This is a question I am interested in exploring.
When I was a kid, all I knew was that I wanted to do 'art'. I didn't know, or particularly care, what 'art' I would do. But I was convinced I would be an 'artist'.
I can't recall when I decided that I wanted to be in Advertising, but in my head it can't have seemed like much of a jump from 'art' to advertising.
I will continue to post as I explore this idea.
My recent trip to Manchester Art Gallery provided me with a bit of information about the argument.
The gallery has a fairly extensive Modern Art collection called 'Modern Art- You can not be serious?'.
The information displayed about Modern Art was the following,
"When Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal in 1917 and called it a fountain, he changed the course of art.
The general public thought his art was a joke but Duchamp had a serious message; art can be in any media and take any form.
LS Lowry once said, 'Why can't a work of art be humorous and still be taken seriously?'
Art can be many things; sometimes serious, sometimes playful yet often it is a combination of the two.
In their search for new ways of interpreting life, artists have employed a variety of approaches.
They have pared forms to their very essence, used illusion and ambiguity to question what we see and plundered popular culture for ideas and images.
Increasingly, it is left for the viewer to interpret art."
So what relates art and advertising? The methods explained by that text are similar to that of advertising; taking ideas for popular culture and questioning what we are seeing, allowing the viewer to interpret and so thereby creating communication and relationship through the art to the desired audience. Is this not what we do in advertising? Is it not our role to 'interpret life' as it is true to say that advertising is one of the truest reflections of society at that time?
Friday, 29 October 2010
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer in Manchester
His main interest is in creating platforms for public participation. He works to pervert technologies such as robotics, computerized surveillance or telematic networks. His creations are said to be inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival and animatronics.
I was lucky enough to catch this exhibition today at Manchester Art Gallery. In this explanation of his pieces, it was stated that it "depends on your participation to exist". This seemed to strike a connection for me with Advertising, as if there were no target market or audience, the adverts created would be worthless.
Unfortunately, I was not able to take any photographs of Lozano-Hemmer's work. However, one piece that really pulled me in was one named '33 per Minute' 2000.
It's a computer program which generates 55 billion grammatically correct questions at a rate of 33 per minute, which is the threshold of legibility. These questions flash up on LED screens on the wall for us to read. The viewer can also type in questions by use of a keyboard connected to the program.
The software has been programmed to avoid repeating the same question, and would take over 3,000 years to present all the possible word combinations.
In this work it is impossible to determine whether the question presented was posted by the computer or by a person, making it hard for authorities to censor critical content.
As a copywriter, this work interested me as it combines communication and language with science, playing with our own ability to understand so much information in such a time (a minute). It also manages to create a place where anyone can say anything, a place of freedom of speech. It is also similar to the things we are taught as a copywriters, to ensure that we do not confuse our readers, for instance how we should not use more than 65 characters in any line of copy.
A lot of the questions asked are random, but still make sense.
These are some of the examples I saw:
Shouldn't they bill the computer?
Will we let them stampede the North Pole?
Why doesn't she localise and stay native?
Why do so many lampoon with urgency?
I overheard a little girl say, in reaction to this installation, "It's just like texting". In a way, she is right. Texting is considered such a transient and ephemeral method of written communication but it still holds on to its freedom of speech, free of censorship.
See more of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's work on his website here
This is a sketch of '33 per Minute', to show how the LED screens were displayed.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Blast from the past
I was trying to tell Lucy about this advert, went a bit mental scouring the internet to find it. Still so good, although I don't remember the Bollywood vibe?! Enjoy!
Friday, 22 October 2010
Paul Pensom "You have to love what you do"
Paul Pensom works as an art director for Creative Review, a magazine I have been subscribed to for about 2 years now. He has worked for other magazines in his past, such as Fact magazine.
He visited our university today to talk about his work. It was very relevant to art direction, in particular layout and type.
He believes that magazines are like an on-going conversation, compared to more transient forms of design. He argues that success as a designer relies on really knowing the 'story' of your work. So when it comes to magazine design, you must really read the articles and know what story the magazine is saying. In reference to advertising, it means really knowing your product before you try to sell it.
