... and how clashing implications continue to shape our reactions to these colors.

      Depending on the region and cultural upbringing, one may have different connotations associated with the colors black, white, and red. Even before our ancestors began to communicate with language, they attached associations to these colors. They were able to hunt when it was light out, and as a result, white carried with it a positive connotation. Red was associated with sunset, and black was associated with the dangers of night. Red was associated with blood and harm.This is both similar and different from modern day Christianity. While black and red continue to be associated with the devil and damnation, the color red is also affiliated with charity via Christ's gift of blood. However, Christianity is not the only culture to develop a positive association with red.



 In South America, individuals have been known to paint a red stripe around an infant's wrist in an effort to resist evil and illness, which infant are said to attract due to their innocence and vulnerability. In fourteenth century England, red was deemed the most appropriate color for rulers and knights because it symbolized courage. This is similar to Eastern cultures such as japan, where red and white symbolize good luck, power, wealth, and the purging of evil entities. In many cultures, white is scene as the force of good and black is seen as the force of evil. However, many formerly and continually suppressed cultures may argue otherwise (namely Native Americans and those of African descent).

                            How does this relate to modern day Western cultures, you ask?


       Caivanio and Lopez argue the idea of chromatic sublimation, where each color portrays a particular emotion in advertising. Red promotes liveliness and sex, and black is associated with night, sophistication, and mystery. By using these colors and associated, marketing groups can effectively attract an audience to purchase or consume their product as seen above. By continually studying how the connotations of these colors are evolving, companies and groups can continue to increase their power of persuasion.
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In class, we discussed Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics," which is really the seminal work in well, understanding comics.  McCloud discusses just about every, and any aspect of comics that can be conceived, and our discussion on 'gutters' was interesting, as I hadn't read "Understanding Comics" in some ten years.

As an avid comics fan (buff?), I had always been told that Neal Adams was one of the genre-defining comics-book artists of his day (which happened to precede me by some 15 years).  As you can see in the examples to the right, his use of panel arrangement was completely "outside-the-box," to coin a phrase that came up in class.  That is not the interesting part, however.

Trap. The combination of the genres of trance and rap usually through sound mixing and editing, has become a staple of parties and festival shows. They share similar use of synth, heavy base and spoken words to create music. But what interests me out of these is the artwork and how the artwork mimics the mixing of themes between rap and techno much in the same way the music does.

Arguably one of the most recognizable symbols in the Western cultural lexicon, or even that of Eastern cultures, is the silhouette of Mickey Mouse. Popularized in the late 1920s by a series of short films, America’s favorite rodent has come to represent the Walt Disney Studios and the Disney corporation at large.

The above comic by Robert Berry appears in his Ulysses “Seen” adaptation of the James Joyce novel Ulysses.

We watched "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and had an interesting class discussion on whether it was a scholarly work or not. It was not, perhaps, “scholarly”; but it was an argument, and it made me think about the sociology of internet communication.

During our in-class discussion of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art," the composer brought up gutters, the space in between frames of a comic (or newspaper, cartoon or other media).  In a comic, as McCloud states in the image to the right, gutters "play host to the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics."  These gutters are vital, and can serve as more than a space to let the reader's mind wander.

When we talked in class about usability and the internet, it sounded like the conclusion as to what makes a usable website is simplicity. Creating a website to serve a very obvious purpose is the key to usability. But even when a site is usable, there are aesthetics that make a website a more enjoyable experience for the user. Color, formatting, and graphic elements can enhance usability by making a website visually appealing.

In Vitaly Friedman's article "10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of," the first item listed is  problematic hidden login links on websites. Friedman uses Backpack as an example because the login link is very small and placed right underneath a block of text that looks like an advertisement, rather than placing the login somewhere else on the page where it can be easily located.

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Of the recent readings for this course, I feel most compelled to comment on the writings of Jakob Nielsen. I had heard of him before, touted as the leading expert of usability. A great deal of the discussion in class was devoted to some apparent contradictions between his ethos and one of his now defunct websites. However, I noticed contradictions on the very page we were asked to look at for class.

Professor John Logie teaches us that comics have a place in academia. He teaches it in Visual Rhetoric. Why not? Comics are visual and they are graphic and they are certainly full of rhetoric. Comics teach us to engage ourselves with the comic we are viewing, on our own time, in our own space. Professor Logie teaches that Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" is an essential book to do just that, understand comics.
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