Archetypes and Com Des

Logos have been around for quite some time, but what about these designs draw us into a store or prompt us to buy a product? Could it be merely impulse, or is there another reason for the pull we feel toward advertisements. The secret, my friend, is archetypes. An archetype is best described as a metaphor for common human themes. Only through tapping into the running themes of the human psyche do we gain access to advertisement control.

That may be a little confusing. A good example of an archetype would be “the hero”. All cultures around the world have a fable or epic about a hero. This character tends to be a strong willed underdog male, who rises to face a challenge or sets off on a nearly impossible to complete quest. Such examples can be found in the earliest form of art: The Cave Paintings. Even though paintings have been several different geographical locations, “what is striking are the overall similarities in cave sites, in the general process of preparing, mixing pigments, and painting the cave walls, as well as in the composition of the paintings. Prehistoric caves with paintings were apparently separate from venues of habitation or communal meetings” (Blum 198).

Clearly an underlining common theme ran through not only the cave paintings, but also every culture’s literature. As the great philosopher CG Jung said, “Archetypes are primal, original human prototypes that are not learned but are innate and imbedded in the human experience” (Megehee 1435, Jung). These unconscious symbols are carried with us in our daily lives. This is the secret code to crack in order to appeal to the general population when designing.

The best way to tackle this topic is to turn to the great philosopher C G Jung. He discovered and labeled...

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... know, but as humans we strive to find the deeper meaning of the world around us, thus is out nature. All in all, the study of the collective unconscious and archetypes in relation to communication design is an interesting one and a study that I would like to continue to pursue and involve in my personal work.

Works Cited

Jung, C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. New York: Pantheon, 1959. Print.

Blum, Harold P. "The Psychological Birth Of Art: A Psychoanalytic Approach To Prehistoric Cave Art." International Forum Of Psychoanalysis 20.4 (2011): 196-204. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 May 2014.

Megehee, Carol M., and Deborah F. Spake. "Consumer Enactments of Archetypes Using Luxury Brands." Journal of Business Research 65.10 (2012): 1434-442. Print.

Golden, Carl. "The 12 Common Archetypes." The 12 Common Archetypes. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2014.