A Pirate Baby Means Nothing to Me!
This is a company that provides a service?
The title of today’s post is inspired by a great review of Adobe CS2 in which the reviewer points out the meaninglessness of Adobe’s program icons. Look:
As the reviewer said: “A SEA SHELL AND A FEATHER MEAN NOTHING TO ME.” The point is that you can’t tell which icon is Photoshop’s, which belongs to Illustrator, which to whatever. It is at this point that I admit that today’s entry is not so much about Brazil as it is about graphic design and the art of communicating ideas sans text.
So Casas Bahia has decided to present themselves with a pirate baby. I saw this truck yesterday morning and I got to wondering what such a big truck with a pirate baby was delivering. So I read the words on the truck (I can read Portuguese now) and figured out that they say HOUSES BAHIA complete dedication to you (Bahia is the name of a Brazilian state). So I was left with no useful information and I had to get on my bus before I could see if they were going to pull pilfered corn poppers out of the truck.
I decided to see if this group has a website and they do! Look! It also says HOUSES BAHIA complete dedication to you, in both static and panning text. It also tells you the date in Portuguese in the upper-right corner. Otherwise, the site can help you locate one of their stores, register with them, answer questions about obtaining credit with them, and find jobs with them. Nonetheless, there is no information about what this company does other than that it’s entirely dedicated to me and that it has something to do with a baby pirate.
I guess I’ll just ask the internet. Here’s what it says:
Fast-growing Casas Bahia is one of Brazil’s biggest retail groups, specialising in low-cost household appliances, consumer electronics and automobile sales.
Conclusion: they need a new logo, but I don’t know what it should be. So far this is all I can come up with:
While Mr. Fusion and the Flux Capacitor are merely theoretical “low-cost household appliances [and] consumer electronics,” respectively, the Delorean is a real car. It captures everything that Casas Bahia is all about and it’d look great on the side of a truck.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Well, Casas Bahia are one of the biggest retail chains around the country, so their brand is so strong that I guess they don’t have to be explicit about their game, much like any other major company such as Coca-Cola. They sell all sorts of home appliances, but their main appeal is to the poorer folks who have to rely on lots of monthly payments to quit their debts (usually paying up a lot more, unfortunately, than if they’d just pay cash).
The hat’s not of a pirate; instead, it was used by cangaí§eiros, who used to operate in the early 20th century on northeast Brazil. See the wikipedia article on Lampião and check out his hat.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:46 pm
My goodness! Is the internet not the greatest thing in the world! Between Craig’s List Rio and wikipedia, Carlos has arrived at A Gentle Bossanova and blessed us with an absolute gold-mine of knowledge. The Lampião article is really great!
Thank you Carlos! Thank you internet!
July 26th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
My pleasure, man. If you feel like hanging out some day, drop me an email or something.