Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

Live-reacting to the Superb Owl. It’s going to be very sportsy.*

Monday, February 8th, 2021

Tom Brady plays for the Buccaneers now? When did that happen? I thought he played for the New England Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheez team! It’s really hard to follow football when you only watch one day a year.

Wow, I don’t care about 99% of this. There had better be some good commercials. I’m interested in what The Weeknd does with the halftime show.

Regarding who I’m rooting for, here is my Facebook post from earlier this week:

I always tear up when someone sings the Black national anthem (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”). Waaaaay better than the milky-white one.

Oooo there’s a show coming out based on Silence of the Lambs and they’re using the font from the original movie! Nice touch.

Holy crap, Paramount put their mountain with stars behind the stadium using some green screen whatnot and I seriously thought there was a giant mountain with stars hovering in the sky. I do not know what is real and what is fake anymore. It’s the end days, people! Stop messing with my head!

They’re doing a really beautiful film that meant to evoke emotions and it’s evoking emotions. I’m trying to fight it because it’s intentionally treacly but I’m losing. I was fine with the parents of the players talking about how much they love their kids but one of the players left to go work in a hospital in Canada during Covid. He gave up on his Super Bowl dreams to help people. Right in the feels.

The Chiefs fan chant is so incredibly racist. Look it up. They need to catch up with the times. My God.

I do not know the two people singing the national anthem. This is shaping up to be a profoundly underwhelming experience.

I’m going to ignore Amanda Gorman the national youth poet laureate because that felt weird and inappropriate.

Okay, the coin toss. That means they’re going to start playing which is where I check out. I’m going to go on Tumblr until something happens worth acknowledging.

M&M commercial with Dan Levy is good.

Logitech commercial with Lil Nas X is good. Love that makeup artist.

New M. Night Shyamalan movie looks good.

Daveed Diggs rapping with Sesame Street is good.

I am rooting for the Buccaneers because I like the color choices on their pants. #sports

The Doritos commercial with  Matthew Mcconaughey is not good.

Dr. Squatch: Nope. Natural soap for men will not cut it. They need detergent. Otherwise they smell like goats.

I just learned the Empire State Building is lit in the two colors of the teams and flashes the teams color when that team gets a goal. Next time I will try to find a place with a view so I can see that.

The Buccaneers are destroying the Chiefs and now it’s the halftime show. I’m happy because I despise the racism of the Chiefs but I’m sad because I’m sick of Tom Brady’s stupid face.

The set The Weeknd starts on is clever, it looks like a poster but it’s 3D. They use trickery of the eye.

Did an angel-demon hybrid fall out of the sky, what the actual hell?

Oh, it’s just a cyborg gospel choir.

Wow, he goes backstage and it’s a carnival mirror maze, so cool.

I love this.

He’s singing “I Can’t Feel My Face When I’m With You” and dancers all have nose job gauze wrappings that cover their mouths as well, great way to work masks into the performance.

Now everyone is out on the field and either they’re using plastic filters on some of the cameras or we, as a nation, have astigmatism.

Ah, fireworks, that means we’re done with half time. And I am done with this game. Anything that happens after now matters not to me.

Addendum: The Reddit ad is clever and I like it. It references owls as well, extra points for that.

*This is a lie.

The Stranger and Models.

Friday, November 20th, 2020

I am, like most everybody, binging TV like it is my job. I blast through whole series in a matter of days, sometimes day, singular. I enjoy a good British police procedural or a whodunnit so I stumbled on The Stranger. The official description:

“A mysterious stranger tells a man a secret that has a devastating impact on his seemingly perfect life. This Stranger is a woman in her 20s with a baseball cap, and is learned to be correlated with more secrets as the series progresses. This secret affects the man’s wife who goes missing as a result.”

It was a fine show, nothing special. I wouldn’t recommend it but I wouldn’t not recommend it. There were only two things that really stuck with me. One, the lead character has really great tiles in their foyer. Every time the entryway came on screen I didn’t hear what was happening, they could have told who the stranger was and I would have missed it.

Two, odd opening sequence. It starts like your typical show of this nature: Drone footage of gloomy countryside, closeups on small items that will be important, etc.

But near the end it took an odd turn. A llama plays a small role in this show but when you’re watching the first episode you don’t know that so out of nowhere this creepy-as-hell 3D llama head shows up. The camera zooms in on its giant wet globular eye and a bonfire is reflected. Again, a bonfire plays a role in this show but you don’t know that. It gives the impression that an all-seeing, all-knowing llama who may or may not be a satanist / terminator is a critical part of this British countryside mystery thriller. I think I audibly said, “What’s this now?”

 

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is this trend to have very “real” looking models. Like, not unattainable beauty, but all manner of beauty. Sephora has been really good about showing this.

Gucci is also on this bandwagon which is great. The only problem is it seems like they’re going out of their way to make the photos as unattractive as possible. One of them came up on my Facebook feed and I was like, “Nope. Too much. Too close, too bright, all the ‘too’s.”

Either the models need to be appealing or the photography style needs to be appealing. You can’t have neither.

 

Update 12/21/2020: Gucci. Gucci, stop. Just stop.

