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advertising

advertising, critique, culture, oracles, style
Vogueing Out
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A couple of things caught my eye as I cracked open the March 2008 issue of VOGUE yesterday.

1) Is high fashion trying to angle itself with high art? Art has been what I would call “street hip” for a couple of years now, but for me, the deer heads, power lines and raindrops are all blurring together. D&G, Prada and Nordstrom ads (and that’s just in the first 20 pages) showed models posed in completely painted scenes or art studios, taking a more high art direction. The merit of the art itself isn’t the issue and a critical person could say it’s insipid to hijack art to sell clothes, but it seems to me that the message is that art is still elevated above the clothes. Art is absolute, fashion is mutable, both are visual cousins and the weaker, more changeable entity aligning itself with the stronger can only serve to build its brand. If you see fashion as fantasy, these ads could be a prediction of our fantasies to come. While 99% of people probably won’t wear anything from a runway in their lifetime, the culture of fashion can serve as a compass to where larger popular culture might go.

On a side note, it’s always interesting to me how fashion ads rely almost exclusively on photography, and what little effort is made towards incorporating graphic design is often badly handled. I usually don’t care for the photography in Marc Jacobs ads, it is one of the exceptions where the design is well-executed and not overbearing. And I don’t think there should be more graphic design in fashion branding necessarily, when you have outstanding photography, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, it’s just interesting to not to see it used more often, especially with younger designers up against the grand old fashion houses.

2) Older celebrities trying to look 19, growing old very un-gracefully. Highly disturbing.
advertising, observations, paintings, women
No Mercy
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What I liked about this series was that the women in the images were old, not that attractive, but still dressed nicely and wearing makeup. Yet instead of being contrived anti-models (who are fantasy) these women were very real, gritty. Something rarely seen in advertising.

2003

Acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″

$400
advertising, collage, culture
Collage study
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I like to draw and can draw well from life. But juxtaposing random images is so much more challenging, rather than just drawing what I see before me. You can do funny compositions, weird compositions, serious compositions. It’s a good way to process and reformulate the world around you, which is largely comprised of advertising.
advertising, paintings, women, words
We’ve Got It
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I had saved these small magazine clippings for about three years, blew them up on a color copier, and also copied my hand on the glass. This piece shows personal themes of media, gender and food, all tied up with red thread.

2004

Mixed media on canvas, 18″ x 24″

$150
advertising, paintings
Armchair Warrior
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You may recognize some of the digital art from the illustration section. I have a pack-rat mentality with paper clippings. I hold on to everything till it comes together for The Perfect Collage. The digital art is printed on vellum, and I combined it with some images on a color copier about a year before. It didn’t really start off as any sort of anti-war statement, although I believe it’s a lot easier to support when you’re fed only what you see on TV.

2004

Mixed media on fabric, 18″ x 24″

$250
advertising, critique, style, women
Makeup Ads Need an Extreme Makeover
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Every once in a while, when in an escapist mood, I throw a Cosmo or Glamour in my cart at the grocery store. I also admit to having an annual subscription to Vogue; I believe it’s healthy to have a dose of unattainable otherness in one’s life. As a friend of mine once remarked, “Dreaming is free.”

When reading a women’s magazine, you know what to expect: pandering articles regarding beauty, clothes, shoes, sex, relationships, health, and occasionally, social issues. Articles saying you don’t have to look like a model or celebrity to be happy with yourself, then ads telling you the exact opposite.

Worst and least creative of all are the numerous ads for makeup. Usually taking up an entire spread, many brands with more than one placement, they simultaneously blare and recede. Except for slight differences, most incorporate the same design elements:

1. A really, really big face, usually a celebrity or well-known model (link to death of the supermodel)

2. Large logo

3. Lots of subheads and small type for the product description

4. Busy backgrounds, usually a city, interior, or brightly colored backdrop

5. A seasonal make-up “theme” associated with a mini-line of products

The experience of viewing several of these in a magazine is not unlike passing billboards on the highway. Normally you don’t pay attention to them unless the advertising company is promoting the billboard’s own vacancy with an elegant little tagline like, “Does advertising work? It just did!” A billboard is even more noticeable when it’s completely empty, alone and decrepit on the frontage road. But this is not meant to be a rumination on the stark beauty of postmodern wasteland.

Or is it? By using conventional type, images and layout, the cosmetics industry shows it’s out of touch with its consumer base, especially with the younger audiences that read women’s magazines. These brands are based in the old paradigm that believes women need makeup because we need a mask to hide feelings of anger, depression and inadequacy from ourselves and those we have relationships with, just as we have been expected to for centuries.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, the everyday use of makeup for many women has shifted from an absolute necessity to an amusement. It’s like playing in our mother’s valuable, obligatory makeup when we were little girls. (Which is why I was punished when I played with makeup! In those days, my mom seemed to think it was a life-or-death situation if she wasn’t wearing lipstick. She has since relinquished much of her attachment to makeup.) The color products featured in seasonal campaigns somewhat reflect this change, but again, the conservative graphic design betrays the aim of playfulness. The increase of light-wearing, long-wearing, oil-free, moisturizing, anti-aging, etc. products in the market like base and powder has is not so much about putting on a mask of flawlessness regardless of what irritation it causes, than it is about feeling comfortable in your own skin.

