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More Random Pictures
In the same vein as the cycloptic bunny, I’ve decided to branch out to weird teddy bears and thought I’d share…
November 17th, 2008
Posted by Paul in illustration | No Comments »
The Rising Sun
Walking onto campus this morning, I was surprised to see a pimply-faced white kid marching along with a Japanese Rising Sun flag draped around him like a cloak. So surprised that I didn’t think to say anything to him until a minute later, by which time he was gone.
What I should have done, was to point out to him that the flag he was wearing was the East-Asian equivalent of a Nazi Swastika, and that the large community of Chinese and Koreans at CMU were unlikely to appreciate it. I feel sure that the poor kid had no idea - he looked like he was probably an anime fan that had picked up the symbology from cartoons and personalized it without ever realizing what it represents.
Which got me thinking about semiotics in general. Personally, though I considered myself well-educated even before coming to graduate school, I had never really heard of the study of signs and symbols before I began studying Design. It’s interesting how completely iconic images can come to mean completely different things in a shared physical context because of differing cultural contexts. The rising sun no doubt symbolized membership in an anime-loving otaku-idolizing subculture to the kid with the flag, while it can represent the slaughter of millions to East Asians (and could alternatively have represented Japan’s days of military power to the animators who have been reviving the symbol in modern Anime).
I know that some of my classmates (particularly those in the Communication, Planning, and Information Design program) are interested in cross-cultural design, and I think this vignette is representative of the difficulties of designs that play a role in the lives of people who have differing cultural understandings. Do anime producers consider that including a rising sun in an adult-oriented cartoon about samurai may lead to that same iconography being displayed by teenagers in Pittsburgh? Should they? I am tempted to say that yes, they should; but then, where should they draw the line?
I once made a similar mistake while living in Japan. During my free periods there, I would occasionally draw large complex pictures on the whiteboard in my classroom. One time I too used the iconography of the rising sun. When one of my Japanese co-workers walked in and saw it she froze and began asking me about the picture in an extremely stilted manner. Before long I realized my error and quickly erased the picture. Certainly in that case the fault for my ignorance was entirely my own (I was living in Japan after all).
As interaction designers, should we consider that the products we design my be offensive in cultural contexts that they weren’t designed for? I’m not sure, but I plan to keep it in mind regardless.
November 10th, 2008
Posted by Paul in CMU, Design Thinking | No Comments »
More Bunny
And just because the CMU design site got me thinking about Cycloptobunny and I needed a reason to play around in Illustrator CS4 anyway (just got it and installed it last week - thanks again Adobe Design Acheivment Awards!)…
November 6th, 2008
Posted by Paul in Communication Design | No Comments »
The Bunny Returns
Regular readers will recall a few pics I posted over the summer of Cycloptobunny. Well, he’s back, but this time with far greater exposure than my poor blog can provide. The following is a screen-grab from the front page of the CMU design website (if you want to see it yourself, you may have to hit refresh quite a few times, there are currently quite a few things that can pop-up).
That’s cycloptobunny in the middle!!! With nunchucks!!!
November 6th, 2008
Posted by Paul in CMU | No Comments »
Election Day
Not much to say about this, except please go vote. Everyone should have their voice heard. Too many times of late this has not seemed to be the way things were working, but it surely doesn’t function when we don’t try. Lets make history today.
November 4th, 2008
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized | No Comments »