I never imagined ground gristle and nitrites piped into intestinal casing could so felicitously embody the Plutonic ideal, and yet there it is. Formally, these are gorgeous. Unfortch, if formalism cuts it for you, then you’re either a sociopath or Clem Greenburg reanimated. Probably both.
I don’t even need to actually articulate any semantic arguments because it’s already conveniently storyboarded as part of their brand campaign:
Commercial art is really hard because if it’s what you love to do, you can easily become supersaturated with symbols, images, pop narratives because that is your medium. Suddenly, your brain is a card catalog full of signs divorced from their signified. They’re pragmatic, a language you need to speak in to effectively communicate the message of your client’s product. What they are not, however, is human. These orphaned signs lack history, nuance, and complexity, but sometimes designers seem to forget that the audience translating them do not.
Mehndi is an art practiced, transmitted, and mastered almost entirely by women. It’s a tradition that mostly will use the female body as its canvas, rather than the male. In Western culture, it’s generally understood as an Indian/Arabic bridal custom. It’s a practice that is heavily steeped in femininity, family, and community; in rural Rajasthan, there is a bonding ritual beginning in the 8th month of pregnancy and past birth in which family and friends will form a system of support, both emotionally and in care giving, organized around the application of mehndi to a new mother.
It’d probably be a small hassle to find a more puissant icon of womanhood in like, all of human history, so it makes perfect sense then to print it on the casing of a sausage–factory farmed meat, natch.
Seriously, guys. A sausage. Mendhi-printed meat. Like their bridal counterparts, the deeper the design’s shade, the surer you may be that this banger will love your body (n uncooked one, for example, would not love you very much at all). Also worth a chuckle: these sausages are marketed in Britain, produced now by Mr. Singh’s grandson, working from the original family recipe developed by the original Mr. Singh back in 1940’s India. ( India gained their independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Accounts seem to suggest one might not have called it a peaceable kingdom.)
It’s not offensive, just kind of astonishingly duh.
I’ve been inspired to change the face of academia and culture forevermore, so like, alert the media. I hereto declare a new job market for semiotic nerds, since none actually exist: every graphic design firm needs a dramaturge. Tell the industry they can pay me 120/hr to stand behind their desk and say, “Why is everything you make vaguely imperialist, weirdly misogynist, and explicitly appropriative? NEXT.” I might also follow that up with, “I know you’re super busy channeling the Sartorialist and getting a hard-on for kerning, but when normal people eat, they don’t care to risk confusing the main course with the tablecloth. A sausage has dignity, you know. This shit wouldn’t even fly with New Money.”
For clarity on the relationship between sexual imagery, meat, and violence in consumer culture, see the work of Carol J. Adams.
(via leah)
