations, the organizers decided to choose color brown to be the theme color. This color was perfect for this particular concert and all it needed was the best color to blend with. The image selected was the shock here. Despite the many images that Chris brown has, the image chosen here was a complete disaster. The image had been edited by computer graphics and his face was so wide and prolonged. The only similarity that the image had with Chris brown was his hair and skin color. His teeth had been prolonged to have a cannibal like teeth that were scary. To top it up, the teeth were brown and the whole image was devilish with a first glance look. The head was enlarged and was bigger than his shoulders. Anyone looking at the image would worry why the organizers even chose the image in the first place. This was because there were dozens of images of Chris brown that were decent and could be used for this particular poster but instead the organizers chose this one. It turned out that the organizers had chosen to go irrational over rational. This preference for irrational images can be traced back to the human subconscious mind (Ariely 56). Results After this choice, it was expected that there would be more critics about the posters that few people would even consider coming to the event. However, to the surprise of everyone, so many people came to the event as compared to any other concert that he had performed in the country. This was contrary to the expectation since the image used for advertising this concert was irrational. This case study clearly showed that sometimes, irrational artistic works get to have a positive design identity more than the rational artistic works. Had a rational poster been used for this particular event, then this success could not have been realized. This is because irrational pieces of art tend to attract more people and at the same time create positive design identity (Harford 109). At the end, more people would be attracted by the irrational idea due to its unique and creative nature as opposed to the boring rational ideas. The coloring also played a role in the success of the poster as the dull color made the poster even more irrational. This, together with the image created the perfect blend for the poster. Work cited Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. New York, N.Y: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. Print. Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Collins, 2007. Print. Le, Bon G. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular-Mind. New York: Viking Press, 1960. Print. Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. Print. Zimbardo, Philip G. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House, 2007. Print. Ariely, Dan. The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. New York: Harper, 2010. Print. Hamill, James F. Ethno-logic: The Anthropology of Human Reasoning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Print. Armstrong, Helen. Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print. Harford, Tim. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. New York: Random House, 2008. Print. Haberler, Gottfried. Notes on Rational and Irrational Expectations. Washington, D.C: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1980. Print. Sass, Margo A, and William D. Wilkinson. Symposium on Computer Augmentation of Human Reasoning: [proceedings]. Washington: Spartan Books, 1965. Print. Revlin, Russell, and Richard E. Mayer. Human Reasoning. Washington: V.H. Winston, 1978. Print. Harford, Tim, and John Lee. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. New York: Books on Tape, 2008. Internet resource. McCarthy, Stephen, and David Kehl. Deductive Irrationality: A Commonsense Critique of Economic Rationalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. Print. McKenzie, Richard B. Predictably Rational?: In Search of Defenses for Rational Behavior in Economics. Heidelberg: Springer, 2010. Print. Teit, Nielsen M. The Pareto Domination of Irrational Expectations Over Rational Expectations. Copenhagen: Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 1987. Print. Read More