Getting Emotional

Since my Architecture Is Not Architecture post of three weeks ago, I’ve been more aware of designers wanting me to engage with something on some emotional level and of their unsolicited desire to create “stories” that resonate for me. As much as I’m grateful for being the object of their attention, I smell a rat. My emotional engagement with the commercial world began early. Kids growing up in the 1960s were menaced not only by the sugary awfulness of Kellogg’s breakfast cereals but by the obligatory characters associated with each of them. I’m thankful these characters were limited to a single product and never stepped outside their box. After school, us same kids were entertained by big-eyed cartoon characters such as Felix the Cat1 that had been around since 1919 but soon began to appear on toys, mugs and postcards to add to what we now know as merch. Betty Boop2 is from 1930 but, until her merchandising potential was discovered in the 1980s, her exposure was largely limited to…