will it be possible that we think too much?

As early as in the time of Han Dynasty, trditional chinese culture like poetry, Chinese painting and so on enjoyed a large population. People expressed their ideas by composing a poem or a painting in a both public and secret way.

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When we study these works nowadays, teachers instruct us to explore as many meanings from the elements they used as possible. For example, when they drew bamboo, the meaning expressed is more than just bamboo, but claiming their unwilling to surrender to the authority as well, as bamboo is the symbol of the uprightness. However, I am always wondering that will it be possible that we think too much, maybe the writer didn't mean that but just wanted to draw bamboo simplitly?

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It is true that people communicating with each other by using symbols to stimulate meaning in other's mind. However, the symbols, especially signs has their original meanings themselves, when we read these signs, we should not add too many meanings on it violently. It reminds me of tragedies happened to scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties. In order to enforce their regime, the authorities killed many scholars because of their works, which the authories regarded containing antisociety meanings.

postmodern ads?

What is postmodernism? I have no idea. But I think, the work which you can't get information from or you can't figure out the connection within the elements it uses, can be postmodern work.

The mission of advertisements should be communicating information of the product, however, I find many advertisements quite confusing. I can't figure out what they want to say by adding this elements on the picture or by putting element A and element B together. Maybe I am out dated, which should not have happened. I am young and surrounded with so many information everyday.

So, I put those advertisements into the category of postmodernism, and come up with an explanation, or I should better call it supposal. In the development of advertising, people has tried information appeal and emotion appeal. However, consumers has get used to those appeals and aware of the expectation of those appeals. In other words, those approaches don't work in this days because of consumers' resisitence. As a result, advertisers try something new, something unexpected to catch people's eyes. They may don't have any reason or connection in a work, but presenting a feeling like cool or crasy, instead. What's important in these works is there "look".

Does it mean that in postmodern world, we don't need rationale, reason or direction. Feeling dominates everything, because seriously, I will fall in love with a brand just because the feeling it presents instead of anything else.

shanghai girls, more than a movement of art

Shanghai girls is the art movement that opens the advertising era of China. The basic enforcement of the movement, I think, is the open to the foreign countries, which results in sudden and various goods arriving, which also explains the content and the form of the advertisements.

This printing ad, in the first place, is a formation of new year poster or calendar, which is a tradition in China. The arriving of the plenty of goods take the advantage of this popular posters to sell their products. As a result, we can find the biggest difference of the modern advertisements is that the product shows up as an attachment instead of the figure.

As to the content, it astonishes people both from home country and aboard that some of them so nudity and full of sex overtone, totally different from the tradition of China. I think it is a result of two facts. The first is that with accompany of the foreign goods comes the open thoughts about sex and other things. The other one is that sex is the instinct of human. Chinese people have shut up for thousands of years. When they get oppotunity to open the mouth, things are easy to be overdone. The scenes described in the poster are activities quite popular or modern at that time, like bicyling and the girls showing up are all beatuties with the most modern dress. Judging from that, talking about sex may not a big deal either, or even a modern thing I guess.

What I want to especailly point out is that the social system of China before is quite different with the one we do today and in the future. There is no judge of right or wrong towrds social systems. But it take steps and time to transfer from one to another, during which period things may overdo or get wrong, but it's quite normal. Things always progess in zigzag, isn't it?

An Example of Reification

The Trademark of the Federal Express is a good example of Reification, one of the Gestalt Precepts. By the second look at the trademark, you may notice the arrowhead constructed by the letters "E" and "X" ingeniously, which stands for the high speed of the product.The design successfully took advantege of this precept by changing the letters' sizes properly and impresses people a lot.

A Pleasing Noise

This huge painting advertisement on the street wall caught my attention successfully. What was the white figure on her tongue? A pill ? a gum? or a tongue ring? I walked towards it to reveal the answer. It surprised me greatly by turning out to be a normal white sticker advertising airconditioner repairing, which used to be disgusted by people.

Such paper stickers actually are quite common in cities in China, and are usually accused of destrucing the city's appearence by appearing on the public walls or poles disorderly. I never take a glance at these stickers seriously as most people do. But this time, this small sticker caught my attention by appearing differently, and I suppose many other people were just deceited as I was. Honestly speaking, the sticker made the picture more cute and more attractive.

Actually, the person who pasted the sticker may even not did it on purpose. However, the coincidence reminds me that a little change may have a big effect. Though one can not change the fact of being a noise, he can change the way he appears to make oneself more acceptble, pleasing and effective.