This poster advertizing a James Brown appearance really spoke to me because the different wavy strips of 2d type on the page really give off a 3d effect, as well as actually capturing James Brown's strange face. The arrangement of the words form a picture that really looks like him, and that amazed me. The creases in Brown's face are formed by the negative space between the lines of type and his eyebrows, hair, and all else are all formed by the same one effect. I like looking at this, because it kind of creeps me out. Also, the pervading colour is blue but there are dashes of other colours in his "aura" that are subtle and compliment the blue nicely as well as give a subtle effect of warmth and light. His teeth really stand out against the blue and the black and this focuses your eye on his face, as well as the information which is done in a complimentary yellow. Look at his tongue in particular and his top lip- so much 3d depth in the way the letters are sloped and positioned. The colour of the blue letters darkens slightly towards the top/back of his face to accentuate the 3d feel, and also the words tighten/get smaller to show distance. This is a very complex image! And some hilarious "white space" acting as his hair.
This next ad for CocaCola Light Lemon is so ingenious and simple. I just love it so much. I'm always interested in what the big huge companies do for their adertizing because I imagine them to have a huge unlimited budget and like, how fun is that. So seeing how ad creators choose to use their freedom is quite interesting. In this case we see a simple, concise and literal sign, all the while remaining understated, chic, timeless and very classy (even though it is coke. I admit it: I don't even care because I love coke.) Anyway, here we can see the perfect execution of natural items (though here it looks a bit digitally enhanced and manipulated) to make a perfect replica of the classic coke logo "C", and to have a logo be instantly recognizble by only one element is a beautiful achievement in itself. This ad demonstrates everything it wishes to say in a simple way: Coke, Lemon, light. That's all this ad contains, and I am in love with it. The information at the bottom consists of an image of the product very tiny. Amazing. If I were to imagine one step further I would say that the top swoosh of the letter C is pointing towards the light, alluding to a sense of the divine. That's a pretty confident ad. I heard once that the McDonalds big "M" logo was inspired by the gates of heaven, and it's seen as one of the most successful logos of all time.
Finally, this Penguin ad uses a slab serif font that still retains a modern and embellished feel but still shys away from the ultramodern feel of sans serif fonts. I feel that this font is trying to allude to typewriters and what those letters looked like on the page. Paris is rich in history (especially literary) so I feel like this is a very appropriate font choice. The big "A" is obviously illustrating the Eiffel Tower right at the heart of "Paris" so the idea is simple, and once again elegant. Furthermore, the background is a very beautiful, textured and simple page of a book with creases suggesting a love of reading, because new books are exciting, but unexplored until you crease them up a bit by reading them. As Paris the city has history, bookpages with creases have their own history: It shows they were read once. The paper is white, but it also seems to look a little big blue, and the letters P, R, I and S seem to be a very dark blue instead of straight black, which might have detracted from the 'flow' of the image by standing out against the background and the "A" too much.
-Lauren
