Reading Response 7 – E M

In the readings, we see how paul rand explores what culture jamming is and how the mainstream industry competes with the underground. Culture jamming refers to the creation of images or practices that force viewers to question the status quo. When designers do this they make us think about the products or things we consume from a totally different perspective. This method challenges mainstream corporate advertisement into showing the true side behind the curtain of what their products or services are really doing to consumers. Culture gaming is being used today in one of the biggest food chain industries, Macdonald’s.  Many designers have played around with the words and logo of the company, going from flipping the famous M logo, upside down and making it look like a W, and then using it to write “Weight”.  They have also played with their famous slang, “I’m loving it” changing it to “I’m gaining it”. This starts a social disruption and it starts making people question the status quote and what they are consuming. Paul Rand also talks about the ways advertisement has been changing and evolving. He says” What has always kept the designer and client at odds is the same thing that has kept them in accord. For the former, design is a means for invention and experiment, for the latter, a means of achieving economic, political, or social ends. This shows the difference between mainstream vs. underground because old designer thinks of design as a way to invent and innovate but nowadays the mainstream thinks about how they can make money or make a political change. We’ve been experiencing this for the longest now from political cartoons to biased news media streams, design has become a way to manipulate and change people’s points of view and it has lost the meaningful power that design has, and that is to make and innovate into a better society. A lot of companies nowadays think that design is only to create advertisements and propaganda and this is taking away the fundamental value that designers like Paul Rand have left us with

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