Symbolic Meanings - My own animation

Throughout our lives we encounter and see many different objects, places or people. With those things we are surrounding by - come connotations and denotations. We learn to understand the importance of value of certain objects, underlying meanings. Symbolic Metaphors.
A prime example is of the colour red. When in the context of a traffic light, it means to stop! Our experience and culture has conditioned us into thinking this. Usually this means Stop!

However, these meanings can be warped from experience and the form they come in. For example, literature warps these meanings a lot. Many techniques and writing, such as similes, metaphors and other techniques can carry across a meaning very broadly or differently from what you'd expect. Some of these can be very obvious or sometimes obscure and hidden. When used, they can be powerful tools in invoking emotion from the reading, and painting a vivid picture into their imagination.

Resemblance. Association. Convention. Meaning!

Looking at one of my animations i have produced - i can give across an example of my symbolic metaphors in use.

This is a traditional 2D animation i have done using stop motion techniques. The Whole composition is made out from paper layered on top of one another for an illusion of depth.

You can find it here. http://youtu.be/MMHiunmvDsg

The main character here, the fly, is the symbolic metaphor. The Fly is my sister. Now, how is that a metaphor you might ask.... well. Consider this. A fly is a nuisance. A pest. A dirty disgusting fly. They annoy people - they follow you everywhere when you have food. People swat them, but there are loads of them and they are small and irritating. Often, they are also disgusting too. They make a pesky buzz sound too. Do you see how this might correlate to a younger sibling?

This is my symbolic metaphor.

It's not blatantly obvious, but you can make the connections if you give it some thought. The baby fly, my sister, Shannon, wants the pie. A typical, stereotypical cartoon scenario. Leaving a freshly baked pie on the window. All sorts of chaos happens. I'll leave that as a surprise for if you watch it.

But one things for certain.

There's your symbolic metaphor. A pesky, irritating baby sister! As a fly!

Brand Me! In words!

Everyone has a brand. Is a brand.

Regardless of whether we believe ourselves to be one or not.

Our persona, us, we, me, I becomes out brand.

Brands are important, as i have identifyied, it gives us an image or a thought about you. Brands are prety important to artists and writers, because they are their mark, how we identifiy them and their work such as Charles M Schulz the creator of snoopy. It's the brand which attracts people to your work. To you.

Our brand exists within us. Shaped by our lifves, experiences and our stories.

So who am i?

What is my story?

Well i originally originated from Ireland, as a baby, then moved to Bolton/Manchester area. I grew up  in both a negative and positive environment. I suffered abuse from an alchohaloic father and was subjected to isolation for much of my time. However, in the times of escape, i found myself exploring the world, being quite rebellious and yearning for freedom. So many tales i could spring of unusual endeavours - exploring abandoned buildings, mountains of sand, making homes for frogs - you name it, i probably did it. Waging water war on the neighbouring streets, rebellious, wild kids, flocking the streets in frenzied fun. My aspirations of drawing and animation stemmed from a neighbour who could draw anything so accurate it was like it can morphed onto the paper. Then we severed ties and fled down south, to the garden of England, Kent, where the accent and dialect was so alien to what i was used to.

Here i expanded my drawing ability, although, was incredibly shy, meek and quiet. My teeth would even chatter when talking to someone - especially over the phone! But gradually my confidence came back and i grew more courageous. I'd dropped from sharp, rebellious, outgoing me - to a shell of my former self from experience i'd had and the sudden shift in enviroment!

And of course that's where i am now, still here, in Kent. I've never worked  aproper job in my life, but i am still trying to land one. I draw all the time, take passionate interest in orchestrlal music and the world of fantasy, adventure and magic in books, games and films! I draw inspiraiton from my experience, negative or not, into everything i do or create.

So how cna i give power to myself?

A few words can tell you all you need to know about me. If you are to work with me. What do you expect? What can sum me up for a brand.

So i'll spill 10 words and list WHY i believe they describe me, as a brand, as well, me...

1) Eccentric
Eccentric, meaning to have unconventional behaviour, perhaps, slightly strange, i feel, is one of many words to describe myself. I consider myself unique. I consider myself different from others, perhaps a bit odd.

2) Vivacious
Meaning to be lively, animated or full of life,  I'm quite energetic and engaged in what i do - as such, i believe Vivacious is a word o describe that behavior of mine.

3) Dreamer
I've always been a dreamer, thinking, sharing, imagining the surreal and unknown.

4) Loyal
Loyal describes how i am towards others. To members of a project, friends and family, i am incredibly loyal to the group and won't disband from them.


