Creative Drinking

I found out about this beer company while leafing through an old issue of MOJO magazine from 2006. The German brewery that makes Bitburger beer is apparently into quirky and creative ad campaigns. This one featured several different ads, each with a cropped off image for the viewer to attempt to comprehend. The above picture is a screen shot from their old website and features the same ad I saw in MOJO. The tagline isn't so much an invitation as it is a suggestion of exclusivity: Not Everyone Will Get It. OK, so this beer isn't for everyone BUT if you can figure this ad out then maybe you'll feel good enough about yourself to drink this (doubtless expensive) swill from Deutschland. The great irony of course is that the more beer you drink the less sense these ads will probably make to you. Despite the not-so-vague suggestion of elitism, I still like the campaign. The enlarged image, by the way, is a cropped off "I ♥ Beer" slogan. Yes, I figured it out by myself.

Symmetry and Asymmetry

Today's post brought to you by the letter B and, uh, the letter C (For Brian Lichtenberg and Chanel, respectively). This first image should please fans of haute couture, football, and symmetrical haberdashery. A view of the entire layout reveals some symmetrical--albeit risque--jock-strap play, as well (ooh, mama like!)

 
And here we have a little asymmetrical Chanel action. I chose this as a companion ad because both images incorporate their brand logo on the shoulder of the model (logos which are actually very similar . . . and symmetrical!). I like this photo because the model's profile breaks up the black negative space in a nice way. Plus, if I could afford Chanel, I would totally rock those frames.

Invitation

My first time with CS5 InDesign . . .

 . . . was gentle and tender. Just kidding. It was complicated and confusing, as most first times generally are. I appreciate how Alison pointed out that there are generally 6 different ways to accomplish the same command. This is good for me, as the most intuitive ones require the most clicking and the quickest ones are (for me) the most difficult to commit to memory. I jotted as many of the short cuts down as I could, but it's frustrating in class when (if you break concentration for even a micro second) you miss that one keystroke that's going to save you hours of aggravation later.

Assignment 2: Better Late Than Never

Who was so engrossed in creating her invitation that she completely forgot about all this other C.R.A.P? ME, that's who!

The images in this post were taken from this week's issue of Rolling Stone. I definitely had some trouble finding a figure/ground ad that fit the bill, so I settled for this ad for React chewing gum (admittedly, a compromise). On the page, the background gray is actually much darker. There are so many things going on here at once, and the tension between figure and ground lies not between the background and the "Rorschach" but within the "ink blot" itself. The very contour of the shape pulls your eye into the page, and the dog and panther inside give the image depth. There is this illusion of tunneling, as though the shape were recessed inside of the gray background. Whichever of these things first impresses upon the viewer may vary, and that's the point of the tagline.

I could give a hoot about Lauren Conrad (I had to look up who this person was. Aren't I supposed to have, like, the slightest idea?), but I think this ad has fabulous composition. I see alignment not in the cardinal sense but in the diagonal sense. The figure forms such a nice X, with Milk (the reality) and Milk? (the question) on opposing north westerly and south easterly corners, respectively. There is also a lot of repetition going on, especially in terms of hues: the mushroom gray of the background matches her dress, the gold of her shoes matches her hair, and then there's the text and the product in question. My favorite thing about this ad, though, is the way the splashing milk makes its signature in space and how that same fluidity is present in her flowing hair. What an awesome photo! I want to believe Photoshop did not have a role here, but . . . wishful thinking on my part, perhaps.

Hell-vetica, et al.

First Post: The Good, The Bad, and The Nauseating

This ad appears in the summer 2010 issue of Fashion Music Style, a very small British publication that focuses on music and clothing for the urban hipster set. I am not a fan of this particular arrangement of words and images, and my discontent exists on several levels. The script font is difficult to read, the back-lit effect on the copy and the product image (which I guess speaks to the "Born from a bar of Gold" tag line) looks cheap and cheesy to me, there are too many lettering styles going on at once, I don't really dig the haphazard composition of the foreground items vs. the background model (Why is she there? Is this a fragrance for women like her? Is this a fragrance for men so that they can get women like her?), and the branding/logo thumbnail in the upper left-hand corner is distracting and seems tacked-on. So ... why should I care about this product if they can't make an appealing- looking ad?

This image from the same publication heads off a short article about British pop artist Eliza Doolittle, whom I know nothing about and (judging from the description of her music as Lilly-Allen-esque) most likely never will know anything about. Despite my disinterest in the product she's selling, I really enjoy the way she is presented on the page here. The black and white graphic wallpaper behind her vibrates in an enthralling way and sets off her inky locks, and I like the primary color pallet--especially how the yellow of her bracelet is accentuated in the lettering and the seal in the lower right-hand corner. I love that font, round and fat like archetypal teenage-girl scrawl, and I like its tilted/off-balance presentation. I also like how the image is slightly over-exposed; everything on the page is very stark. Generally this page evokes youth and playfulness, with a little funky edge mixed in (all descriptors I'll bet her label rep uses when trying to push her music, as well).

 For the next two images, I go to the land of album art. There are probably hundreds of websites devoted to ridiculous record covers, but many of them are just silly (i.e., not necessarily poorly designed). This cover, however, featuring former Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Ferrel, is just atrocious all around. I hate it when people have money to spend on good graphic designers and still end up with something that looks like it's really badly photo-shopped. Hate the color pallet. Looks like someone threw up Pepto-Bismol on a smurf. I have no idea what is going on in this image. And who's the chick with the yellow hair? What's the point? Lame.

I love love love this album cover. I bought it, not just because of the personel involved with the project but because I just couldn't tear my eyes away from the way it's put together. I adore that font and the crispness of the geometric image underneath the text. The composition harkens back to the way jazz album art used to be dealt with (text on top, image beneath with a line demarcating a boundary between the two). I like the right justified text in the upper right-hand corner. In general, the austerity of the black and white image and letters is (for me) utterly eye-catching. I can only guess that, with a name like Zurich, the designers thought referencing Dada might be a cool thing to do. It's so severe and minimal, and it makes me happy to look at it!