First, I received a lot of insight from this assignment. I'm not sure if its my lack of artistic ability or my well-balanced zodiac sign Libra, but I started to look differently at displays. From my own designs to my chosen pictures, there are a lot of good and bad rules to designing. I decided to pick two different advertisements from the magazine, US Weekly.
I prefer bad news first, so let's start with the one I felt was a bad design...
2. Placement/Division : Similiar to the horizon variations (Krause, pg. 23), the "power" of the car could have been illustrated by fading the background from fasts to slow.
3. Harmony- Genius is sometimes associated with a light bulb going off. A thematic reference of a lightbulb would have been a perfect fit instead of trees in the background.
4. Tacky Type Emphasis - I'm not a fan of the font choices. The "MPGenius" has a sophisticaed flair to it. But, when you look at the bottom at the all CAPPED "CAMRY" name, it gives off more of a brawny perception.
5. Visual Emphasis of Weight- The trees and sky overpower the car. Now, I understand that balance is not always good thing in design, but the car could be bigger. The car, the road, or the car and the road grouped together...and increase in those aspects would enhance the advertisement.
Time for the good, (promise this isn't biased because of my love for dogs)...
2. FLOW - From the beginning text, to the Great Dane's ear, his tail, Westie, dog food, and to the description-Awesome flow!
3. GROUPING-The food highlight and description is perfected placed by the website address with facebook logo.
4. EMPHASIS- In the first sentence, the emphasis on cesar was a brillant idea. Cesar draws your attention to the product, the dog, and forces you to read between the lines.
5. GRAPHIC DESIGN COMMUNICATES- A Great Dane is sitting on a person's lap because he wants dog food, which maybe thought to be only for smaller dogs. It communicates the yearning for the product and is funny!
My Decisive Presentation Exercise:
Loosened Alignment Exercise:
Hi Anita,
ReplyDeleteYou did a nice job with each of these exercises!
As far as the rules task is concerned, my immediate thoughts about the tress being in the background as opposed to a light bulb:
a) a light bulb is very old hat -- it's used often -- too often...
b) the trees and the fade do a nice job of attempting to demonstrate the movement, flow, power, speed of the vehicle without it ever leaving the page -- demonstrating movement in ads can be very difficult given the dimensions/constraints the creators have to work within... and
c) the trees also represent their attempt to be a more "clean" car -- hybrids and going green are all the rage (as they should be :) so having that nature element strengthens the ad...
The CAMRY logo at the bottom isn't a font so much as their new sleeker designed logo... The fact that it's brawny may suggest that a Camry isn't just a family car that's safe -- it can be cool for men to drive as well (just a thought as to who the audience is that they were attempting to target here).
Since you mention this ad came from US Weekly, perhaps those women who are married with significant others who they could talk to about the vehicle they saw, OR, readers (male or female) who may be interested in purchasing or leasing a safe car that has the sporty, cool, sleek appearance! I personally love the look of this car, from the "green" references with efficiency, down to the metallic bronze/orange-like color.
As far as the Cesar ad goes, I love how you made the letters various shades of blue. Note here how the label of the Cesar product illustrated below is also a blue hue. I know for a fact that Cesar's packages come in an array of colors, so I think there is something to be said of this selection in relation to the particular "flavor" they are advertising here. Color theory associated with advertising comes into play here as well -- but that's another discussion entirely :)
I agree with you about the emphasis on the brand name "working" for this ad - I love how it blends in with the rest of the sentence, being the same shade of white, but the bold aspect makes the name POP. Also, the small c in cesar is emphasized by the small dog we all know and love from the commercials (and ads) that s/he is now famous for! The other interesting thing to think about is the name cesar. Though not spelled the same, anyone who has taken a History class knows the "great" Roman emperor whose namesake he made famous to this day... Small dog, MIGHTY powerful dish ;) Even a large dog wants to taste the delightful tiny packaged "savory delights" as demonstrated here.
You did a great job with both your decisive presentation and loose alignment exercise -- LOVE the basketball image in particular!
Well done!
Erica
Thank you Professor!
ReplyDeleteAnita,
ReplyDeleteI really think that the audience bias and personality influence the way an ad is seen. I like the ad for the car, it emphasis the car and the name-MPGebius. It makes me look at the bottom to see who makes this cool looking car: Toyota, with their known logo: Let’s Go Places. I don’t care about the road, or the trees, the purpose is the car to come onward. The color read makes it even more appealing to look at. If I am in the market to purchase a car, is worth checking out Toyota dealership and take it for a test drive to see its power.
Relative to the dog ad, I am not a “fan” of pets, so to me any ad for pets is pointless.
By knowing nothing about dog food, I interpret the ad: if you have a sad small dog, give it to eat cesar savory delight and the dog will grow big and become friendlier. I am pretty sure that is not the case.
I don’t get the wording “now every dog wants to be a cesar dog”. The small dog looks sad, maybe because not getting the cesar savory delight. Did it do something wrong, and it is punished?
The facebook logo it made me chuckle. Really, is the dog checking the facebook account to share impression about the cesar savory delights and socializing with other dogs?
The different nuances of blue background are relaxing, in harmony with chair’s color and woman’s clothing.
In the decisive presentation exercise I do not see a decisive emphasis on any of the shapes-hexagons, circles, triangles, arrows. The all seem emphasized equally. Furthermore there are 6 arrows, 6 triangles, 5 circles, and 5 hexagons.
The loosened alignment exercise, it seems that you really like parabolas. I recall your blog #1, a picture of a soccer player kicking a ball, also a parabola. Even though the size of the basketball increases, the flyer seems proportional, all elements – image, logo (writing), and headline are fitted together.