5) Modest
I'm not arrogant or a show-off,  i am a modest individual. I'm well aware of the quality of my work.

6) Candid
I am honest, truthful and straightforward making me a reliable person.

7) Artist
I am an artist in several sense - i create drawings both as part of a profession and a hobby, but i am more, i am a designer, i practise a lot, i create. I create labours of love. My art is a part of me as i am of it.

8) Inquisitive
I show interest in everything. I am a highly curious person! I am keen in understanding everything around me! I burn with curious!

9) Resourceful
I am adaptive and resourceful. I have a lot under me, with me, inside of me which allows me adapt to a variety of situations.  You need something, i can most likely provide!

10) Receptive
I am willing and keen to understand new ideals. I am open to suggestions. I am open to criticism. I am very open-minded, responsive and flexible. I explore multiple paths, i explore everything before me!

Branding?

Branding - What is it?

It's a multitude of things - and its representation will come across to people and companies differently. In the consumer's mind - a brand will mean a diferent thing to how the company thinks of itself. Yet both worlds collide.

This branding, or a perception, of a company, determines the outside view that a consumer thinks of a partiuclar product or brand.  Logos, slogans, catch-phrases and colour schemes are all considered in representing a company through a brand. A label. An identity. In a way, brands are a way for consumers to filter through all the diferent logos to identify and find the one they want.

For me, Brands are made up of two components -

A designed logo - their label or identity.

A proposition or offer the company gives - like a slogan

A company's brand gives the consumer a view. This view however, can easily be distorted by many external extraneous variables. For example, just because Tesco comes across as having the best food - consumers might not nessesarilly believe that due to experience with the food, their personal  opinion, influence from other people such as celebrities or other variables [Perhaps even distance to the nearest store!].

Where and how a company presents its brand is a big factor too. If a company wants consumer awareness of their products, they need to express themselves widely - through a variety of ways - namely advertising. Companies can create posters or Tv advertisements to showcase their product in a 1 minute time frame. However, they must keep up with the world as well, i mean, with the sudden boom in social media and technology capable of connecting to the internet. After all - if this is where we all are now, us, we, i the consumer(s), this is where the company is going to want to invest in advertising their brand in order for us to perceive it.

Branding for companies is a very competitive race. Whilst companies vary across many different products in many different areas - many clash and compete with one another, such as the big bad super market chains or the big bad fashion retailers. As such each is continuously trying to get the upper hand on the other, through slashing their prices or producing a totally unique product to sway consumers into their tide. This is also done with advertisements - and therefore their branding. We all do it - talk of certain adverts when the time is right, like the dancing pony or the Mafia panda biscuit boss. If an advert is popular, it has more reputation, status and therefore will have more consumers flock to its product.

Therefore, branding, an identity, a label - is as symmetrical to our personal presentation - as we are when show casing ourself in a job interview. First impressions are key in both situations. If the branding is sharp, clear and respectable, we feel that way about them, and feel we can trust them from first appearances. The same is applicable in the job scenario.

 However, the theories of branding go back far into the past. There are Philosophical foundations to the art of Branding, which has transformed over the ages.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

-- Heraclitus

 During the foundations of reasoning, many Greek philosophers were struggling to come together and form a universal fact or basis which we could all agree upon. They wanted to understand the world. They wanted to understand its physical nature.  They wanted to understand what everything was made of - the one, continual material from which everything was sown. That everything was simply a transformation of this same thing.

Two Greek Philosopher's in particular who debated over this was Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus believed in that which i mentioned earlier, that everything is in a constant cycle. That things become another endlessly. For example, fire dies and becomes air and that air becomes water and so forth. However, it is not a processed - as this goe sin both ways, not one continual direction. This would apply to us in human nature, that regardless of our stage in youth, we are one and the same, living and dying.

Parmenides on the other hand believed that the world remained like a cube, the same. There are no changes and that if we were to observe form a distance, we would see the world in a unchanging box. Any 'changes' would only be by appearance and that underneath it in true nature, it had no changed at all. Such a theory actually contorts all others into paradoxes.

We could apply this to Branding. Identity has been a conical, eternal thing. We have always associated things with another. We continually cycle through trends, our lives, everything, everything in this every changing loop. Old trends may 'disappear' but they aren't truly gone. They seep subtly into other things or often, such as fashion, make a sudden come back, cycling through again. We constantly look to the past to avoid future mistakes or for inspiration - such as art movements for stylistic influence. Such examples could include surrealism or futurism which could effect future styles of colour or form in media.