Ads that sell

This will be my last post for the class, and I just wanted to sum it up by digging deeper into our "power of persuasion" study on advertisements. After watching "The Persuaders" I went on a little google adventure to see what ads were out there and came across some that were just too good to not share.

It really makes you realize how incredibly creative advertisement designers are. I am so impressed by these ads and I hope you are, too. I think as time goes on, companies are forced to find newer, better, and bigger ways to draw our attention to their products, and this is exactly what they accomplish when they come up with genius ads like these. I can tell you right now, I want to go out and buy these products just to support the pay of the designers. Enjoy!

Eternity

So I recently came across this picture in an internet add for an art school, and I was so intrigued that I wanted to share it with everyone. I'm not sure what message it is trying to send, exactly, but my first thought was "The Tree of Life." As most of you may know, the biblical tree of life represented eternal life. Anyone who drank its sap was able to life forever. I recently saw a movie called The Fountain, in which a man was in search for this tree. He feared death, but once he found the tree hidden deep in Eden, his idea of eternal life was not what he imagined. He drank the sap and from him sprouted plants and nature. He was granted eternal life, but he was now living as a part of Earth and nature for eternity. I wonder if the artist of this sculpture was trying to represent a similar concept: We are all linked in a circle of life. Maybe the artist was going for a more simple concept, such as a family tree. Either way, it is a very captivating creation.

Go Green.

I find it amazing that the world of design is so greatly influenced by what problems we are dealing with at that moment. When we needed more efficient products at affordable prices, modernism was formed. When we had efficiency and needed more spice to our lives, post-modernism and aesthetics emerged. Now, we are facing a worldwide dilemma: Global warming. As a result a new genre of design is forming called "Green Design." It is a way of re-establishing oxygen levels that are being extinguished by high amounts of CO2 from the industrial age. I found these picture and they fascinated me. They are obviously not realist, but design is being used in advertisements and persuasive pieces to urge people to focus on preservation of our Earth. It makes me wonder if the future of design will revolve around nature and using plants and trees as decor. Foreshadowing? Possibly!

Design in dance

Mia's

Manifesto of Growth

1. Allow events to change you.

3. Process is more important than outcome.

37. break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.


These are some key points made by Bruce Mau in his article "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" that stood out to me. I was so captured by this reading and the inspirational hints to being a great designer. In all of my creativity, these ideas will stay with me the most. The first, "allow events to change you." Feeling defeat, heartbreak, failure, and all other negative emotions is such a fear of mine. But in reality, all of the negative experiences in my life have changed me. All unexpected life experiences (things we never wished for ourselves) inspire us to express ourselves through the beauty that is art. The second point I enjoyed was "Process is more important than outcome." SO true. Designers so often set a standard for themselves that does not allow them to leave that self-made box. Thinking outside the box is when great design occurs. And the third point I enjoyed goes along with the second. Breaking down a creation and rebuilding it only makes it stronger.

Bruce Mau is a genius.

The professionals

I have found two very fascinating designers that blog online...


The first is David Airey, originally from Ireland. He is a famous graphic designer that has created amazing logos and images for all sorts of companies. Some of his most famous works are with Berthier Associates (Japan), Henri Ehrhart Wine (France), VISSUMO (U.S.), Ecometrica (Scotland), Hilcon (Norway), etc. What I love about Airey's blog the most is his discussions on design inspiration. For him, a logo is an identifier and everyone deserves to shine through their logo. What inspires him in his creations, as stated, is the world around him, the people around him, the actual design process, and all other beautiful things. "Every visual object can be interpreted into graphic design." David Airey's blog is inspirational in itself and is used to address design as a creative art.
Here's the link: http://www.davidairey.com



The second designer blog I have been keeping track of is music cover designer David Carson's. As covered in the video "Helvetica," Carson helped create the 'post-modern' typography trend with creative album covers. He believes that a design should bring forth an emotional connection between artist and viewer. His philosophy is to be as creative as possible and break the mold of everyday social norms in order to further the expanding world of design. He talks about experiences, critiques those that don't think out of the box and inspires others to do so, and recognizes creative design to share with the rest of us.
http://www.davidcarsondesign.com
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/DAVID-CARSON

Typographiti

I saw this video and was inspired to share it. What an interesting evolution graffiti has had, in my opinion. What started out as a way for gangs to easily leave a mark on their territory with a single can of spraypaint has evolved into a worldwide art. It is amazing how murals can be created by people who are not usually even recognized as artists. In my eyes, it takes a TRUE artist to create images like these. Take a look at some of the most amazing creations on public walls.

Mind Map

Once I started to do my mind map of Design in my own eyes, I realized how complicated this task was. So many categories of Design are interchangable and fall into numerous categories. The things I spend the most time on finding a placement for were Language and Religion. They are form, relative to various functions, but they are cultural and creative as well. In fact, Religion has a whole new category because of the fact that it may or may not be based on fact. In that sense, it could also be nature.

Complicated and twisted as it may be, here is my idea of what design is all about.