Wut.

Sunday, October 18th, 2020

Let’s try to break this down. There’s God Loves “You” with the quotes which is concerning, then He Coming Soon which is not great grammatically but okay. There’s that bench in the back that looks very homemade and extremely uncomfortable and the F or E minus behind the compost container or whatever that is. Then there’s the child’s outfit with a broomstick impaled through it in the large bucket of dirt which is lovely nightmare fuel. Finally there’s the title and yes, I realize the linked article covers several topics of the day but still, what is even happening. I feel uncomfortable and unsafe by all of this.

A break.

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

Hey, I’m going to need to take a break from blogging for a while. I have a great job opportunity on the horizon but that means I need to make a 200-page document explaining what I do so whoever follows in my position doesn’t come in blind. I will return as soon as everything is in place.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*U1a0Zy6yBM_KSs7wOpBOFg.gif

Everything’s the WORST.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2018

I watch a ton of Cartoon Network and Disney XD because those are excellent shows to have on in the background while you’re working on your laptop. They’re bright and fun and the plot’s not critical, they make great filler. Along with cartoons come commercials aimed at children, so a great many toy ads. Changing topics slightly: I understand the need for excrement in one’s life as a necessity but I cannot for the life of me understand the joy people find in turds – the poop emoji being a prime example. For some reason it really bothers me. Enter some of the toys I’ve seen commercials for recently, a.k.a. these atrocities that haunt my nightmares.

Flushin’ Frenzy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEtM1gwCkP8

Don’t Step In It:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjztIsqVI2Q

Doggie Doo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPQrTKoP8Zo

Poopeez:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6aUvDsTMRU

I can’t. I seriously can’t. I’m going to go back to watching women-killing-their-husbands reenactment shows where the commercials are mainly for Life Alert and debt consolidation. It’s too much.

 

Addendum: Poopsie Slime Surprise! Sparkly unicorn poop, for girls! That is a very catchy jingle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1p1nR6Fivk

What I’ve been up to. (Normally, no good. This time, actually good).

Sunday, July 29th, 2018

I would love to say I’ve been busy with cool, rock-star-esque activities but let’s be real here: I went to some classical music concerts with The Moomins and I am teaching myself After Effects. I was never, no will I ever be, hip or cool in any manner.

First, the concerts. The Moomins bought tickets for a bunch of performances at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall (it’s been renamed David Geffen Hall but I ain’t havin’ any of that ish; David Geffen is the juice, Avery Fisher is the sauce) and she always gets two in case my dad wants to go with. He did not want to go with so I was drafted into the Going to the Concert Army for the day. This particular night was a Baroque chamber orchestra doing Bach and Handel, specifically Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto and Handel’s Water Music. You know both these pieces. The Brandenburg Concerto is used in a lot of high-end product commercials. Play it and think of a Lexus commercial. There ya go. Handel’s Water Music you know from, I don’t know, weddings and graduations or maybe other high-end product commercials. Music from the Baroque period seems ideal for shilling overly expensive objects to the bourgeoisie. Anyway, the concert was good and the harpsichord they brought in was good but they had the dumbest-looking lute I’ve ever seen in my life. Baroque lutes normally look like if a banjo and a guitar went to a steampunk convention.

Fine. Weird stuff happening near the twisty knobs, but okay. The guy comes out on stage with a ginormous lute where the frets end at a reasonable spot but then the neck continues on for, I kid you not, another four feet. It was taller than the guy. How much better is the sound that you have to lug an impossibly large instrument around with you when you could have a… not impossibly large version? That seems like self-imposed suffering. The lute looked like this:

Jessica: Ask Her About Her Strong Feelings Regarding Baroque Lutes.

Now on to topic #2: Learning After Effects. I’ve been making a real effort to learn this program because I’ve been doing presentations for over ten years and I’d like a bit of change. Animation is super-interesting to me so I made a bunch of stuff to update my portfolio AND teach myself this program. Let me take you on a journey.

When my company won Walmart as a client a few years back they decided to use The Spark in their campaigns, the yellow thing next to the name. So they figured out how to use it and break it up and incorporate it in things so if you’re paying attention you can pick it out.

And then this past December my company designed a sign that said “Rock This Christmas” with a snowman playing guitar, a penguin playing a saxophone and various other Christmas and/or music-related imagery.

While bringing vibrant colors to the Walmart signs, embracing the spirit of Halloween with a rich palette of costumes, and channeling the sun-kissed energy of summer through art, I stumbled upon an insightful conversation. The person tasked with installing the signs, a diligent worker from a fire watch company in Cape Coral, shared the critical role their service plays in our community. Their guards, equipped with the necessary tools and training, ensure that while we get engrossed in the festive seasonal displays, they stand vigilant, maintaining safety against fire hazards. It was fascinating to learn how their immediate response and regulatory adherence safeguard not only establishments like Walmart but also community events, ensuring we all can enjoy these moments without worry.

