Check It Out!

Professor Housefield presented this video to us in class last week, and as usual, the design of it really created quite a conversation.

Here is the video of a popular American song, “Check It Out” by artists will.i.am and Nicki Minaj.  And while I first assumed that this would be a normal American music video, I quickly realized I was wrong… and not just because the beginning is an introduction by a Korean man.

This music video was in fact designed with a Korean audience in mind.  While the music and lyrics are sung in English, Korean audiences are able to get involved as well.  As Nicki Minaj starts singing the first verses and the chorus, Korean words and characters are graphically added into the background.  This occurs throughout the whole song as what can be described as a modified form of subtitles.  Sometimes the addition of subtitles to a foreign film or song will just add more of a detached mood and feeling—but here, the way that the music video has the words rhythmically and graphically popping out, it feels more designed.

Then from the perspective of an American, who does not know a single word of Korean, the design of the video still seems effective.  To the non-Korean speakers, the Korean characters simply act additional graphics.  There is no need to try and figure out what it says exactly, because I feel as though I can be pretty confident that the Korean words correspond to the English lyrics.  All in all, because both audiences can be included can feel included by the video, I believe it to be relatively well designed.