Free Updates
Sign up for news and announcements
Navigation
Categories
Search
Archives
Blogroll
|
Friday, November 21, 2008
If It Was On TV, Then It's Gotta Be Good!
Posted by steve
For years now, advertisements have featured a logo with the outline of a television tube, usually in red with white letters reading "As Seen On TV," as the ultimate badge of promotional credibility. The "As Seen On TV" emblem echoes the logo of TV Guide, the most trusted name in TV guides, and gives the impression that the product or service being advertised is endorsed--much like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval--by the magazine. And despite the emergence of the educated consumer and a healthy skepticism of anything advertised on television, "As Seen On..." continues to be a trusted brand, even though everyone knows that anyone with money can buy time on TV to sell almost anything. So what's going to happen in February 2009 when the venerable, bulging TV screen will go the way of the transistor? (Analog television owners can buy a box to convert their TV, but by now, analog sets have become a rarity.) Can this trusted logo be adapted to the rectangular flat screen format and continue to be as credible? I doubt it. So let's take the time remaining to pay homage to "As Seen On TV," knowing we will never see its like again.
Advertising | Branding | Logos | Television
11/21/2008 8:37:06 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
|
|
Thursday, November 06, 2008
He's Spreading Disease
Posted by Steve
Smartly designed, sometimes comic posters warning against syphilis, gonorrhea, malaria, and tuberculosis were once as common as all of the above. In An Iconography of Contagion: An Exhibition of 20th Century Health Posters at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington (through December 19), these and more recent posters about AIDS show how the advertising industry and public health officials have long fought battles against ignorance in the war against contagious disease. For more on the exhibit, read Amanda Schaffer's New York Times article or download the catalog. And for information on William Helfand's 2003 exhibit To Your Health: An Exhibition of Posters for Contemporary Public Health Issues at the National Library of Medicine, go here.
Advertising | Exhibitions | Posters | Science
11/6/2008 8:10:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
|
|
Monday, November 03, 2008
Fins and Chrome, Ooh La La
Posted by steve
"To call Art Fitzpatrick an automobile illustrator," writes Dave Caldwell in The New York Times, "is to leave half of the canvas blank." Mr. Fitzpatrick is the man behind the chrome when it comes to selling cars in dreamlike illustrations "pitching a carefree lifestyle." His luminescent ads for Life, Look,
and the Saturday Evening Post for Pontiac Bonnevilles and
Catalinas created the aura for American behemoth automobiles (and
influenced Bruce McCall's parodies (bottom) in " The Last Dream-O-Rama.")
The Times refers to him as "the Michelangelo of the Muscle Car," but
more than that, he is the chronicler of the American Dream. See his
recent set of Fins and Chrome U.S. stamps below.
Advertising | Illustration
11/3/2008 5:50:03 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
|
|
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Iraqi Refugees
Posted by steve
The Iraqi diaspora may become the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Although the U.S. has promised to accept 20,000 out of the 4.5 million refugees, so far only a fraction have been admitted to the country. "These are truly innocent victims of the war, and in many cases, have supported American troops," says Milton Glaser, who has developed a poster campaign for the International Rescue Committee. (The one above is partly sponsored by The School of Visual Arts in New York and hangs on one of the school's buildings.) The IRC initiative is based on interviews with, quotes from, and photographs of refugees who continue to be at risk. For more information on the IRC's involvement, click here. This one reads: "I was first in my class and headed for college when my street became a war zone. My cousin was killed, my father was threatened. We left everything and fled. Now we are refugees. We're not allowed to work. We've run out of money. How will we survive?"
Advertising | Design
10/28/2008 8:14:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Going to the Dogs
Posted by Steve
For his 1966 Bob Dylan poster, Milton Glaser used a silhouette inspired by a self-portrait of Marcel Duchamp; the rainbow hair derived from Persian miniatures. The confabulatory
result was a graphic design icon that epitomized the late ’60s.
Although it is not as iconic, Glaser's 1969 poster for the industrial
design icon, the Olivetti Valentine typewriter, designed by Ettore Sottsass and Perry A. King, featured another of his sublime borrowings. As Gerrit Terstiege of Form
magazine notes, Glaser referenced The Death of Procris (above),
painted in 1495 by Piero di Cosimo. Glaser told Form: "When I got the
assignment to design a series of posters for the Valentine, I thought
it would be quite charming to design each motif as a paraphrase of works
from Italian art history. I particularly loved this painting by di
Cosimo, above all because of the sorrowful dog in this magnificent,
metaphysical landscape. It reminded me a little of the dog on the RCA
Victor logo, listening to his master's voice." Advertising | Animals | Design
10/7/2008 6:23:07 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Hot Air Balloons
Posted by steve
Fumettis (from the Italian word for comics) a.k.a. photo comics, especially the romance genre, have long been a popular in Mexico and South America where they are known as fotonovelas. During this presidential election year they are popping up in North America, particularly the non-romance genre. In yesterday's New York Post Governor Sarah Palin was the protagonist in "The Adventures of Sarah Palin" or "Here's what a hockey mom MIGHT have said if she hadn't been properly briefed by handlers..." But she's not alone: On the non-partisan political satire blog "Pillage Idiot" the classic fumetti form has made a dramatic comeback. See Messers Bush and Putin here; John McCain here; and Big Bill Clinton here. If you want to make your own, first find your own photos and then get adhesive stock hot air balloons here. And don't forget to make it funny.
Advertising | Comics | Propaganda
9/25/2008 11:27:43 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
|
|
|