When you wish upon a star

When I look at this image of the Disney logo, all I can think of is being a kid. That creative, curvey, curious, child-like typeface captures the days when I had no worries. I was just a little girl and my life was a fairytale waiting to be lived. I feel like one of the Disney princesses waiting for my prince charming when I see this writing style. It is incredible what a font such as this can do to someone. I grew up watching Disney, so maybe that familiarity of this logo and the emotions I felt while watching Disney movies is the reason I react this way, but even so, this typeface was designed to be child-like. I think it is absolutely brilliant. Designers created this image to send out a message similar to the vibe I feel when looking at it. The point of Disney is to put the audience in a completely different world that stretches beyond the imagination. This typeface is carefree and fun, which is what Disney is all about.

Soundtrack

http://www.hillmancurtis.com/index.php?/film/watch/mark_romanek/

So I went to the website hillmancurtis.com and found a video by a music video creator named Mark Romanek.

The wonderful thing about this video is that I had NO idea how much music means to filming until I watched it. As Mark explained, music is used to generate a fake moment by creating emotions within the viewer to make the scene believable. What a great point. In all of the best movies, be they romance, horror, or suspense, music is what makes the moment. On mute, the rain kiss on the movie The Notebook would be pretty boring. On mute, no one would jump at the sight of the boy ghost that walks down the hall in The Sixth Sense.


Mark Romanek's philosophy in all of his creations is this: leave each creation open-ended for further analysis by the viewer. If the audience already has all the answers to what the video is really portraying, they will not open their minds and try to interpret the piece. Even that little bit of interpretation allows creativity to flow. The key point, as stated by Mark, is to "emotionally engage people" in what they are watching. That is when the work means something more than a string of great shots.

Navy blues

Out of all the propaganda posters I saw in my research, this one really touched me. All of the other posters are forceful, degrading (such as saying anyone who does not kill is not a man), sexist, and overall, negative. If I was to hope for my husband to go into any armed force it would be the Navy because of this image....

But that's the idea. It is the best alternative to being forced to join some area of soldiership, when no one should be forced to do anything in the first place. This poster emerged in World War II. I'm sure we have all seen a similar picture of a sailor hugging his wife after returning home safely. Even so, we are a democracy and should not be forcing citizens to murder against their will. As inspiring as this image is, wouldn't it be better if he had never had to leave her in the first place?

a picture is worth a [100 grand] words

When my brother moved to Minnesota, my aunt made a picture similar to this for him in the form of a going away card. Ever since then, that card has stuck in my mind. When asked to show an example of a visual metaphor there is only one thing that came to mind.... Candy bars.

Design. Culture. Language. Life.

In my opinion of course:

DESIGN is a word that describes the physical makeup of a work of art, sculpture, or basically anything that exists. I think that design is nothing more than the outcome of working extremely hard and putting forth creativity and emotions to make something that has never been seen before, be it the design of a car, or the design on a canvas, or even the design of a person. When I say the design of a person, I mean the effort the egg, sperm, and mother put into making a whole being out of two small cells. All things that exist have a design to them that is unique from anything else like it (unless that design was repeated so that it could be sold widespread).

CULTURE is what we get from a combination of designs created by people within an inhabited. Even down to the art of creation stories, all cultures revolve around designed symbols of status or virtue that define them as a community.

LANGUAGE is a designed means of communication, which in itself is beautiful art. It was created for a means of understanding others within their own culture or community (commune being the root word of both communication and community). Many years in the making, language is not used to define a culture, separating individuals by design just as much as ever while drawing together strong groups in a united way of life.

As I described above, these three things all influence each other. The concrete that holds them all together, in my opinion, is design. Language was a design that worked with many other designs to create cultures. All three intersect in this way.




With this in mind I would just like to share this with you all. I find it interesting that a design as unique as an actual human being can be duplicated to make two unique beings naturally. By this I am referring to my identical twin girls. In art, a repeated painting never has the same respected value as the original, but when there is no original and both are identical, I think that in itself is a work of art.

Litter vs. Creativity

photograph by: myself


So today I was driving down the street on my way to the store and I saw what I believed to be art, design, and culture all in one. It was this rustic wall sculpture that is so commonly found in Arizona. But it was not the design itself that made me look twice but the gatorade bottle placed between this running woman's hands. It was so interesting to me that someone who was walking down this very sidewalk could have had a spontaneous desire to be creative in their littering technique. They turned a picture into a comedy by using their mind outside the box. In terms of culture, I think this is almost good enough to be in an American gatorade ad because as Americans, we are so obsessed with this drink in sport. You may find this as just an offensive teen littering up the planet, but today it made me smile and appreciate someone else's creativity. It just goes to show how often we design art without even realizing it. The most unique designs are usually unplanned. If only we all could find ways to make trash artistic.

When wrong is right

I found this quote on a webpage by a designer who was using Marty's words as her own inspiration. I love it. It really captures how design has broken the mold of tradition and being "square". If someone were to call you eccentric, it would most likely be taken as an insult. If a picture or sculpture is called eccentric, it is genious. I love that art sprung from individuals willing to expand their minds to connect with the world, finding what makes them excited about life and what they wish to share with others. I think that the most amazing designers are those who use art as an expression to free themselves, as opposed to pleasing the rest of us. It's amazing that both result from such creations none-the-less. It can also be applied to more than just design. I see it as encouragement to break some rules in society in order to find a deeper happiness than what most have achieved.