Illustrate and critically compare the visual semiotics involved in the marketing and packaging of tea and coffee.
For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module,
see the
general criteria.
Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an
alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text
(not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include
author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher.
Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your
text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this
department, click
here.
Advice for this particular assignment:
Consider in particular the semiotics of colour, font and shape. What
part do these factors play in visual branding? How do they relate to how 'up-market' or 'down-market' the product is
intended or perceived to be? How do they differentiate one brand from its main rivals? Try to use semiotics to shed
light on this issue, for instance, you might list the main colours that constitute
the paradigm for the package colours or for for the fonts deployed or offer a visual mapping of the relationships
between the main brands. Ernst Dichter,'the father of consumer motivation' studies (Hecker & Stewart 1988, p. 34),
suggested that the marketing of
tea tended to generate feminine connotations while that of coffee tended to generate masculine connotations: is
there any sign of this in your own investigation?
You may refer where appropriate to supporting evidence from advertising campaigns and from marketing demographics.
You are encouraged to check your hunches against the reactions of
consumers. Remember that, whatever the sources of your ideas, you should employ an explicitly
semiotic framework. You are expected to demonstrate your
understanding of relevant semiotic concepts, in particular signifier, signified,
syntagm, paradigm and codes (e.g. codes of colour and of typography).
This essay needs substantial illustration, particularly with photographs (ideally, some of these should be your own);
essays with minimal illustration will lose marks for this.
In particular, try to group related images together for comparison and contract in order to assist your discussion.
Remember to include a list labelled either Figures or Image sources after your
list of References.
Although this is a heavily illustrated essay
the same criteria will be employed as for other written assignments, so do not neglect such essential features as the
discussion of relevant academic sources.
Only some of the books on the suggested reading are explicitly semiotic and you may need to recast their
insights within a semiotic framework.
Some suggested reading
- Barnard, Malcolm (2005)
Graphic Design as Communication. London: Routledge
- Beasley, Ron & Marcel Danesi (2002)
Persuasive Signs: The Semiotics of Advertising. New York: Mouton de Gruyter
- Beaumont, Michael (1987)
Type & Colour. London: Phaidon
- Berger, Arthur Asa (1989)
Seeing is Believing: An Introduction to Visual Communication. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield
- Berger, Arthur Asa (1999)
Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics. Salen, WI: Sheffield
- Berger, John (1972)
Ways of Seeing. London: BBC/Penguin
- Bernard, Michael, Melissa Mills, Michelle Peterson, & Kelsey Storrer
'A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which is Best and When?'
[WWW document] URL
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/3S/font.htm
- Bignell, Jonathan (1997)
Media Semiotics: An Introduction.
Manchester: Manchester University Press (beware of the references to photographic media as primarily iconic!)
- Birren, Faber (1956)
Selling Color to People. New York: University Books
- Brumberger, Eva R. (2003)
'The Rhetoric of Typography: The Awareness and Impact of Typeface Appropriateness',
Technical Communication 50(2): 224-231
- Carter, Rob, Ben Day & Philip Meggs (2002)
Typographic Design: Form and Communication (3rd Edn).
New York: John Wiley
- Chandler, Daniel (2007)
Semiotics: The Basics (2nd Edn.). London: Routledge.
- Chandler, Daniel and Rod Munday (2011)
Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Cook, Guy (1999)
The Discourse of Advertising (2nd Edn.). London: Routledge
- Crow, David (2003)
Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics. Crans-près-Céligny, Switzerland: AVA
- Danesi, Marcel (1994)
Messages, Signs and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press
[caution - labels photographic media as primarily iconic rather than primarily indexical]
- Davis, R. C. & Hansel J. Smith (1933) 'Determinants of Feeling Tone in Type Faces',
Journal of Applied Psychology 17: 742-764.
- Dyer, Gillian (1982)
Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge [caution - labels photographic media as primarily iconic rather than primarily indexical]
- Emmison, Michael & Philip Smith (2002)
Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry
(Introducing Qualitative Methods). London: Sage
- Forceville, Charles (1998)
Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London: Routledge
- Fowles, Jib (1996)
Advertising and Popular Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
- Fox, Roy F. (Ed) (1994)
Images in Language, Media and Mind. Urbana, IL: NCTE
- Frere-Jones, Tobias (2000)
'Drugstore Travelogue'. In Steven Heller (Ed)
Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design. New York: Allworth Press, pp. 40-42
- Haskins, J.B. & L. Flynne (1974)
'Effects of headline typeface variation on reader interest',
Journalism Quarterly 51(4), 677-682 [gendered fonts]
- Hecker, Sidney & David W. Stewart (Eds) (1988)
Nonverbal Communication in Advertising. Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books/D. C. Heath
- Hine, Thomas (1995)
The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Other Persuasive Containers.
Boston, MA: Little, Brown
- Johansen, Jorgen Dines & Svend Erik Larsen (2002)
Signs in Use: An Introduction to Semiotics (trans. Dinda L Gorl?e & John Irons). London: Routledge
- Kress, Gunther & Theo van Leeuwen (2006)
Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd Edn.). London: Routledge
- Lester, Paul Martin (2000)
Visual Communication: Images with Messages. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
- Manning, Paul (2012)
Semiotics of Drinks and Drinking. London: Continuum
- Meggs, Philip (1992)
Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley
- Messaris, Paul (1994)
Visual 'Literacy': Image, Mind, and Reality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press
- Messaris, Paul (1997)
Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
- Myers, Greg (1999)
Ad Worlds: Brands, Media, Audiences. London: Arnold
- Pavitt, Jane (2000)
Brand.new. London: V & A
- Prosser, Jon (Ed) (1998)
Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. London: Routledge
- Rowe, Camille L. (1982)
'The Connotative Dimensions of Selected Display Typefaces',
Information Design Journal 3(1): 30-37
- Schirato, Tony & Jen Webb (2004)
Understanding the Visual. London: Sage
- Schroeder, Jonathan E. (2002)
Visual Consumption (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research). London: Routledge
- Scott, Linda M & Rajeev Batra (Eds) (2003)
Persuasive Imagery: A Consumer Response Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
- Sharpe, Deborah T. (1975)
The Psychology of Color and Design. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams
- Small, Jennifer (Ed) (2006)
Business Superbrands: An Insight into Britain's Strongest Brands, 2006/7. London: Superbrands
- Taft, Charles (1997)
'Color Meaning and Context: Comparisons of Semantic Ratings of Colors on Samples and Objects',
Color Research and Application 22(1): 40-50
- van Leeuwen, Theo & Carey Jewitt (Eds.) (2001)
Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage
- Vestergaard, Torben & Kim Schroder (1985)
The Language of Advertising. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
- Will-Harris, Daniel (2003)
'EsperoFonto Typeface Selection System'
http://www.esperfonto.com/
- Williams, Gareth (2000)
Branded? Products and Their Personalities. London: V&A
- Zettl, Herbert (1990)
Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (2nd Edn). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Note: Treat with extreme caution sources labelled with this symbol!