TOW #25 - Visual Text: Green Field Farms Logo

For most of this year, many of the visual texts that we’ve rhetorically analyzed have been individual advertisements, but I’ve decided to widen the horizon and look at a particular kind of visual rhetoric that we see far more often than the commercials brands produce: logos. Specifically the Green Field Farms logo, pictured above. In their logo, Green Field Farms uses eye-catching color, depth of field, and careful arrangement to advertise their brand.

Before honing in on any specific part or piece of content within the overall logo, the first thing one notices upon viewing it is the use of color. All of the colors used are very bright, recognizable, and relatively simple. The brightness creates the effect of making any food they sell with this logo seem fresher, as fresh foods tend to be brighter in color, which begins to dull and fade as the food rots. Additionally, the colors are familiar and simple such as blue, white, green, and red, which makes the logo easy to look at, rather than if it had colors like neon yellow or hot pink. The depth of field also allows the brand to display what it considers to be most important. All of the fruit and livestock are in the very front of the logo, while the farm buildings and silo appear tiny all the way in the background. This makes it seem as if the produce and livestock come first and are more important than any other part of their business. Lastly, the careful arrangement of elements within the logo helps its audience quickly take away the brand’s main selling point: the fact that it’s organic. Located in the dead center of the logo are the words “Certified Organic” which are in a font size as big as the company’s name. This allows the logo’s audience to immediately recognize the brand’s primary selling point before considering any other factors such as price, taste, etc. Overall, I would consider this logo to be extremely effective in representing and selling the Green Field Farms brand through its use of eye-catching color, depth of field, and careful arrangement.

MP4 IRB Intro Post

For the fourth and last marking period of this dreaded yet rewarding junior year, I have decided to ready Moneyball by Michael Lewis for many of the same reasons that I chose to read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell back in September. For example, in both cases, emotion and tradition are disregarded and replaced with facts and statistics, numbers and concrete evidence. Then follows the careful analysis of these numbers to discover trends and make conclusions in Outliers case, and take it one step further in Moneyball to create the best team possible with the lowest budget. Again, I am also personally fascinated with statistics and predictions, as they affect much of how we live our lives day-to-day, as well as big picture. University X has an acceptance rate of 9.67%. The odds of being struck by lightning are one in 3,000. Tomorrow there will be a 50% chance of rain (thanks). Statistics determine aspects of our lives as minor as whether or not to bring an umbrella to work based on a weather report, to deciding what college to go to based on a variety of factors. And as our society further develops and evolves, statistics and trends taken from said statistics will only become more and more important.

TOW #24 - IRB: Section Two of Into the Wild

Christopher McCandless' Final Picture

Although Into The Wild is also a biography like my last independent reading book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I have a vastly different set of takeaways. Firstly, to address what is very similar between the two, both biographies showed me that non-fiction stories can be just as interesting and compelling as fictional ones, if not even more fascinating due to their factuality. In terms of what is different, Malcolm X’s story spoke on an important and well-documented era in relatively-recent American and African American history, whereas McCandless’ story is about survival, self-reliance, and the concept of starting fresh. Much of his desire to start a new life under new name came from his discovery of a long-hidden family secret that caused him to distrust and detest his parents, ultimately resulting in him cut off communication with them. This in itself speaks to the importance that honesty held for McCandless, who was often regarded as a strictly moral person. Additionally, due to the fact that wilderness survival and self-reliance are both things I have always been interested in and valued, I now have knowledge about a true story that doesn’t quite end as happily as some other books I’ve read regarding those two topics. Even though he had prepared himself well and survived adequately for several months, his story simply goes to show you that so much is still controlled by mother nature, regardless of how ready you believe you are to survive alone. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in survival, self-reliance, or even just looking for a (true) gripping story to read about as Krakauer’s Into The Wild has got it all.