Pensom seemed to have a great interest in the power of magazines as a challenging and forthright media, a power he wishes to reignite one day, to move away from high fashion magazines and back into the era of magazines such as The Face. His passion for magazines shows through in his work, and he says 'You have to love what you do... our work is also our vocation'.
His most recent design work was the redesign of Creative Review which was published April 2010. His idea for the redesign was to make the magazine a peer, rather than a boss. So it is something accessible to not just regular readers, but to people who haven't seen CR before, thereby widening their audience. This practice could also be applied to advertising design, showing the product in a new light as to draw the attention of more people.
He visited our university today to talk about his work. It was very relevant to art direction, in particular layout and type.
He believes that magazines are like an on-going conversation, compared to more transient forms of design. He argues that success as a designer relies on really knowing the 'story' of your work. So when it comes to magazine design, you must really read the articles and know what story the magazine is saying. In reference to advertising, it means really knowing your product before you try to sell it.
Pensom seemed to have a great interest in the power of magazines as a challenging and forthright media, a power he wishes to reignite one day, to move away from high fashion magazines and back into the era of magazines such as The Face. His passion for magazines shows through in his work, and he says 'You have to love what you do... our work is also our vocation'.
His most recent design work was the redesign of Creative Review which was published April 2010. His idea for the redesign was to make the magazine a peer, rather than a boss. So it is something accessible to not just regular readers, but to people who haven't seen CR before, thereby widening their audience. This practice could also be applied to advertising design, showing the product in a new light as to draw the attention of more people.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
The 7 Key Traits of Creative Teams
1. Innovation Emerges Over Time
One person can not come up with the whole idea, each person in a team contributes and bit by bit a whole idea comes together. Successful innovations come together when the right combination of little ideas become a whole.
2. Successful Collaborative Teams Practice Deep Listening
To work successfully as a team, you need to listen to what others are saying, and at the same time be using these thoughts to work out your own ideas. It is a delicate but essential balance, most people spend too much time planning their own actions and not enough time listening to and observing others.
3. Team Members Build on Their Collaborators' Ideas
When teams are using 'deep listening' well, all ideas that are generated are built from previous ideas. Although one person may get the credit for the idea, it is hard to believe that they would have come up with it away from the group thinking.
4. Only Afterwards Does The Meaning of Each Idea Become Clear
Even a single idea can not be credited to one person, as an idea does not take on its true importance until it is taken up, reinterpreted and applied by others. In a creative collaboration, each person acts without knowing what their actions mean. The meaning will be added upon later through the collaboration and team thinking.
5. Surprising Questions Emerge
The most transformative creativity is when a group finds a problem that no one has found before, or finds a new way to consider the problem. When a team works this way, ideas are often transformed from ideas to problems and questions. The most creative groups can find new problems, rather than solving old ones.
6. Innovation is Inefficient
Some ideas are just bad ideas, some are good ideas in themselves, but the other ideas that would be necessary to term them into innovation have not been found yet. Improvised innovation makes more mistakes, but also makes incredible hits. When we look back on an innovation, we remember the chain of good ideas, not the ones that led to dead ends.
7. Innovation Emerges from Bottom Up
The most innovative teams are the ones that can restructure themselves and adjust to their environments, they don't need a strong leader to tell them what to do as they work as a team. The collaboration of the creative group translates thoughts of the individual into group innovation. When a successful innovation appears, it is often so imaginative and creative that no single mind could have come up with it.
Sawyer, (2008) Group Genius.
One person can not come up with the whole idea, each person in a team contributes and bit by bit a whole idea comes together. Successful innovations come together when the right combination of little ideas become a whole.
2. Successful Collaborative Teams Practice Deep Listening
To work successfully as a team, you need to listen to what others are saying, and at the same time be using these thoughts to work out your own ideas. It is a delicate but essential balance, most people spend too much time planning their own actions and not enough time listening to and observing others.
