In the movie Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore plays a smart and lonely newspaper editor who gets her first undercover assignment as a reporter and has to return to high school. Near the beginning of the movie, there is a scene that shows her after work on a typical day and she is completing needlepoint or embroidery for pillows that she makes while sitting and watching television. The actual activity fits the character, but gets even funnier when she finishes the project and walks into a spare bedroom with a bed that is covered in these pillows. She adds the one she just finished to the pile with a sigh of satisfaction and returns to her evening activities.
It’s the implied statement of how much time she has spent alone doing the exact same thing that makes the image of all of those pillows effective. For a girl with so many brains, she doesn’t realize what a rut she is in. If you think about it, there are implied statements everywhere you turn. People often are advertising or making an impression that they don’t even realize. It’s a little like meeting someone at the grocery store who claims to love to cook, yet their basket is full of prepared foods. Perhaps they don’t enjoy cooking as much as they think, or…it may be they are sick of cooking for one and have given up on the idea. The pillows in the scene are cleverly done, because they imply both of these aspects in seconds.
If you walk into a business, there is often a similar effect. When corporate partnerships are formed, it is not uncommon for the new found friends to be somewhat showered in paraphernalia that displays the other companies logo or name. It could be on coffee mugs, spoons, shirts, hats, binders, pens…you name it, even golf balls. Whatever it is though, it gives an impression just like the pillows. In a sense, the more it is on display within the company, the more people who visit are going to affiliate the two together. This kind of association can even dramatically affect the employees within the company.
With the increase in machine embroidery designs and technology it is getting easier and easier to leave an impression. Every time people walk into a store or sometimes out their door, they are bombarded with a sea of impressions made by applique machine embroidery designs. Just try entering a local high school and sitting off to the side during a passing period or lunch hour. There is a plethora of machine embroidery designs awaiting discovery.
Nike and Adidas for example. Whatever items they design, the logos automatically become part of the design. Whether it is subtly sewn onto the sleeve of a shirt or jacket, or colorfully bold on the heel of a shoe, they make sure their symbol is there to make numerous impressions on anyone who happens to be passing by. It’s like a voluntary form of advertising that keeps numerous machine embroidery designs busily being appliqued onto items.
Unlike the pillows in the movie though, the intent is to have a very different impression. Rather than one of humor and loneliness when stuck in a rut, most companies try to associate themselves with positive traits of progression and being oddly ahead of the game, as if they knew all along that the girl with the pillows was just biding her time instead of actively participating in the outside world. Whether it is desired or not, these implied statements and impressions are everywhere and surround the average person on almost a continual basis. Who knows, there may be a lot more of us who are pillow people than we realize.