Putting your best, healthiest face forward means you should be confident in projecting your own personal style, especially since there’s a variety of choices available. And big brands also seem to be unaware of the variety of faces out there too. Cover Girl probably considered it highly progressive to use Queen Latifah as a salesmodel. Beyoncé Knowles’ contract with L’Oreal states that she cannot change anything about her appearance without their explicit permission. Estée Lauder was applauded like Bill Clinton at an NAACP meeting upon signing Ethiopian model Liya Kebede as its first model of color last year (and it must be noted that even Kebede’s facial structure fits the mold of Carolyn Murphy’s frigid perfection, unlike the unique radiance of Alek Wek, an African model who has dominated the runways for at least the past 5 years). By continuing to push the big mask-like, usually white faces (link to cover girl image on my website), big brands risk losing connection with a diverse audience. Especially marginalized women that precisely need the confidence of feeling comfortable in their own skin.

The best way to address these issues requires a drastic change in branding. This breakthrough was half-accomplished in the early 1990’s by the tremendously successful Urban Decay in its name alone. Through an ultrahip, quasi-degenerate rock star mystique, Urban Decay propagated unheard-of color products like blue nail polish and shimmering green lipstick. All this was done with hardly any advertising, except the buzz generated by beauty editors giving props to it in their sections. By the late 90’s, all the big companies had followed suit and were offering their own glittery goop, and today, nearly 15 years later, even Tinkerbell has given up her wand to all things bright and sparkly in the tween market. Shouldn’t the success of a highly original cosmetics brand be further emulated not just through product lines, but through advertising design as well?

Clinique’s print ads from the mid to late 1990’s were also a wonderful study in simplicity, almost approached as a design school problem. The only features were a photo of the package with a swipe or dusting of the product around it on a white background, establishing a “clinical,” healthy brand. In more recent ads, however, Clinique’s photographers seem to think the minimalist approach is on its way out, lacking in pizzazz. A few elements of former atypical elegance remain, but now the makeup is haphazardly spilled all the whitespace. It’s not even a well-thought-out mess (there is such a thing).

The Pink-a-pades ads from the 1960’s would be a great model to follow. Not only were they promoting that essential mod cosmetic, frosty pink-white lipstick, the design itself is truly a sign of the times, inspired by the psychadelic graphic art movement to create a very hip, appealing ad. By relying more on illustration, good copywriting and better type choices, designers for the cosmetics industry would have greater freedom to navigate with the trends of today’s youth. The emphasis would not be on a flawless white face, but on how the consumer uses the product to create their own style. Drawing on inspiration from the trendier venues of graphic art, a total re-thinking of makeup ads would add individuality and diversity not only the company brands, but to the concept of beauty in general.

This industry does not just need an update; it needs a huge reality check. Not a-slenderizing-new-haircut-and-vertical-stripes makeover, or a nip-here-tuck-there but a hit-the-gym-and-throw-away-everything-you-own transformation.
advertising, critique
The Sibling Rivalry Between Visual Art and Illustration
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There are good and bad aspects to everything. The truth is somewhere in between.

Sweet: Illustration featured in Print’s 2004 Regional Design Annual

While I often check out the websites of firms and designers I’ve heard about, Print’s Regional Design Annual is one of my main sources for inspiration when I’m in a slump. As a solo in-house designer, I often feel cut off from the more creative world of editorial and advertising designers. And especially those mysterious characters who seem to have enough money and time to produce imaginative work that would never be accepted in the corporate world. Whether a piece sparks off an idea I can use for my day job or just gets me excited about being a designer, it’s a resource that’s valuable for years to come.

My initial reaction the flat fire escape route themed cover with the baffling script font in the corner was disappointment. Following the path of one of the walking figures, it seemed he’d vaporized through a couple of walls and was running towards the edge of the page as if to escape the terrible cover design he was trapped in. It seemed completely meaningless, which design should never, under any circumstances, be meaningless or arbitrary. Such a curious choice of artwork for a prestigious graphic design magazine. If I could find it in myself to give Print the benefit of the doubt, or just provide a conspiracy theory, perhaps the bland cover was contrived to belie the vivid color and wonderful tactility of much of the featured illustration work, similar to what you can see here.

Illustration, especially among the younger set of designers, is going through an interesting phase right now that’s in a misty gray somewhere between fine art and mere visual description or decoration, even outside of metaphor. Rather than providing a reference point, the artwork could potentially stand on its own as fine art in a conventional space like, I don’t know, say, a wall (where else do we put 2-D art?). Yet this style of work is more of a statement about applied art[i] as fine art: t-shirt designs, concert posters, CD covers, zines, fiction covers, stickers, embroidery, fabric, wallpaper. Things that rely heavily on visual art, but because the venue combines it with innumerable contexts (structure, selling points, size, brand, materials, manufacturing, environment, and so on), pure art is not the intended final result.[ii]

A discussion of these issues about fine art and illustration and media requires mentioning the Dada movement. The transience of what the Dadaists declared to be art seemed radical nearly 100 years ago because for millennia, art has been our link with the eternal and thus must depict eternal things. But art is also a refraction of our current world. Dada documented the emerging nihilism of the modern consumer economy and everything it ushered in. We are still undergoing those changes today, with technology tweaking it up a notch. So if the experience of visual stimulation through advertising, fine art, photography, film, etc. is even more fleeting in the social consciousness now than it was for the Dadaists, shouldn’t there be artists out there interpreting, developing and reacting to this reality?