3. Team Members Build on Their Collaborators' Ideas
When teams are using 'deep listening' well, all ideas that are generated are built from previous ideas. Although one person may get the credit for the idea, it is hard to believe that they would have come up with it away from the group thinking.
4. Only Afterwards Does The Meaning of Each Idea Become Clear
Even a single idea can not be credited to one person, as an idea does not take on its true importance until it is taken up, reinterpreted and applied by others. In a creative collaboration, each person acts without knowing what their actions mean. The meaning will be added upon later through the collaboration and team thinking.
5. Surprising Questions Emerge
The most transformative creativity is when a group finds a problem that no one has found before, or finds a new way to consider the problem. When a team works this way, ideas are often transformed from ideas to problems and questions. The most creative groups can find new problems, rather than solving old ones.
6. Innovation is Inefficient
Some ideas are just bad ideas, some are good ideas in themselves, but the other ideas that would be necessary to term them into innovation have not been found yet. Improvised innovation makes more mistakes, but also makes incredible hits. When we look back on an innovation, we remember the chain of good ideas, not the ones that led to dead ends.
7. Innovation Emerges from Bottom Up
The most innovative teams are the ones that can restructure themselves and adjust to their environments, they don't need a strong leader to tell them what to do as they work as a team. The collaboration of the creative group translates thoughts of the individual into group innovation. When a successful innovation appears, it is often so imaginative and creative that no single mind could have come up with it.
Sawyer, (2008) Group Genius.
Romanticism and Tony Kaye
Tony Kaye, advertiser and director of film, music videos and documentaries, is an icon known for his passion for working against the grain. His creativity references the values and aspects of Romanticism, this idea is explored in Joan Gibbon's 'Art and Advertising'. Gibbon defines Kaye as a postmodernism creative as he represents the abolition of hierarchy between disciplines.
Kaye fits the role of a Romantic rebel through his approach to both art and advertising; ignoring the institutional forces of both and producing work that engages the feelings and subjectivity of the viewer. His disregard for the views of the client in favour of his own expressive judgement enables him to produce a rare type of advertising that clearly draws its creativity from individual vision. Studzinski states that it is this self directed manner that fits Kaye into Romanticism, he is the master of the discipline.
There are many motifs that are central to Romanticism within Kaye's advertising work, such as loss of childhood innocence, man versus nature and the unpredictability of life.
For example, his advert for Dunlop tyres 'Tested for the Unexpected' 1993 (see below)
In this advert we see that Kaye is not afraid to disorientate the viewer; using strange, threatening imagery, creating a sensual overload and a radical depature from run of the mill conventions. There is a heavy emphasis on the grotesque and artificial, with a lurking threat of devastation, playing with the 'sublime'.
In his advert for Volvo titled 'Twister' (1995) Kaye creates an unexpected viewing experience. He promotes the product, but also transcends the more functionalist narrative structures of conventional film and advertising. This transcends the viewer, allowing the advert to resonate in their memory.
Kaye interrupts the fast paced language of a typical action film with less immediate imagery. These interruptions are defamiliarising and poignant. They are designed to wound the viewer, catching them off guard and unsettling them by breaking convention and punctuating the narrative. This has been termed the 'punctum' by Roland Barthes and examples of this include static views of the same man's weather-beaten face that appeared in negative half way through and the momentary slowing down of the explosion of a house.
The advert can be described as a piece of high Romantic art as many parallels can be drawn between the two; foreboarding landscapes, the power of nature and nature versus technology, all dramatic contrasts.
Another example of Kaye's work is the 1988 advert for VW Passatt which contains signifiers of chaos, disorder and distruption.
The advert has a strong appeal to nostalgia, most noticeably with the black and white photography.
Immediately, the viewer is disarmed by the sentimental, angelic feature of the little girl. The advert is a story of her witnessing the harsh realities of the city; the shock and collision of crowds, noises of the city (sirens, traffic) and her ultimate loss of innocence. The soapbox speaker, the enraged car driver and the criminal are also symbols of disorder and disruption.
