Assignment 1: Advertisments

Subway/Billboard Ads: This Roku campaign is interesting to me as it uses a very simple text message, told using direction in it's composition. The ad message "Keep Streaming America!" takes on a sense of movement as it shown bursting out of the red background in the upper add, and flowing like a ribbon in the second ad. The trick of the directional composition works well with the tagline, as the ad itself is "streaming" to the viewer. (pardon the terrible pictures, the PATH train wasn't cooperating)

                                     

Print Ads
Le Creuset (in Saveur magazine).
The ad here uses elements of figure and ground coupled with a repetitive images. The repetition in the background is used to support the warmth and trust brought forth in the text. The large image of the Le Creuset oven is a warm color, leading the eye to the center, again supported by the repeated images seen "below".

Apple iPad mini (back cover of Wired and Saveur magazine)
 I was struck with the simplicity of the this ad, with it's unbalanced, heavy use of white space, anchored with a life size image of the product. In a perhaps stroke of genius, the size of the product (mini) is emphasized with the image of the actual magazine cover. In essence, the ad designer uses the work of another designer to do the more intense graphic work, while at the same time selling the viewer on both products (same magazine, just smaller!).

 

On-line Ad
I had a really hard time finding an actual ad online that wasn't a video or a motion graphic. I tend to avoid websites that heavily advertise as well, so I was a bit stumped. Then I logged out of facebook and found this travesty of graphic design. The image is fine, offset to provide a heavily weighted sense of importance to the product, similar to the iPad ad. Then, everything seems to go out the window. There are, by my count 4 different fonts used, each one leading in a different direction. The lower right 1-800-flowers.com is cartoony and candy colored, while the "Wow Rule" logo and font are warmer, a heavier serif font that lends a sense of vintage to the ad. None of these are placed in an interesting way.