A beautiful discourse on the intersection between mythology and brands. I’d hate to pollute this wonderful discourse with my own words. Please read the whole thing, it’s well worth your time.
The Holy Breath of Inspiration (Triple Pundit):
The Nike swoosh is a great example of a brand that holds a key to one of these core mythological human needs. The swoosh is air. It is ethereal and quickly able to “Just Do It.” It moves effortlessly and with great power. The Nike corporation defines itself as being in service to human potential. According to Nike, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” Basically, the story of the swoosh proclaims a universal truth: if you are breathing, you are alive, and you are wrought with physical potential through the breath, the element of air.
According to David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, our verbiage is formed by sounds in nature. Therefore, it is not uncommon to notice that certain words, like swoosh, replicate the sounds of what they represent. Swoosh is definitely a wind word. Abram also notes that the holy word for the un-nameable divine essence, Yahweh, actually represents the breath by inhale (yah) and exhale (weh). If one takes a deep breath with lips slightly parted, the subtle sound of yah-weh can be heard. So, the essence of living consciousness, breath, is the only sound-name to approximate the divinity of what cannot be described: the mystery of life.
0 Responses to “Airing thoughts on brands”