I need a dollar baby, a dollar is what i need...

Line, men, women, waiting, huddled, dark, government, cement, gutter, no broken windows, society, wanting a job, building, street light, hats, coats, slacks, duster, windows, "United States Employment Service,"legs crossed, hand in pocket, out of options.

The setting is a street corner in a major city during the early 1930's. There is a long line of people dressed in business clothing that wraps around the block, everyone waiting in the line to see The United States Employment Service. There is not much commotion for the amount of people crammed onto this street corner, and there is not even a car in the street, the people seem as if they have spent all their energy. Two men stand out of the line, one near the street light on the corner waiting to cross the street, the other walks past those standing in line. He is wearing a lightly colored duster and has his hand in his pocket, as if he were safe from whatever is keeping those people so firmly in line. Nobody smiles.

Seeing Between The Lines

The product that I am discovering the meaning behind is a new concept electric bicycle from Ford, The Evos. The first visual cue that I pick up is the general shape of a bicycle, as seen by two wheels, a seat, pedals, and handle bars. This object is screaming bicycle from across the room when, and you don’t even have break it down into it’s fundamental parts. Most people will be familiar with the form of this object, even if they haven’t been around modern bicycles. Underlying  the representational elements are the symbolic forms that express the lightweight, high speed, state-of-the-art feeling of this product. The wheels and tires are the most minimal they can be and the frame is as bare-bones as you can get, giving the representational objects a very light look and feel. This gives the user the feeling that this bike would be effortless to pedal, and once you got going on it, is probably a very fast machine. What can only be abstracted from the visual cues is that there is something deeper in this object, something that sets this bike in a different category then similar machines, and that is that it is electric. Nothing about this right away gives the exact representation that there is a motor that is powered by an electric energy supply, but this can be deduced by the communication of the symbolic and the representational, knowing that this is a bicycle that is fast, light, and comprised of cutting edge technologies.

What Does It All Mean?

With Study of Proportions, Leonardo Da Vinci is giving and exact representation of the human body, and the proportions of its characteristics. What is first evident about this drawing is that it is of a naked male human being with his arms and legs stretched outward. It is also very clear that this person is standing inside of a square and a circle, which his fingers, feet, and head all touch. What is not so clear is that the torso, arms and legs are all segmented into parts of proportional length. This image does a great job of representing the human form because it is very clear that this person has a body that is symmetrical and proportional and that geometry is a definite part of nature.

Coit Tower is more then just a icon of San Francisco, as a lot of locals know, but to people who don’t know the history of The City might not know that there is a deeper meaning. This magnet for tourists is a memorial to the Fire Fighters of San Francisco, those of the past and present. What makes this building abstract is that the tower was inspired by the nozzle of a fire hose. You can probably see it now: the long, solid base is  the handle and the archways near the top are where the water escapes. I think this is a great way to memorialize the fire fighters in the city because it is a very powerful piece of architecture, but is easily recognizable as having a fire hose feel.

Since I ride my bike every day, sometimes up to two hours in the saddle, I have become very found of the bike lane symbol. It is a very basic line drawing of a torso with a helmet on, one leg bent, between two circles with and arrow above it. It is such a basic group of lines, but it is so easily recognizable as a bicycle. It is also a great symbol because it is pretty universally recognizable. Most any place that you go the symbol for someone riding a bicycle is going to be almost identical. This is not hard to accomplish when you reduce the the bicycle to it’s two wheels and have the rider with a bent leg to represent that it is on pedals.