I currently work at a creative agency that specializes in web development, so when I was at a friends apartment last night, who happens to be graphic artist with a specific focus in video and painting, we briefly talked about how his experience in rotoscoping could be of service to the agency. I nodded in agreement, took his card then researched what the fuck rotoscoping was.
In my findings I came across Max Fleischer and his Out of The Inkwell series dating back to the 1920's. Max founded the craft of Rotoscoping and is responsble for timeless pieces of pop culture as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown and Popeye.
I mention this because I watched one of his silent film productions and appreciated the craft of the work, specifically the minimal amount of copy associated with the films. And how challenging it must have been to tell a story without using many words. The viewer is reliant on visual stimuli mostly to piece the narrative together, and when copy does come into to play it has to convey much more than the 6 words typed on the screen. To me that is synonomous with contemporary advertising.
However, whereas silent picture viewers paid money to see these movies and therefore were more willing to distill the narative, advertisers are more at the mercy of the short attention-span of consumers and their unwillingness to pay attention to advertising. In seeing Max Fleischman's movie I realized that we are severly challenged in communicating products and services, and that in many ways we have reverted back to the silent film era of movie making. True, once consumers agree to engage with a brand we can fast forward to current times and dazzle with Flash animation, video and sharing functionality. But that first step is to tell the narrative within a 3-second window of time, with minimal copy and relying heavily on visual stimuli.
As with all challenges there are also opportunities associated with this -- mainly that all advertisers are now on the same playing field (large marketing budgets no longer guarantee share of mind or share of wallet) and that we can now lean more on the design aesthetic as the main point of differentiation. Design has begun to creep more into marketing lingo and subsequently consumer lingo than ever before. Whereas 3 years ago the hype was all about user-generated content (I feel icky just saying those words), we are now about to tip into the era of user-generated design. Nike spearheaded this years ago with NikeID. Kleenex has also gotten into the mix with customizable tissue boxes.
When tissue companies start to innovate through the use of design you know the movement has changed from being a talent that was once acquired through a keen sense of artistic ability and training to something that can now be done by a Soccer Mom right before she runs to pick up the kids (not to knock on Soccer Moms...).
Naturally, technology is responsible for this coup on Design. But there is no point in preventing this movement as it is part of tech adoption, which also enables non-design savvy consumers -- just as millions of people let out their inner Tarantino on Youtube a few years ago.
As advertising matures across all markets, design will be the fabric that brings it closer to the product. So eventually we will get to the point where advertising and the product are one. Or perhaps are we there already a la Apple, Anomaly NYC, Brooklyn Brothers, Pepsi/Arnell Group, et al.
Marc Gobe, founder for D/GA, leader in design, and partner to many marketing gangsters, such as Coke, IBM, and Victoria Secrets, wrote a pretty detailed book on the subject called Emotional Branding. In the book he describes the design aesthetic as something that permeates all five senses and extends to everything from the product itself (think Jean Paul Gaultier perfume bottle design) to the shopping experience (think Whole Foods and Apple Store) to the media and eCommerce platforms platforms (think Zappos, Amazon and Hulu) and ultimately to the advertising itself (think Pepsi).
So what does this have to do with Max Fleischer. Not much, except that design and silent-films are both predicated upon simplicity and intuition to communicate a narrative. Design is the practice of communicating the complex through simplicity. Apple does this. Architecture does this. And now advertising will do this.
In my findings I came across Max Fleischer and his Out of The Inkwell series dating back to the 1920's. Max founded the craft of Rotoscoping and is responsble for timeless pieces of pop culture as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown and Popeye.
I mention this because I watched one of his silent film productions and appreciated the craft of the work, specifically the minimal amount of copy associated with the films. And how challenging it must have been to tell a story without using many words. The viewer is reliant on visual stimuli mostly to piece the narrative together, and when copy does come into to play it has to convey much more than the 6 words typed on the screen. To me that is synonomous with contemporary advertising.
However, whereas silent picture viewers paid money to see these movies and therefore were more willing to distill the narative, advertisers are more at the mercy of the short attention-span of consumers and their unwillingness to pay attention to advertising. In seeing Max Fleischman's movie I realized that we are severly challenged in communicating products and services, and that in many ways we have reverted back to the silent film era of movie making. True, once consumers agree to engage with a brand we can fast forward to current times and dazzle with Flash animation, video and sharing functionality. But that first step is to tell the narrative within a 3-second window of time, with minimal copy and relying heavily on visual stimuli.
As with all challenges there are also opportunities associated with this -- mainly that all advertisers are now on the same playing field (large marketing budgets no longer guarantee share of mind or share of wallet) and that we can now lean more on the design aesthetic as the main point of differentiation. Design has begun to creep more into marketing lingo and subsequently consumer lingo than ever before. Whereas 3 years ago the hype was all about user-generated content (I feel icky just saying those words), we are now about to tip into the era of user-generated design. Nike spearheaded this years ago with NikeID. Kleenex has also gotten into the mix with customizable tissue boxes.
When tissue companies start to innovate through the use of design you know the movement has changed from being a talent that was once acquired through a keen sense of artistic ability and training to something that can now be done by a Soccer Mom right before she runs to pick up the kids (not to knock on Soccer Moms...).
Naturally, technology is responsible for this coup on Design. But there is no point in preventing this movement as it is part of tech adoption, which also enables non-design savvy consumers -- just as millions of people let out their inner Tarantino on Youtube a few years ago.
As advertising matures across all markets, design will be the fabric that brings it closer to the product. So eventually we will get to the point where advertising and the product are one. Or perhaps are we there already a la Apple, Anomaly NYC, Brooklyn Brothers, Pepsi/Arnell Group, et al.
Marc Gobe, founder for D/GA, leader in design, and partner to many marketing gangsters, such as Coke, IBM, and Victoria Secrets, wrote a pretty detailed book on the subject called Emotional Branding. In the book he describes the design aesthetic as something that permeates all five senses and extends to everything from the product itself (think Jean Paul Gaultier perfume bottle design) to the shopping experience (think Whole Foods and Apple Store) to the media and eCommerce platforms platforms (think Zappos, Amazon and Hulu) and ultimately to the advertising itself (think Pepsi).
So what does this have to do with Max Fleischer. Not much, except that design and silent-films are both predicated upon simplicity and intuition to communicate a narrative. Design is the practice of communicating the complex through simplicity. Apple does this. Architecture does this. And now advertising will do this.
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