University of Oregon Art Works: April 2011

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Advanced Design - Project Proposal

Companies come up with great logos. I want to be the one who can make fun of it. It takes a creative mind to come up with parodies of famous companies. To get a good logo parody to work, the parody must be clever enough to avoid a likelihood of confusion. That’s why is is smart to use really well know companies like for example fortune 500 companies are so easy to use, because everyone knows them so everyone get it.

I want to light-heartedly mock these companies that take so much away from us and give a little back their way. I will make around 40+ logos parodies that I feel and powerful and impactful. I want to make t-shirts, stickers, and posters. I would even like to have pictures of my t-shirts on models, and then display that as like an ad in a newspaper or magazine. Also to make a flash based photo gallery.

The use of parody to reflect current and historical issues in a society, or in the world for that matter, is nothing new. This practice dates back to the ancient Greeks, namely Aristophanes, who parodied the dramatic writing styles of Aeschylus and Euripides, and the ancient Romans, who used satire to criticize the vices and problems of everyday life– much like we do today.

In a way doing a parody is a defense to trademark infringement. The defense is that there is no likelihood of confusion because the parody will not be taken seriously. While it must initially bring to mind the original, it must be clever enough to be clear that it is not the original nor connected with the original, but a parody must be a humorous take-off or spin-off on the original.