Project Space Exercise 2

Project Space Exercise #2

The Web as Sign System: Apple- http://www.apple.com/

            I visited the website for Apple. The color scheme is very chromatic with varying shades of gray and white, which provide a very sleek and clean presentation. The fonts are very thin and simple and colored in black as to keep attention on the actual products displayed. As for all of the products that are shown on the homepage, each item has been staged with a bright variety of popping, contrasting colors as to pull your eyes into them and each is shown at an angle that intrigues you enough to want to click on it to find out more about it. The iPhones and iPods being presented are very close up and have large screen backgrounds of bright purple flowers and colorful figures of people, the hand holding the iPod has been edited to a neon blue-purple color, and the watches shown are placed at eye level and have neon blue and green wrist straps and multicolored graphics on their screens. The viewer’s eyes move from product to product until either one excites enough to explore it, or the option you came to the site to search for is spotted at the top of the page. In a grey bar across the top of the webpage there are links for various different general categories of products listed, an easy to use search option to find what you’re looking for more quickly, and other resources one can use for apple products that you can click on to be directed towards specific components of their website. As you click each one, the same fresh and neat feel mixed with the bright popping colors applies and provides a very organized and visually pleasing look. Each page provides more eye catching photos and links to go into more depth on the category chosen until you zero in on what you visited the site to find. This site definitely does encourage one to consume because of how it displays all of its merchandise in such a luxurious way, presents them with such bold titles, and explains them in such far reaching and cool ways that make you want to buy any and all of the goods they have to offer. Each iPhone, iPod, iPad, or MacBook that they show also includes adventurous and fun backgrounds that in a way make you excited to have the product and give you the feeling of enthusiasm toward each device. They also place the prices in such tucked away places with the smallest and most inconspicuous fonts that you don’t even notice the huge price tags until you are just about finished falling completely in love with the products!

Project Space Exercise 1

Project Space Exercise #1

Reading the Text Questions:

1.     What does Norton mean when she claims that the suburban shopping mall appears to be a public place but in fact is not?

-        Norton means that although it is a seemingly obvious public place where anyone can go to and walk around and shop at for hours, there are a lot of rules and regulations in place at malls. The managers and owners of malls have complete authority over what advertisements can be there, what stores are there, what they sell, how they can display things, and so on. Other things not permitted in malls are freedom of speech and assembly, which means controversial displays by customers or stores are not allowed. So in conclusion, she is saying that despite the popular view of malls as an easy place where anyone has the liberty to gather, they actually have quite strong constraints on the public’s freedoms that many people are often blind to.

2.     What is Norton’s interpretation of Ralph Lauren’s Polo line?

-        Norton addresses the familiarity of the Ralph Lauren brand to people of all ages and describes a window display Ralph Lauren’s Polo line as, “an embarrassment of semiotic riches.” She believes that the complete vintage, luxurious, and distinguished image of the polo player, the horses, and the large broad lawns draw in the upper class by representing this timeless, classy, Ivy League image. The people who see the plaid prints and old western feel easily organize these cultural texts and form their own views as to what image the clothing line creates for themselves. The self that each clothing line depicts in an ad is what draws each person to that store to buy clothing from that line or brand.

3.     How is shopping a subversive activity for women, according to Norton?

-        Norton sees shopping as something as a rebellious activity for women because the woman who is shopping for pleasure is escaping the confines of her home and is taking time away from her husband and children and is using it solely for herself. She is exercising her freedom of authority to buy what she pleases, spend as much as she pleases, buy as much as she pleases, shop wherever she pleases, to create her own identity, and to engage with women instead of obeying the social order that she must be with her husband to bring her happiness.  

4.     How do mail-order catalogs create communities of shoppers, in Norton’s view?

-        These catalogues group certain types of people together by identifying the varying interests that are associated with their products in their catalogues and describing what the buyer/reader wants and who the buyer/reader is. Also they create shared mailing lists, which group together multiple related catalogues to send to people who have distinguished their identities that relate to those brands. These same people who continue to order from the same weekly or monthly catalogues, or even those who simply receive them and look over them, are all part of the same community of shoppers, in Norton’s view.

5.     What are the political messages sent by the Home Shopping Network, as Norton sees them, and how are they communicated?

-        The messages sent by the Home Shopping Network, according to Norton, that connects capitalism and democracy are that you can buy as much speech as you can afford and that you are recognized by others in accordance with your capacity to consume. These messages of consumption as an American activity are communicated through their simple interest of patriotism as shown with the red white and blue motif shown in their set designs and animation designs they create on your TV, and the intently hung up photo of the statue of liberty in their presented office.