While setting up the Flickr™ badge you now see in the right sidebar, I came across this photograph taken by Morton Fox in Windsor, NY, and tagged with "cobranded".

Architecture has a way of illustrating even the most complex social paradigms in surprisingly efficient terms, and I think this building really captures what is weird, or different, about co-branding. How might a subject inhabit or engage with the space this building defines? What are the implications for fast-food dining, and what is the effect on the respective brands involved? Isn't this a literal representation of the way we, as consumers, "consume" brands?

Fred Jameson has written a chapter on postmodern vs. modern architecture, and he actually uses the metaphor of "consuming" space, of fast food, etc. The writing is appropriately dense, but I think it is something I should grapple with in the course of determining the implications of co-branding on ourselves and our entertainment.

Thanks to Morton for the picture, and thanks to Yum! Brands, Inc. for initiating the practice and further complicating our suburban and urban big box landscapes.