Tag Archive for 'iconography'

Peace Accessories

jackson published on August 7, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Hello All,

Jackson here.
I was just sitting, watching “Imagine” and I had a thought:

War and Peace are both products.
The reason that War is always more popular than Peace is that War has better merchandise, cooler accessories.
Peace has no chance until it gets better accessories.

War has guns and tanks and jets and aircraft carriers.

What does Peace have?

Then I thought: Prosperity.

The problem with prosperity, where people are living happily, free from violence and oppression, is that it’s very hard to icon-ify. You put a gun on a shirt and everybody gets it.

Besides the peace symbol, what does Peace have going for it, visually?

I put it to you…

What are Peace’s Accessories visualized?

How do we icon-ify Peace?

It’s tough, truly. War has a lot going for it. But Peace is smarter in the long run.

So we work for Peace.

Lets put our heads together on this one. How do we symbolize prosperity and goodness? How do we symbolize sustainability so that it has the same impact graphically as an AK-47?

What are the objects that to us represent this brave new age we’re just beginning?

The solar array? A wind turbine? The sun? WALL-E?

These all seem way to soft.

This is a very difficult exercise.

Maybe if anyone out there is a graphic designer, or knows one, or is an enthusiastic amateur willing to take a stab (bad choice of words!) at it. Why not email this on to one of those people?

Yay!

Love to All,

Jackson

Skulls Jump Shark & the Rise of the Closed Loop

jackson published on July 24, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Pictured above are the “Skull and Crossbone Baby Booties,” from coochicoos.

Skull and crossbone baby booties? Cripes.

So, the skull as a design motif has truly and officially jumped the shark.

If you, like us, have clothing and other items decorated with skulls, now is the time to make a trip over to Goodwill.

But have no fear! For the New Best Thing is here!

Horizontal stripes!

Seriously, everywhere you look in Manhattan, it seems two in ten people are wearing horizontal stripes.

Why is that? It’s very interesting.

Here’s our theory.

Folks are tired of death. It’s inevitable, we all know it, we’ve acknowledged it and are moving on.
Death isn’t all that glamorous. It’s actually pretty mundane. It happens to every living thing: celebrities, window washers, kings, fishermen, oysters, banana plants.
And what’s elite about something that everyone gets?

Nada.

What is interesting now is the closed loop, which is represented by the horizontal stripe.

The closed loop encircles, protects, restrains.

The closed loop is a perfect system, never ending, never beginning, never losing energy.

Cover yourself in closed loops, fashion seems to be saying, and help ward off the scourge of the wasteful open loop.

Our current culture and way of life is an open loop system.
But that is rapidly changing as more and more people clue into the fact that our lifestyle is totally unsustainable.

The horizontal stripe/closed loop represents sustainability. Order. Equity.

Here’s one we really like:

It is great fun for us here at SF to try to parse information out of the things we encounter everyday. When we noticed the horizontal stripe trend supplanting the Skull motif trend we wondered what it might be saying about us culturally.

And we take it as a very good sign.

And here’s our prediction for the next hot bit of iconography. A symbol that truly represents the closed loop system. A symbol that reminds us of where true power lies and to what we should give thanks for our very existence.

Ready for it?


(photo via flickr user flopper)

Love to All and have a great day!


And believe in the power of the closed loop!

-Team SuperForest