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THE GOAL: In five minutes or less, compare web design, graphic design, and branding to a foot fetish.  GO!

I’m going to admit to something that I’m not proud of, and it’s to do with the television my fiance forces me to watch.  Before I continue, however, I feel like I need to preface this with the fact that all day long I listen to awesome music and do a bunch of other awesome stuff, and this should in no way be viewed as an indicator of how hip or un-hip I am.  OK?  OK.

So, in this case, the enemy television show is The Bachelor/Bachelorette and I liken the whole experience to eating my go-to fast food meal (Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Fillet, without mayonnaise, or someone will pay).  I love it so hard…until I’m finished and feel the shame of having just done something harmful.  This past season (yes, I realize another season is underway but I got busy and this post got shelved — sue me), there was a young gentlemen vying for the attention of our heroine, Jillian, who just so happened to have a foot fetish.  No, I’m serious.  All he talked about were feet and all the things he wanted to do with them.  For him, there is some mysterious quality that’s so appealing about feet, that he’s completely and utterly drawn to them, whether he can explain it or not.

This kind of attraction is uber fascinating to me — ESPECIALLY when it isn’t coming from something strange and psychological (as I suppose is the case with a foot fetish?), but from the calculated manipulation of a master artist, commercial or otherwise.  As a musician, I’ve always tried to push the definition of art as emotional manipulation.  It’s possibly not the purest and most romantic of definitions, but I find it appropriate nonetheless.  If I’ve done my job as an artist, you felt something.

The same thing applies to commercial art — web design, graphic design, branding, etc.  If we’ve done our job, we’ve created something that manipulates the viewer into being completely and utterly drawn to whatever is being pushed, peddled, or sold.

In an attempt to summarize this ridiculous train of thought, attraction can be a very mysterious phenomenon.  Our mission at Johnny Lightning Strikes Again is to understand it, and use that understanding to help draw our client’s target audiences toward their brand, product, or service — whether we’re communication through the design of a logo, website, or print piece.  We think we’re pretty good at it and to prove it, maybe we’ll try to design a feet-themed website at some point that actually GIVES people a foot fetish.

Yes.  New goal.