Out with the old...

When San Jose State students return from summer break this year, their school will have a completely new graphic look. Will anyone notice? Probably not, except for graphic design nerds like me.

In the spirit of Brand New, one of my favorite blogs, I've posted the old and new versions of the SJSU logo above. As you can see, the new mark is much cleaner, using a blockier logo and the SJSU logotype is now set all in the same font, albeit at differing weights. The logo mark, that sort of diamond-ish square thing, is now completely solid as opposed to the subtle texturing that the old mark featured. 

Personally, I think the change is refreshing and brings with it a renewed spirit of brand cohesion that's long been missing from San Jose State. As the new image website states, SJSU "deserves to look as professional as we are," and I think that goal is definitely realized with this new logo and image.

That's all, folks...

Well, after five weeks and a few more blog posts, that's all for this season on Rant Seven. I'll continue to post here, as one wise professor once said that abandoning your blog is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot. Having a blog where I can talk about media, technology and other related things is something I've wanted to have for a while, it just took this summer's RTVF 110 class to actually get me to sit down and do it.

Posts will appear on a more infrequent basis, but they will be here.

Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.

The Clear Channel "List"

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, rumors began circling around the Internet and in the general media that Clear Channel Communications, owner of over 1,000 radio stations across the country, had distributed a list of what it considered “objectionable” songs to program directors at its stations. As the rumor read, Clear Channel thought these songs were inappropriate to play in the days after 9/11. More than 100 songs appeared on this list, some from notable bands and artists like Led Zepplin, REM, Elvis, James Taylor and others.

Indeed, there was a list—however, contrary to popular belief, the list did not come from top Clear Channel brass. Rather, it came from a program director at a single Clear Channel station. Being a part of a large corporation myself, I know things like these can spread like wildfire thanks to the instant nature of email. According to an article on the website Snopes.com, which is where urban legends and rumors are often debunked, the list crept out of the Clear Channel organization after the original program director sent it to a few other Clear Channel program directors, who in turn forwarded it on, and so on. It was never a "ban," or even a "suggestion" from Clear Channel upper management.

While I still completely believe Clear Channel is one of the evil empires of the United States media industry (I find slight solace in the fact they recently sold off their entire 56-station television group and almost a third of their smaller radio stations), you have to call urban legend where it is warranted, and this is one such occasion. I’m sure that Clear Channel has had more than just a passing interest in what music is played on its stations, which isn’t hard to do considering most smaller stations have their content farmed out to DJs working at larger stations in a practice known as voicetracking.

When we discussed this in my RTVF 110 class, I brought up the fact that many radio stations and DJs "self-censor" during these times of tragedy or natural disaster. In October 2007, when hundreds of homes were burned to the ground due to wildfires raging in San Diego County, you did not hear R&B hits like Usher's "Burn" on San Diego hip-hop station Z90.3. (They did, however, play Alicia Keys' "No One" about once an hour, mixed with local news sound bites talking about the fires.) I can almost guarantee that any jock in their right mind would not add that song to his or her playlist during the height of the wildfires, or while the memories of houses—and lives—going up in flames were still fresh in the minds of many San Diegans.

Movie Review: Wall-E

At first thought, Wall-E would seem to be just another Pixar animated movie from Disney. But with hits like Toy Story, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and now, Wall-E, Pixar can say for a fact that it can create children's movies that successfully reach--and engage--an adult audience. Wall-E is not just a film about the life of a robot, rather, it is an important social commentary on what might happen to our planet if and when the culture of buying large and polluting without regard continues. 

Wall-E begins by showing us Earth in the 2100s, after the huge corporation Buy-N-Large took over everything on the planet, government included. What we see is a dramatically represented Earth--one completely devoid of inhabitants. Trash, as you see, is everywhere, and because of the planet being completely overrun with this waste, all humans have been forced to leave the planet and seek refuge on one of BnL's fleet of super spaceships. What would happen to Earth, however? Well, BnL has that taken care of, deploying a fleet of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Lift Loader-Earth Class) robots to clean up the planet. Seven hundred years later, our lone protagonist Wall-E is the last remaining robot that works. 

What follows is the story of a robot who has grown lonely, until he is joined by EVE, a robot sent down from one of the mega-spaceships to find living plant matter on Earth, and in turn, to find out if it is safe for humans to return. When she finds a plant that Wall-E has saved in a shoe, she takes it and stores it, and eventually goes into standby mode. A doting companion, Wall-E cares for her during this time, until a ship comes to pick her up from Earth and return her to the mega-ship. 

Wall-E is not just a fictional love story between two robots. It is, however, an important commentary on the dangers of rampant consumerism--the constant overbuying and polluting of the planet while disregarding the consequences. Is Wall-E an accurate depiction of what Earth might look like several hundred years from now? Of course we can't predict the future, but anything is possible. For many reasons, these included, Wall-E is an important film to see that will entertain at the same time as deliver an important message.