The answer is yes, but you won’t find it in an art gallery. To reach any sizeable audience, it’s now necessary for artists to make use of the most short-lived shorthand of communication: advertising. Even if it requires combining visual art with the name of a band or brand. Thus art’s unexplored expression in the realm of illustration and graphic design is hard for many designers to swallow. “It seems to me a disproportionate number of the pieces were posters and the majority of those could be further reduced down to posters for rock bands. Where were the annual reports, packaging, trademarks, direct mail pieces, brochures, catalogs, and corporate identity programs? These are the projects that real designers do to solve real problems for real clients,” a Houston art director complained.

But as one designer from L.A. said, “underground street design is becoming more mainstream.” Another partner at a firm in North Carolina observed that “the seismic shift by clients towards tighter strategies and more distinctive branding efforts reflects their response to a tougher marketplace, increased global competition, and a growing general interest in design from consumers, fueled by success of design-driven retailers like Target. The Wal-mart mentality has subsided with the bigger clients since consumers are becoming a little more sophisticated.”

Despite its shock value to the business side of advertising and even some designers, the illustration work in Print is still conservative in terms of what is expected of the viewer. The fraternal twins of fine art and illustration have similar goals: to fulfill the desire to see something familiar that hasn’t been done before, or to see something new through a means that has already been used.[iii] With Dada, graphic design crossed the line separating it from visual art. In Print’s 2004 Regional Design Annual, art sloshed over its boundaries into its sibling’s territory. It’s likely we will see a backlash to more traditional-looking art direction from all of this, but luckily the magazine was savvy enough to notice this whitecap on the sea of design.

Shameful: Illustration featured in Print’s 2004 Regional Design Annual

“Clients want conservative design.”

“Clients want edgy designs.”

Despite all the quotes from designers expressing completely different trends, much of the work featured in Print was one-sided. The heavy emphasis on illustration and visual art was not sufficiently explained by the jurors. They did not express their own thoughts on the pieces they chose, but relied almost exclusively on quotes from the entrants. Is that not was a juror is expected to do? Just as editors “cut the fat and keep the meat” (to use and expression of my writer friends) for their publications, so jurors chose choose what, in their knowledgeable opinion, is good work and explain why.

At first, the illustrations seemed quite striking, but there was page after page of the same style utilizing woodcuts, brown paperboard, letterpress, silkscreen, stencil, and stamping. Most pieces even featured the same imagery: hands, teeth, birds, woodcut flourishes, pointy objects, skulls, children, deer. (Although I admit I went through a bird and tree phase myself all of last year). I know there are personal and business connections of mutual respect between the houses that specialize in this kind of work. But this unfortunate regurgitation of themes grew less evocative as it was repeated in each regional section.

I say this was a mistake on the jurors’ part, not the individual designers who happen to be successful doing what they love. Print’s jurors should have just picked five of the best gig art posters from each region and left room for other work like annual reports and logos. Or they could’ve just made the magazine smaller, because after awhile, it seemed like they were just filling space because the pieces looked cool. A magazine of this eminence should know that design is the opposite of filler. It’s extremely important to recognize good work and accomplishments in newer and traditional forms of design.

[i] In her introduction to the Annual, editor Joyce Rutter Kaye discusses changes in what designers are working on: “designing wallpaper and carpeting, creating limited-edition t-shirts, selling t-shirts online, and most ubiquitously, printing silkscreen and letterpress posters for arts events, bands…”

[ii] One could argue that either traditional forms of advertising (TV commercial art direction, movie branding, print ads, environment design, billboards, websites, signage) have not caught up yet or are not applicable to this hybrid form of art/illustration. I would say that cable TV is the exception to the rule in terms of high art motion graphics and logos. MTV and VH1 are obvious choices, but even TLC and the Discovery Channel have some interesting self promo spots. I don’t know – I don’t have cable.

Other note: You have to wonder when so many of the “mysterious characters” mentioned above are selling their personal silkscreen prints of gig posters for $40. Is the poster design’s purpose to sell itself (i.e. the illustration) or sell the thing that it’s selling? Is the price the most accessible selling point to young art collectors or the artwork as a statement about the buyer? Is the audience observed/researched as it would be for a typical ad campaign or is it produced by the artist as fine art, self-pleasure, self-expression, a personal message? I’m sure different designers all have their own perceptions, but this is definitely what is known as a niche, for now anyways.

[iii] “Designers are making more work that doesn’t look like it was made on the computer,” observes Brett Stiles of GSD&M.

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