If you take a step back from the smaller details of the advert, the girl herself represents an earlier rose-tinted era, set against the harsh realities of modern life.
Kaye's adverts are different to most. Many other adverts do not convey such complexity of emotion, instead they exploit basic insecurities that come down to owning the right products for social status.
Kaye certainly bucks the trend, and works to ignore and fight against conventions of both art and advertising.
Kaye fits the role of a Romantic rebel through his approach to both art and advertising; ignoring the institutional forces of both and producing work that engages the feelings and subjectivity of the viewer. His disregard for the views of the client in favour of his own expressive judgement enables him to produce a rare type of advertising that clearly draws its creativity from individual vision. Studzinski states that it is this self directed manner that fits Kaye into Romanticism, he is the master of the discipline.
There are many motifs that are central to Romanticism within Kaye's advertising work, such as loss of childhood innocence, man versus nature and the unpredictability of life.
For example, his advert for Dunlop tyres 'Tested for the Unexpected' 1993 (see below)
In this advert we see that Kaye is not afraid to disorientate the viewer; using strange, threatening imagery, creating a sensual overload and a radical depature from run of the mill conventions. There is a heavy emphasis on the grotesque and artificial, with a lurking threat of devastation, playing with the 'sublime'.
In his advert for Volvo titled 'Twister' (1995) Kaye creates an unexpected viewing experience. He promotes the product, but also transcends the more functionalist narrative structures of conventional film and advertising. This transcends the viewer, allowing the advert to resonate in their memory.
Kaye interrupts the fast paced language of a typical action film with less immediate imagery. These interruptions are defamiliarising and poignant. They are designed to wound the viewer, catching them off guard and unsettling them by breaking convention and punctuating the narrative. This has been termed the 'punctum' by Roland Barthes and examples of this include static views of the same man's weather-beaten face that appeared in negative half way through and the momentary slowing down of the explosion of a house.
The advert can be described as a piece of high Romantic art as many parallels can be drawn between the two; foreboarding landscapes, the power of nature and nature versus technology, all dramatic contrasts.
Another example of Kaye's work is the 1988 advert for VW Passatt which contains signifiers of chaos, disorder and distruption.
The advert has a strong appeal to nostalgia, most noticeably with the black and white photography.
Immediately, the viewer is disarmed by the sentimental, angelic feature of the little girl. The advert is a story of her witnessing the harsh realities of the city; the shock and collision of crowds, noises of the city (sirens, traffic) and her ultimate loss of innocence. The soapbox speaker, the enraged car driver and the criminal are also symbols of disorder and disruption.
If you take a step back from the smaller details of the advert, the girl herself represents an earlier rose-tinted era, set against the harsh realities of modern life.
Kaye's adverts are different to most. Many other adverts do not convey such complexity of emotion, instead they exploit basic insecurities that come down to owning the right products for social status.
Kaye certainly bucks the trend, and works to ignore and fight against conventions of both art and advertising.
Monday, 11 October 2010
Weekend Away
I was particularly impressed with the work of Steve Whitehead who was exhibiting at the Royal West of England Academy http://www.rwa.org.uk/.
Whitehead's art is sometimes described as a form of Photorealism, as his landscape paintings look so close to the standard of a photograph. However, some art critics believe that it is more of Poetic Realism, as Whitehead does not simply reproduce photographs with paint, but creates composite images, drawing on many photographs and historic art images.
I just think the work is so enjoyable to look at, seeing it in an exhibition space you really did feel pulled into the subject matter, as it was so hard to believe the level of detail, and power of perspective in a painting.
Steve Whitehead http://www.panterandhall.com/cgi-bin/db-man/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&Artist=Steve+Whitehead&ww=on&mh=21&so=ascend&view_records=View+Records&foot=1
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Vaseline 'Sea of Skin' BBH
The advert opens with abstract shots of landscapes of nature, water, then to skin which is heavily textured and so still abstract as an opening. It then cuts to a shot of a big group of people standing, naked in a forest. These images of nature juxtaposed with the naked bodies illustrates the idea of natural beauty. As the advert plays on, and the camera pans out to a birds eye view, the naked bodies begin to come together to act as cells, smaller parts in one big organism, each one person represents a skin molecule, showing the intricacy and individualistic nature of the human body and the skin. The bodies move in time together, organic but synchronized so acting one.
