ITAP Design Canons - week three

This week's lecture was about Great Art Direction and the importance of Simplicity in design, especially Advertising. I found this lecture particularly inspiring and learnt about people who i aspire to be like. There were many quotes that stood out to me and got me thinking about the logic behind advertising. I have decided to look into a couple of these in more detail. The first of these is that 'Simplicity is rare'.
So what is simplicity?

One dictionary definition says that it is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined. This i think is a very literal way of looking at it. A second definition says that it is the lack of sophistication. What i found interesting about this is that Leonardo Da Vinci, who is well known for being a an incredible artist once said that 'Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication'. This completely contradicts the dictionary definition yet Da Vinci was extremely talented and successful in his work.This says to me that simplicity has different forms and therefore can't really be defined, which establishes to me that it must be very powerful. As for the word rare, we all know that this is something that doesn't occur or isn't seen very often. You can tell from just walking down a street that detail and complexity is everywhere and we are bombarded with it everyday. The idea behind using 'simplicity is rare' in design is that because it is so rare, it would stand out and make us stop and think wow, that's unusual. It would be more noticeable as it would be a change from what we are used to seeing. 

Another quote I found interesting was about John Webster saying: 

'What was he doing that no one else was? Well, precisely that. He was doing what no

one else was. Purposely.'

I love this quote because it's saying that being different is a good thing. People who are different are often portrayed in a bad way and looked down upon, but when it comes to advertising, it seems the crazier and braver you are the better. John Webster has proved that having some self confidence and using it in the correct way, can go a long way. Below is a link to one of his most famous pieces, the original honey monster Advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5-DhV1gE&list=PLD20BE6EACC9EDD70&index=2&feature=plpp_video

An art director that has inspired me is Sir John Hegarty. Having being inspired by his Levis advertisement, I decided to research into him in more detail. Below are a couple of screen prints from his website. On the actual website the rabbit appears first and then as you scroll down the page the hat appears and the rabbit jumps in. This looks like moving graphics which i thought was incredible. I have never seen another website that has done this before. 

The second screen shot shows what it looks like as you are half way scrolling down a page. The black sheep is the logo of his agency BBH. The black sheep comes from one of his Levis adverts showing a black sheep in a group of white sheep, standing out from the crowd. This shows Hegarty has worked with a similar notion to John Webster, in the way he knew that different was a good thing. 

http://www.hegartyonadvertising.com/