Symbol & Emotion: Design and History of Religious, Political and Commercial Communication

By Federico Helman

This book presents a starting point to reflect on the role of symbols in our life, in a progression in which past, present and future merge together within a space whose borders are much more diffuse than what we are used to believing.

Why do some images have symbolic value and others do not? What are the similarities between certain symbols emerging from different cultures, distant both in space and time?
From primitive drawings to modern logos, all symbols have aspects in common: they are present in every society, awake deep emotions and, according to this book, could provide access to a higher level of consciousness which we are still learning to decode.

"Symbol and emotion" contains striking images which add value by themselves and bring an emotional approach to the historical and mythical events presented. It is an inspired work on communication, addressed to anyone interested in exploring the interrelated role of symbols and emotions in the past, present and future of humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Federico Helman
• Release date: May 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370792412

Federico Helman

Federico Helman is an expert on communication, publicity and media strategies with extensive background in the research, creation and application of new technologies aiming at the analysis and diagnostics for loyalty and transmission of knowledge. Awarded both nationally and internationally, Helman is one of the three Argentines to have won the exclusive Hall of Fame Clio and the first one of two Argentines of ever obtaining the New York Festival Grand Prix Award. He was also awarded with the First Prize of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (National Arts Fund).

Book preview

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SYMBOL & EMOTION

by Federico Helman

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 Federico Helman

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

to GiGí

my love yesterday, today and always.

Art Direction: GiGí Helman

Illustrations: Gabriel Ippoliti

Design: Alejandro Maffoni

Edition and translation: Juan Martín Biotti

Many thanks to the team,

true symbol, sign and road

of this shared journey

full of emotions and affection.

In memory of Dr. Carlos Grosso Brenner

We can measure a society’s stage of development

by the way it reproduces reality.

David J. Dodds

Anthropologist

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

PART I Symbol

The starting point

The human time

Language and communication

Duality in the Western and Eastern thought

Left and right hemispheres

Thinking and feeling

The intuitive

The emotional-vibrational

Symbol

PART 2 National symbols

The Sun, axis of our history

Universal intelligences

Flags

American solar symbols

Argentina

Brazil

USA

The road and the signs

PART 3 Religious and sacred symbols

The universal circle

The pyramid

The star

Yin‐Yang

The cross

Symbologies at rest

Intuitive relations

PART 4 Brand symbols

Brand symbology

The value of a brand

Pyramidal philosophy

What is a brand?

PART 5 The non-communication era

The masterpiece

The human biological unit

The non-communication, a very clever system

Last words

Art and part

These are the vowels of the universal language. The consonants are not yet known.

Foreword:

Science observes reality, art reproduces it ^

We humans live in a world of phenomena with the perception that time is linear. But that vision is an interpretation which is located in an area where our certainties are fairly slim. Although we have seen some proof of belief, we are just beginning to develop systems that allow to verify and make some more objective measurements.

The reality we understand and live every day is perceived much differently by our best minds: since several thousand years ago, these indicate to us that we live in a symbolic world.

The arts and sciences are symbolic activities. So are the spoken and written word in every language.

Humanity’s ability to communicate is encrypted in our very DNA, it is therefore located in nature: our anatomy was specially designed for this activity to develop and carry out the task of establishing bindings and associative relationships.

Talking, singing, dancing, writing, creating images come from this inexhaustible, distinctive and extraordinary gift that we have been given.

This is true since the very beginning of creation.

Our first attempts in the production of various languages, based on complex grammar, spelling and diction rules, represent real word engineering systems, which were built to sustain the rational and emotional narrative dwelling within us. Languages are, in short, very sophisticated systems (and what can be said when phonetics are added to that?).

This communication structure continues to grow steadily and evolves with a remarkable updating capability: it is something alive that mutates, evolves and merges with other languages, to generate new ones, new ways to resignify environment and existence, something we have been experiencing and sharing since the dawn of time. Since the beginning, communication comes from the human voice, and singing is part of this vocal production based on vibrational and poetic features.

But the written word is one of the species' most remarkable engineering processes. Because it is a system and a methodology where the word leaves the vocal status is embodied and takes shape in order to be printed.

Today, this development is accompanied by the technical aspect, transforming communication in an exponential fact in real time. This generous activation involves several hundreds of thousands of years (or maybe a lot more). Wondering who first started this conversation, and where, is not worthwhile, because, as it is written in one of the sacred books, God used the word to create the world.

Whereupon the initial conversation is in the matrix of the universe and took place a long time ago. It looks like the creator likes to be understood in this way, and no one can really know how far back this refined taste for conversation goes.

In the midst of this evolving process is the man and his project.

In the last 500 years a never-before-seen migration process starts to take place towards the very aptly named New world.

America is the result of an active, unique and special process: by welcoming all races and thereby producing a new human tissue in continuous activity, the impact of the events taking place in this new world could be similar to an alien invasion.

From the ships descended tides of