By the end of the advert, the background landscapes have changed to more urban settings; a cityscape, a car park. This could be to bring the meaning into real life for us. The word 'skin' is not actually mentioned until the last sentence of the copy within the advert, so we are left wondering at the start what the advert is all about. As the word 'skin' is mentioned at 0.52 the group has their hands over each others eyes, revealing their sight just as 'you skin is amazing' is said, so that is the revelation of the advert. It could also be that at that moment, the group of people look like any group of the public, so the message is going out to them as well as the viewer.
The advert is high feeling and very emotive. It is a very sensory advert, it appeals to ourselves as we want to be looking after our bodies, keeping ourselves beautiful. When the word 'sense' is said in the VO the bodies run their hands down their side, this makes us want to imitate the behaviour, and by doing so pay attention to our own skin.
However, there is also an informative aspect to the advert, providing scientific facts through the VO of the advert, and so it can be argued that this advert also has 'thinking' strategy behind it.
The strategy can be broken down into 4 headings; Sensory, Social, Ego-Satisfaction and Practical.
Sensory- Keep your skin feeling soft, young, comfortable.
Social- Be the envy of your friends for having such healthy skin. Also in the advert we see big groups of people together so the implication is that you will be involved in something bigger, a community.
Ego- 'Your skin is amazing' therefore, you are amazing.
Practical- This is an easy way to look after yourself and to give your skin the treatment it deserves.
We take our skin for granted, for the most part. Vaseline's aim for this advert was to make us notice it again, and how amazing it really is. It makes us look at our skin is a totally different light, with much more recognition and importance, which is their job at Vaseline, and to make us recognise them as a successful brand to use within beauty treatment.
VO “Constantly regulating temperature, it changes colour to protect from ultraviolet rays. Containing more than 300 million cells, waterproof and yet absorbent when necessary. Killing most surface bacteria to protect from disease. Million of receptors rapidly sense its surroundings. Constantly growing, constantly replacing itself every month. When damaged it heals itself. Your skin is amazing. Keep it that way.”
Endline- 'Keeping Skin Amazing'
Saturday, 2 October 2010
Water Aid 'Cracker' advert
Whilst working as a student ambassador today, Dave was showing the prospective students some award winning work done by ex students. I hadn't seen this one, and I think it's so clever, but still so simple. It makes me thirsty just watching it! Apparently it was done start to finish in just 48 hours.
"You're always going to have people drawing pictures" Chris Osburn, Writer and Photographer
Chris Osburn came to Leeds College of Art to talk us through the sort of work he does.
He is a freelance writer and photographer, he does work for 'Londonist' http://londonist.com/profile/tikichris/posts for whom he writes reviews from around the city, as well as photography work for 'Juxtapoz' magazine http://www.juxtapoz.com/.
On his webpage, and on his flickr account, he does a 'London Daily Photo' which he has been posting for the last 4 years. These range in quality and content, but always capture something special he has noticed in the city in which he lives.
Chris is interested especially in photographing street art, which he captures in both a polished way with a professional camera, as well as with his camera phone, so there can be a very spontaneous feel to the image. He believes in the link between street art and social media, I suppose by this he means that both are ways of broadcasting a message into a public domain and open forum. He uses a lot of different forms of social media and networks to broadcast his work.
He does condone illegal street art believing that, "you are always going to have people drawing pictures". I asked him how he feels about commissioned street art, does he think that changes the validity of the art. He answered that he can't see too much of a difference between illegal and commissioned street art, but perhaps the illegality of it does add a certain romance to it, which I can understand.
Chris believes that the photographs he takes illustrates his writing and he likes how a camera can be like a pass into someone else's world, how it allows you to act as a fly on the wall, especially when he gets a job to do some event photography.
