At my son’s lacrosse game today and a family’s dog came onto the field and attacked one of the players when the play came close to the sideline. The kid had to go to the ER and get stitches.
I know people love to take their dogs everywhere, but maybe they shouldn’t…
Milestone: My first published research paper is now online
I’ve reached a big milestone in my academic career: my first published research paper.
Brand new: How visual context shapes initial response to logos and corporate visual identity systems has bene published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. It’s available now online and will eventually be assigned to an issue. If you have access to journal articles through a university or public library, you can access the article.
If you can’t access the article, here’s the abstract:
When a new logo is released, it does not have an established meaning in the mind of the viewer. As logos have become more highly scrutinized by consumers and critics, it has become more important to understand viewers’ initial response to logos. While other studies have researched the impact of aesthetic choices on viewer reaction to logos, this study aims to understand the effect of the surrounding visual identity system when a new logo is introduced. This study combines a content analysis of 335 posts on the logo review website Brand New with the voting data from their polls to understand how visual context correlates with a viewer’s initial response. Increased amounts of visual context correlate to an improved response from viewers. Different types of context that can be presented – from logo variations and environmental examples to videos and animation – have varied effects.
Basically, my study finds that people respond better to new logos when they are shown more examples of the logo in use. This is one of those things that seems intuitive to designers, but hasn’t been researched or quantified. Because I’m a designer, most people are surprised that my research includes a fair amount of statistical analysis, but I’ve really taken to the quantitive side of things. This paper has been in review for over a year, working it’s way through the revision process.
It’s fitting that this is my first paper to be published. When I started grad school, I didn’t really know anything about scholarly research. In the spring of 2019 — my second semester as a grad student — I took a content analysis class with Carol Pardun. I was the only master’s level student in a class full of Ph.D. students. I felt so overwhelmed by the pressure to come up with an idea and learn methods and theories on the fly. The paper I wrote for that class was the first version of this paper. It was accepted to the AEJMC Conference that August and I presented in Toronto — my first academic conference presentation. I loved the concept for the study and got great feedback, but I was still learning and felt like I could improve it. I scrapped everything, started over with a larger sample and better methodology. After Dr. Pardun retired, I started working with Tara Mortensen on the next evolution of this work, which turned into my thesis. And that thesis eventually became this paper.
Thanks go out to so many people who’ve help me along the way:
- Dr. Pardun for supporting my bizarre little project, especially in the early days when the project was taking shape.
- All of the Ph.D. students in that content analysis class who helped me figure things out and took me under their wing.
- Dr. Mortensen for taking over as my thesis director and helping guide me through the publication process.
- Kevin Hull and Van Kornegay for serving on my committee and providing helpful feedback.
- Robert McKeever and Jacob Long for giving me an appropriate foundation for analyzing data.
- Editor Cleopatra Veloutsou who guided me through the process with the Journal of Product and Brand Management.
- All of the reviewers and discussants at the conference level for AEJMC and in the peer review process whose feedback legitimately made this paper better.
And of course, this couldn’t have happened without the rest of Team Wertz. Liz and the kids have been so supportive and patient while I have embarked on this grad school journey. (And occasionally, Norah and Jill even joined me at Starbucks when I had to write.) I simply could not have done it without them.
I’ve still got a few years left until I finish my classwork and dissertation, but I’m exceptionally proud of this milestone and excited to see where my research goes next.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I really enjoy Apple’s new crosswords in Apple News.
Flat tire today sidetracked my plans for the day. Now I’m working from a waiting room.
Finally updated to macOS Sonoma on my Mac and iOS on my iPhone. My watch didn’t update because apparently, I don’t have enough space… not sure what that is all about.
Absurd Ahsoka Finale Speculation
Tomorrow night, the Ahsoka finale airs on Disney+. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed the show. It’s not perfect, but I love Star Wars Rebels and it’s great to see a continuation of the story line.
I’ve got a few absurd ideas about the finale that I figured I’d share. Our heroes are on Peridea, in another galaxy. Thrawn is ready to come back to the core galaxy, partnered with the Nightsisters, to restore the Empire.
Here are 9 absurd things that are not going to happen on the season finale of Ahsoka:
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Our heroes (and maybe villains) will remain stuck in the Peridea galaxy. That would at least explain where they were during the Rise of Skywalker.
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Force ghost Kanan Jarrus appears to… Ezra? Hera? Jacen?
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Yoda’s species is actually from this new galaxy, and they are the enemies of the Nightsisters.
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There is an even darker power in the new galaxy that is stronger than the Nightsisters and Thrawn… which is why they want to escape.
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Huyang helps Ezra make a new lightsaber, and the blade is… yellow or purple.
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All those New Republic ships are actually filled with Imperial technology and spies and Thrawn will be able to control them.
