Snowman signed, ‘I Love you’ on the cover of the catalog
Posted by fookembug on November 19, 2008
By Fookem,
At my work, my mom came to me and wanted to show me something. She said, “Look at the cover of the catalog.” I looked at it and smiled because she loved to collect the snowman things. But she reminded me again and said, “look at it very careful.” I looked at it again and realized that the catalog showed the picture of the snowman signed, ‘I Love you’. The catalog was from the Land’s End. I told my brother, Jason to take pictures of it since he had iphone with him.
Me with the catalog
Close-up catalog
So, I told my mom that I would try to contact one of the representative at the Land’s End store to find out why they chose the snowman signed, ‘I Love you’ on the cover of the catalog. I got email from Mary. Read this.
Dear Dino Lomanto,
I’ve verified with the creative department that the hand signal on the snowman is not intended to represent anything specific. The photograph was done while the glove just happened to take that shape.
Thank you,
Mary Kay McNeill
Lands’ End – Marketing
mary.mcneill@landsend.com
Your opinion about her message that she wrote?
Mike said
Interesting. Maybe the artist would do that on the purpose but we would never know.
Janna said
Ouch!
Yolanda said
I think it’s awesome. Perhaps the photographer was trying to say something. Perhaps the Universe was trying to say something. Either way the pic puts a smile on my face.
Billythegoat said
Well, I think she is in denial. Why did she picks ‘I love you’ in sign language? What’s wrong with ‘waving the hand’ like saying hello or the ‘peace’ sign? Nice to see the hand sign (I love you) on the snowman, though.
Dianrez said
“the glove just happened to take that shape”…my eye! The gesture is so commonly seen today among hearing people that this seems improbable. Somebody is trying to avoid an AGBell fiasco with Pepsi.
A.J said
Unbelieveable.
Joseph Pietro Riolo said
The handshape is not exclusive to ASL. Other place where the same handshape is used is Spider-Man. Notice that he used the same handshape as I-Love-You handshape when he shoots web. Some variations of the handshape are also used. See http://www.deafdc.com/blog/vikki-washington/2007-10-23/the-i-love-you-sign-is-evil/ for the author’s view on the handshape.
The answer given by Ms. Mary Kay McNeill seems to make sense and we should give her the full benefit of doubt.
By the way, the I-Love-You sign is not aesthetically and linguistically accurate in respect to ASL and is an anomaly that is widely accepted by the ASL users.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Areumoron said
This is hogwash!! Mary is in denial! Keep it and frame it!
ILY handsign is universal sign but it is originally from ASL!
Gary said
I’d rather the I-Love-You sign be on a catalogue than to see
idiots, like Obama or Chipper Jones taking advantage of it, for their own glory and benefit.
KAREN said
THATS SO GREAT HEARING PEOPLE TO LEARN HOW TO USE SIGN LANGUAGE WHY NOT MORE DIFFRENT MAGAZINES USE ILY
Anonymous said
We should find who drew this picture then ask that person. Why dont we send email to Mary and see if we can find who drew this picture.. what do ya think?
Ciaran said
Hey dino!
It is interesting! It is that magazine or novel book!
Nikki said
I think that for legal reasons, they can’t say if it was something specific with the way the hand ended up. They’re covering their butt by saying it doesn’t mean anything, instead of take the chance that some weird deaf person might take offense and sue them. Thats just my thought. At first I was excited to see this ILY on this catalog, but now I’m like ehhhh so it meant nothing to them. Pfft.
fookembug said
Readers, thanks for sharing your opinion with us how you think about it. I still can’t figure out why they pick ‘ILY’ hand sign after all there is more than a hundred hand signs available.
Must have a reason why they picked that ‘ILY’ hand sign. Oh well. It is different perspective between hearing and deaf people’s thought.
fookembug said
Ciaran, it is a catalog (winter clothes) that you can order through phone or internet.
fookembug said
****FLASH NEWS****
I got another email from customer support. Read this
I got two different messages between Jenafer and Mary. WOW! So, I don’t know who is telling the truth.
Claudia Montalvo said
Hi this is Claudia from Texas. I just want to know if you send me the catalog by the mail? Pls let me know, thank you, Claudia.
J Caine said
I contacted Mary at LandsEnd to express my disappointment in the response shown above. Mary contacted me immediately saying that it is unfortunate that only part of their response was put on this site — and that her response was longer, and went on to say how pleased they ALL were when they saw what had actually came out in print.
For me, they’ve got my support back again!