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed by the photographs that he showed us in the presentation, however after researching him a bit, I think he 'London Daily Photo' is a really inspiring and humorous project which I will continue to follow through his blog http://tikichris.wordpress.com/.
He is a freelance writer and photographer, he does work for 'Londonist' http://londonist.com/profile/tikichris/posts for whom he writes reviews from around the city, as well as photography work for 'Juxtapoz' magazine http://www.juxtapoz.com/.
On his webpage, and on his flickr account, he does a 'London Daily Photo' which he has been posting for the last 4 years. These range in quality and content, but always capture something special he has noticed in the city in which he lives.
Chris is interested especially in photographing street art, which he captures in both a polished way with a professional camera, as well as with his camera phone, so there can be a very spontaneous feel to the image. He believes in the link between street art and social media, I suppose by this he means that both are ways of broadcasting a message into a public domain and open forum. He uses a lot of different forms of social media and networks to broadcast his work.
He does condone illegal street art believing that, "you are always going to have people drawing pictures". I asked him how he feels about commissioned street art, does he think that changes the validity of the art. He answered that he can't see too much of a difference between illegal and commissioned street art, but perhaps the illegality of it does add a certain romance to it, which I can understand.
Chris believes that the photographs he takes illustrates his writing and he likes how a camera can be like a pass into someone else's world, how it allows you to act as a fly on the wall, especially when he gets a job to do some event photography.
 |
| London Daily Photo |
Friday, 1 October 2010
M&S Marks In Time
On 29/09/2010, as part of Contextual Studies in my university course we were shown around the Marks and Spencers 'Marks in Time' exhibition. The Marks and Spencer brand was born in Leeds in 1884, and the brand principles have remained the same; quality, service, value, trust and innovation.
The advertising for the brand in the 60s took influence from cinema at the time, making their ads into musical numbers, with dancing to promote the clothing, and used celebrity endorsement and glamour to promote the brand. The 'Young StMichael for Men' line used the fast paced life of a 'modern man' to create an image for the line, with the adverts showing men in co-ordinated wardrobe hanging about at a race course, with racing cars as props in the editorial shots, allowing the men to exude a feeling of power and success. The use of cars in the adverts also backed up the brand principles, as quality, value, trust, innovation and service are all things you would also expect from a car.
The adverts from 2004 also employ celebrity endorsement, using celebrities such as Rupert Everet, Rachel Stevens and Gordon Ramsey amongst others who are all British celebrities.
The use of glamour also pops up in the 2007 ad which was filmed on the Oriental Express, exuding class, romance and mystery.
Of course one of the more famous M&S adverting campaigns is the 'Your M&S' food adverts featuring the melting chocolate cake, which were filmed simply and allowed the food to really speak for itself.
The advert for the 125 year birthday of Marks and Spencer tells the brands story, from the start at Leeds Kirkgate market right through to modern day. The endline 'Worth Every Penny' is a call to the brands principles and also a hint to the history as Marks and Spencer started as a Penny Stall, showing that the brand has stayed true to itself through out the 125 years of its business.
The advertising for the brand in the 60s took influence from cinema at the time, making their ads into musical numbers, with dancing to promote the clothing, and used celebrity endorsement and glamour to promote the brand. The 'Young StMichael for Men' line used the fast paced life of a 'modern man' to create an image for the line, with the adverts showing men in co-ordinated wardrobe hanging about at a race course, with racing cars as props in the editorial shots, allowing the men to exude a feeling of power and success. The use of cars in the adverts also backed up the brand principles, as quality, value, trust, innovation and service are all things you would also expect from a car.
The adverts from 2004 also employ celebrity endorsement, using celebrities such as Rupert Everet, Rachel Stevens and Gordon Ramsey amongst others who are all British celebrities.
The use of glamour also pops up in the 2007 ad which was filmed on the Oriental Express, exuding class, romance and mystery.
Of course one of the more famous M&S adverting campaigns is the 'Your M&S' food adverts featuring the melting chocolate cake, which were filmed simply and allowed the food to really speak for itself.
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