No Logo

In all honestly I had never heard of this book until about a month ago when on holiday with a fellow design student, who had 'cleverly' brought it to read by the pool for her dissertation. Maybe not the easiest read it turned out as she managed about 1 chapter and gave up due to the heat.

She did however, encourage me to buy it and try reading it for my dissertation, as what she read had been really interesting. Now, I'm about to read it I've done a bit of a google on the book and it looks like it has created quite a lot of hype in the design world. The book, first published in 2000, although mainly about branding, focuses on anti-globalization and four main chapters;

1. No Space - how the expansion of major brands such as 'Nike' are no longer just a name on a product but have begun to pop up everywhere and become almost a lifestyle.
2. No Choice - about how large brands use their size to limit the number of choices available to the public and dominate the market.
3. No Jobs - a major point of anti-globalization where many of the brands can be seen as unethical by moving their factories to other countries and using sweatshops.
4. No Logo - discusses the movements during the 1990s such as the culture jamming movement... I would go into them, however until I've read the book I have to admit I don't actually know what they are!

Reading the reviews and the general overview of the book has made me think that from a designers perspective it's going to be quite a challenging read. Multinational brands are leaders in the markets and putting them into a negative view can only be asking for criticism...but hopefully something in it will come up that I can use in my dissertation on 'co-branding'.