Graphic Design One: Reading #2

Our identities become easily (and seemingly willingly) entangled in images that are not of reality, but none the less are of self.  How can we as graphic designers harness this property of society to allow the products we design for reach their fullest potential?

And after working though the comic illustration in the reading and spending days researching and examining the logos and years of constant bombardment of thousands of icons in our lives to this point can we as designers, now engaging this medium from more than just a passive consumer prospective, determine where on the pyramid of realism to abstraction the most successful icons find themselves?  Is it somewhere in between, to abstract to have us dismiss without a second thought, but real enough to keep us interested?