ITAP Design Canons - week four

This week's lecture was about The Creative Revolution, and the massive effect it had on Advertising. The lecture was based around 2 art directors who were pretty much the reason for the creative revolution. One was famous Art director Bill Bernbach, who was the founder of advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). The other was Helmut Krone, art director and graphic designer who is mainly known for his inspirational Volkswagen Beetle adverts that came about in the 1960's.  Between the two of them, they created one of the most famous advertisements if all time, The Volkswagen Snow Plow advert shown below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcckOTVqao&list=PLD20BE6EACC9EDD70&index=12&feature=plpp_video

The creative revolution  (1954-64) was basically when the idea of having a concept came into advertising and when standard advertising rules such as 2:1 picture:copy were thrown out of the window. Another art director who had an impact was George Lois. He is well known for his work on the Esquire magazine covers. American magazine Business Week once quoted 

'Every industry has it's stars, and in the world of advertising George Lois is a supernova, the original Mr Big Idea.' 

Below are a couple of examples of his work that i came across in which the concept stood out to me as being particularly different or revolutionary.

This is one of Georges famous pieces. This stood out to me instantly because of the simple reason that it is unusual to see a women shaving. Immediately, George has captured an audience because they will be wandering what that is all about. Esquire is a styling and grooming magazine so the image suits the magazines purpose. George could have just had the beautiful women on the front and people would still have bought the magazine thinking that it could teach them how to look like that, but instead he has put a twist on it. It is twists like these that have gotten him recognized for influencing the creative resolution. I noticed also how the razor looks like a standard, relatively cheap razor. I think he has deliberately used this to make the audience think they can afford to be that beautiful .

These are a couple of advertisements George designed for vodka.  These attracted my attention because of the revolutionary and clever use of white space and because of the wit in the quotes. The first advert is implying that the vodka is chatting up the tomato but by doing so it's saying that the vodka is better than others. The tomato agreeing makes you think that he has scored and therefore must be the best.

The second advert has the same concept but this time the orange questions him about the tomato who he's already scored with. This makes us laugh and also gives the impression that the vodka is a bit cheeky which we can all tend to be after drinking vodka. There are probably a few people who read this add and think 'I've been in that situation!' which would mean that they can relate to the advert. George has cleverly used emotions and humour here to lure his audience to buying the vodka.

The most important breakthrough elements I think that George has added to the Creative Revolution are :

Revolutionary use of white space

Use of puns and humour

Allowing the audience to relate

Use of little but convincing Imagery

I belive that using one or more of these in your work would make you stand out from the crowd and therefore become a more noticable designer.