The Blog

I came across Steadman’s work whilst on my A-Level art and design course. He’s an illustrator and has created work for Private Eye, the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times and Rolling Stone in his time. The works are created in ink using fountain pens and brushes and I think the resulting images are quite interesting. They have a sense of texture and spontaneity brought about through the splashes of ink and irregular letter forms. The lettering is one element that I particularly like about Steadman’s work as it seamlessly blends with and supports the images as they are in the same style, and are quite unsympathetic and make no real attempts to be clear or legible, but instead are more of a visual mark or expression of a particular words meaning, for example “vain” in the top image, which is large and bold, and “charismatic,” which is multicoloured.

I like this advert. It takes the unique qualities of the Beetle, its sense of fun, elation and high spirits and conveys them whilst comparing it to other cars in order to enhance its own USP. Of course there are other cars that are fun, but instead of trying to stand out amongst them VW have attempted to stand out from the ’serious’ and ’scary’ cars. This was probably done with the hope that if you decided you wanted to buy a “fun” car, the one you would remeber would be the Beetle, so you wouldn’t have to be persuaded away from its actual competitors.

I saw this ad in this months Creative Review. I agree with the response written in the magazine that the ad is original amongst other toothpaste adverts which continuously show people satisfied with their newly transformed whiter than white teeth. I would also add that the style and music and whole ambience of the spot make it intriguing and very watchable, so even if for a different product (where this style may not be as original) this style of ad would probably be effective, providing of course, that it was still suited to the product.

Would this be effective? Maybe. If a saleswoman’s (or man’s) nails were branded at times when you would be shown other products, over a counter for example, you would see the nails for a long enough period, but would it lower your trust in the sales person knowing that they’ve ’sold out,’ and put you off buying the product you were actually interested in if you had ten tiny Pepsi logos staring back at you? I don’t know. I think it would all depend on the location and the branded products appropriateness at that time.

This is a simple and fun ad, reminiscent of childhood and musical chairs. The race at the end coupled with the precision choreography makes the ad entertaining and enjoyable to watch.

I really like this ad, an outdoor and video execution that use the cause of global warming - the sun, to create the appearance of rising sea levels - the problem. Clever stuff.

This is just a really nice execution and use of the medium, which enhances the message.

I really like this campaign as it effectively shows a menial job that no one would think is the right job for them, and also, I know I don’t know exactly how a vending machine or photo booth look or work inside and I assume many others don’t eather so it creates a really original and interesting image, that successfully conveys the service in question.

These are two outdoor executions that I really like. The Electrolux ad makes use of the medium and manipulates it to convey the product’s use in a way that image or copy alone couldn’t. And the Peugeot ad works well as it creates a sense of exclusiveness for “builders and other hard working people,” as it is facing them. The ad also works well as it is legible through the reverse, but one thing I may suggest is that the logo and copy in the bottom left should be placed so that the target audience in the street can read it too.

This is an image I have had for a while, but I think that its a really good use of a medium which people are really tired of, as often pop-up ads don’t use the fact that they are unwanted or removed as soon as they appear to their advantage, but this ad does.