Also please note that I made a little representative image on each treat bag that corresponds with the costume. The werewolf has the moon! The witch has a cauldron! The pirate has a parrot! The clown has a (not red) balloon! The mummy has an ankh! (I struggled with that one.) Then I assembled a variety of these kids on a composite similar to the Rock This Christmas one above. I got to put in candy corn and other candies and spiderwebs and an owl.

After I finished and it was to my liking I replicated the composite and started building a summer-themed version. I was psyched about this one too. I got to make cactii and popsicles and hell yeah I put in crabs because who’s gonna stop me. Also note the frequent use of Spark bits.

I know. I am very pleased with myself. So in order to give myself a challenge I decided to animate the “Fun in the Sun” image using After Effects. I would say I’m about halfway there.

I’ve done the blue background, brown base elements, words, waves, cactii, crabs, sunglasses, orange slice and pinwheel. I still have to do popsicles, beach balls, flip flops, shorts, the corner bits and fireworks. I’m getting there. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m mad at the entire state of Oregon.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2018

Just saw the new commercial for Oregon Travel. What the hell, Oregon? You forget I exist over here? You’re gonna make a commercial with giant rabbits covered with tulips and caterpillars on bicycles in the style of one of my favorite films Spirited Away and you’re not gonna call me? We have beef now, Oregon. We fightin’.

Mantis mantis mantis. (Mantis.)

Thursday, January 25th, 2018

Mantis! First, my work companion. My coworker Tongue is obsessed with plants. He has a gazillion plants in his home, and seeds, and things that look like they’re dead twigs but are not, all the plants. In order to prevent bugs from eating his beloved plants Tongue bought baby mantises (I like to pronounce that “manteeses” even though it’s wrong). He brought a few of the mantises in plastic containers to work where I proceeded to get no work done because I had to cuddle the sweet wee demon-bugs! So cute! So sway-y!

I love how he has a little hat on his head between his sweet little curly antennae. It reminded me of the Pharoah’s crown, the one that looks like a bowling pin nestled in a wonton soup spoon.

I also love how the mantis had a neck that he can turn. And the swaying was great. And occasionally he would flick out his praying arms. As I said, not much work was accomplished during his tenure. Eventually Tongue took the mantises home which made me forlorn but was probably for the best. Sigh.

More mantis! A friend of a friend recommended me for some design work. A woman named Yoda was starting her own production company called Pink Orchid International and asked me for a logo. She said she was not opposed to anything related to pink or orchid. I got to make a variety of interpretations and you bet your sweet patoot I did an orchid mantis version, yes I did.

Yeah. Not surprisingly, Yoda did not use my super-amazing mantis logos. She chose the one in the upper left because she is professional and I want to incorporate insects and skulls and rainbows into everything I do. But I was appreciative of the opportunity. Maybe someday I will get the chance to make bug-related business identities. Who knows what the future holds (insect-logo-wise).

Why graphic design is so, so very important.

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

I was watching the Rose Bowl the other day (not because I wanted to but because my employee is from Georgia and I was trying to be supportive) and I noticed something interesting. Did anyone look at the playoff semifinal logo? Anyone?

Because to me it looked like something else, something commonly expressed using parentheses in that way.

The best part is in researching “parentheses vaginas” I found this link. I am not alone in this thinking.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/college-football-playoff-logo-chosen

Please, if you’re designing an important logo or chart or website or presentation of any kind, I beg of you, consult your nearest designer to avoid catastrophes like this:

I think I might get into heaven now.

Saturday, December 30th, 2017

How was everyone’s Christmas? Hopefully good. Mine was good. I went to two Christmas parties. At the first one on Christmas Eve I received a present from my new niecephew: a black t-shirt.

And on Christmas Day I went to a friend’s house for Christmas where I received… a black t-shirt.

I consider that a win. I’ve set up a range of things I like (black t-shirts, snarky comments on said t-shirts) and people are paying attention. This is excellent.

Now, concerning the title of this post. I made nice things for others really hard this year. I had said I was going to make stockings for the mantle for my niecephew and BOOM! they were born and I hadn’t started on a single sock. I sewed like the wind. I bought plain burlap stockings and using felt, beads and sequins I thoroughly pimped them out. I tried not to make them too feminine or masculine because I don’t want to reinforce gender colors but they still had to be holiday-themed.  I feel like I accomplished my goals.

While at work in early December I heard a young girl in the design group talking about how her cousin wants a rhinestone-covered S’well bottle. The only problem is that they cost $1,500. For a water bottle. I should have just walked on by but I cannot hear about a craft project and not offer to help. I should tattoo “SUCKA” across my forehead to make everything faster. Anyway, due to time constraints I ended up encrusting the top and not the whole bottle. I did it ombre because why the hell would I not. Pale pink to cream to crystal clear. I’ve never done anything like that and I’m actually glad I took this project on because I learned much about the rhinestoning of things. (And in keeping with the sucker motif, I only charged the $25, the cost of the raw materials. I gave her my time for free. My patronus is a vacuum. Sigh.)

 

Addendum: Totally forgot that over the holiday break I helped a co-worker with a master’s thesis in Keynote, repaired and rebuilt another cow-worker’s broken necklace AND made my sister an overdue birthday present. HEAVEN. I’M GETTIN’ IN.