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There’s a Jedi temple on Peridea… with a portal that transports our heroes to Lothal via wolf ride.
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Post credit scene features Hera assembling a team to fight Thrawn… including Zeb, the Mandalorian, Grogu, the surviving members of the Bad Batch and Rex.
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Baylan Skoll actually does have a plan.
I warned you they were absurd, but the list was fun to come up with. Looking forward to seeing where the show lands. There is no way they can resolve all the various plot threads, so I assume there will be another season, or the storyline will be continued in another series. Eventually, we already know this leads to a new Dave Filoni-directed movie.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
My son, Ryan, is back in goal for another fall lacrosse season.
Weather is beautiful today. Hanging out on the back deck and cooking out on the grill.
Columbia’s Soda City Market is hoppin’ today. I remember when they only took up two blocks of Main Street.
Overheard at a grad school symposium:
I mean, we’re grad students. We should geek out about our research.
Loved this story on the Washington Post about the evolving color palette of Lego bricks.
As a designer who is also a Ph.D. student, I don’t understand why all diagrams in academic journals are poorly crafted.
Reading back through some journal articles for class from 2001 about the potential of the internet to shape public relations. It’s a flashback to a moment after the popularization of the web, but before social media. A very different world. (I miss that world.)
Got to film in the South Caroliniana Library on campus today. Hadn’t been in since the renovation started in 2015. Designed by Robert Mills in 1840, South Caroliniana is the oldest freestanding college library in the United States. The renovation/restoration is phenomenal.
Sports talk radio all over South Carolina is going to be a dumpster fire tomorrow.
Rewatching the first few episodes of Ahsoka again. Thrilled to see the Star Wars Rebels storyline continuing.
Today is a holiday, but my daughter needed to study and I had some grad school work to do so we headed out to Starbucks. This was the only coffee shop near my house when I started grad school and I was here for long hours most weekends. It was open late and was seemingly always filled with other grad students. After COVID shut everything down, several new coffee shops opened up including two very close to my house. I don’t visit “Grad School Starbucks” very often these days, but it’s funny how a space can hold so many memories…
I realized a long time ago that watching South Carolina play football on TV just stresses me out. So I’ll follow along with the game against UNC on the ESPN website. I’ll be happy if they win. And I’ll be less frustrated if the lose.
The wifi at my daughter’s dorm room is slow and she has a hybrid class that starts this week. I dropped off an ethernet cable and a USB-C adapter today and now her internet incredibly fast. Wifi is convenient, but ethernet is fast and reliable.
Saw these flowers outside of a restaurant this evening.
I had a great view of campus today. From the 8th floor, you can really see how many trees are all over the University of South Carolina campus.
I follow a handful of Mastodon accounts here on Micro.Blog. Every so often, I notice them replying to some controversy swirling around Mastodon. Or arguing with a particularly rude commenter. I’m glad I can follow Mastodon accounts on Micro.Blog, because I don’t think I’d enjoy Mastodon.
The Beekeepers Who Don’t Want You to Buy More Bees - The New York Times:
“But that’s an agriculture story, not a conservation story,” Mr. Black said. “There are now more honey bees on the planet than there have ever been in human history.”
Streaming killed the TV clip show
Recently, we started rewatching Alias, the 2000s ABC spy thriller by J.J. Abrams.1 All five seasons are on Disney+ and we started from the beginning. Season 1 has 22 episodes, which was once considered a “full season.” Now, a streaming show rarely has more than 8 or 10 episodes a season.
Alias became a hit and attracted new viewers over the first season. But in the broadcast TV era, there wasn’t an easy way for people to go back and watch the episodes they’d missed. I remember ABC trying to rerun episodes as it gained popularity. And the “previously on” section got hilariously longer to try and catch people up.
The 17th episode of season 1, “Q&A,” is an exposition-filled clip show where a skeptical FBI agent quizzes super spy Sydney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner). She answers his questions, explaining the premise of the series while showing clips from previous episodes. Sydney basically tells the viewer everything they need to know in the lead up to the season finale. There’s a reveal at the end of the episode… a revelation to keep the newly updated viewer hooked to come back next week.
As I watched it, I realized that this type of clip show episode — once a staple of 20+ episode network TV seasons — will likely fade from existence. Streaming services like Disney+ allow people to go back and watch the whole season easily. And shorter seasons mean that you don’t need a budget-friendly recap episode. In today’s streaming world, there is simply no longer a reason to make a clip show.2
We are in the midst of a huge shift in television. Most of the attention is directed at the financial aspects of the streaming era. The demise of the clip show episode is a comparatively minor shift, but it demonstrates how the changing financial model of the television industry directly shapes the creative product itself.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
Dropped my oldest off at college today. She is living in the same building that my wife lived in her freshman year. She’s only 20 minutes away from our house, and my office is 6 blocks away, but it’s still a big change for Team Wertz.
