ADV 2151 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: John Berger, British Critic, Image Analysis
4 May 2018
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Department
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Professor
Class #4 - Shock Advertising / Visual Analysis / Typography
• Shock Advertising
o Shock Advertising works but as the designer/art director you need to be wary
and understand and accept the consequences of your campaign/design.
o David Kirby - United Colors of Benetton
▪ Interesting in that it created empathy and awareness about AIDS while
also creating a shock effect.
▪ It still received some backlash since ultimately it was tied to
commercialism and a clothing brand. Also it was criticized for not
including copy/text that explained the purpose of the image.
▪ Even though over 1 Billion people worldwide saw the image, because it
was devoid of any support copy about AIDS it did not necessarily
irease/hage people’s uderstadig aout the disease.
o Persuasion Vs. Propaganda
▪ Persuasio uses fatual iforatio ad eotioal appeals to hage a
perso’s id ad to proote a desired ehaior.
▪ [P]ropagada uses oe-sided and often non-factual information or
opinions that appear to be facts, along with emotional appeals, to change
a perso’s id ad proote a desired ehaior.
• Visual Analysis
o The greatest thig a hua soul eer does i this orld is to see soethig….To
see learl is poetr, prophe, ad religio, all i oe. - John Ruskin
o Image analysis teaches two important lessons about the creation of memorable
pictures:
▪ A producer of messages should have an understanding of the diversity of
cultures within an intended audience
▪ The producer should also be aware of the symbols used in images so that
they are understood by members of those cultures
o John Berger
▪ A british critic & artist born in 1926. Known for his book and BBC series
Way of Seeing.
▪ For Berger, an image must be analyzed within its presentational context.
o 8 ways to understand an image
▪ Production: How was the image physically produced and how are
elements combined within a frame.
▪ Content Identification: What are the major elements and what is the
story being told
▪ Functional: What is the context for this image and how was it put to use
▪ Expressional: What emotions are conveyed by the content and how are
those feelings translated across cultures
▪ Figurative: How are the symbols and metaphors employed and what are
any culturally sensitive elements
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Interesting in that it created empathy and awareness about aids while also creating a shock effect. It still received some backlash since ultimately it was tied to commercialism and a clothing brand. Kerning sounds like kernel, which is an individual object: hyphenation, hyphenation is not loved by designers or typographers but is considered necessary sometimes in order to prevent rag problems. If you have to use them avoid having a lot of them in a block of copy, and especially avoid having one follow another. But this leads to : hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes, an em-dash is typically used to act as a comma or parenthesis to separate out phrases or even just a word in a sentence for various reasons (i. e. an appositive). Against all odds, pete the unluckiest man alive won the lottery: an en-dash is used to connect values in a range or that are related.
