SUMCOM101

Let's work on making an advertisement for a great, new product CROWLEY'S COFFEE Your assignment is to create an ad for Crowley's Coffee.  Clarify who the target audience - who are you creating for (not yourself)  Are you targeting existing customers or new, prospective non-customers? There is a huge difference in how messages are presented between the two groups. Think also about who pays.  Clarify the Call to Action - (What do you want the audience to do?) You probably aren’t helping directly improve your organization’s bottom line if you aren’t asking the audience to do something.  Here is a great site talking about   making a tagline   (which is forever) and headlines (for an ad exclusively)  Being cliché and bland  are the first two mistakes, and you see them all over the place. No matter how powerful it sounds “ Innovation Through Computing ” isn’t memorable, and its the sort of line that will hurt you rather than help. Imitating other taglin...

  What persuades you?  Normally, the first place we think of persuasion is in advertising.  Let's take a look at how advertising persuades us:  Demographics     The qualities (such as age, sex, and income) of a specific group of people a group of people that have a particular set of qualities. These are qualitivate qualities (measurable) Psychographics   the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research Demographic Information: Female Aged 45-65 Married, with children Dealing with issues of weight gain, diabetes, lack of energy or hormonal imbalance Household income $100K+ Psychographic Information: Concerned with health and appearance Wants a healthy lifestyle, but doesn’t have much time Enjoys going online in the evenings, big fan of Pinterest Tends to favor quality over economy Finds fulfillment in her career and family Values time with a small grou...

Our little brains are everywhere Epistemology  Epistemology  is the philosophy of knowledge. It seeks to answer the questions "What is knowledge?" and "How is knowledge acquired?" Epistemologists are philosophers who are interested in questions such as whether it is possible to have knowledge, what kind of knowledge there is, and how people come to know things. Plato's Cave It's just like going to the movies! There is intuitiveness in the Hero's Journey - so how do we know it?  Here is an example of how it can work Here is a contemporary example  Take the time to apply everything you have learned about the tropes .  Take time between now and Tuesday to look at all the things you assume are true. See how many visual, literary and cultural tropes you can identify  So I would ask that you do a puke based on how you plan to vote on Tuesday. I don't care how you vote - that is your business - but I would ask that you look at your reasons (beliefs, truths...

  “To translate knowledge and information into experience: that seems to be the function of literature and art.”                               ―  Joseph Campbell ,  The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”    -Christopher Reeve- The Hero’s Adventure Basic Recipe Here is a basic recipe to demonstrate how the Hero’s Adventure plays out. This is a template you can apply to your own work-in-progress—you might be surprised by how closely it matches elements you already have in play. A messenger comes. The messenger might be human, or a message might come from an experience—like a brush with death or a dream. At any rate, something has gone wrong; the natural order of the world has been disturbed. A problem is presented. Perhaps something has been taken away fr...

  What does it mean to think visually? How does a picture story differ from a collection of pictures on a topic? A picture story has a theme. Not only are the individual pictures in the story about one subject, but they also help to support one central point” Let’s look at what a powerful image can do.  Let’s look at the different camera angles and what they can evoke in the viewer.  Here is a mashup that reminds up that good fundamentals can always play together. Think beyond the moment.    More about Hopper and Nighthawks here Parodies of Nighthawks This is you - learning to think in detail.  Places2Faces assignment. A place A face A place with faces Faces in places Plus two more based on the camera angles and your perspective.  The first photo should establish the location of your story – what does it look like? color? texture? geography? architecture? The second photo should establish a face that is central to your story – who lives/works/exis...

  Every Picture Tells a Story  As human beings, we naturally search for narratives within pictures. When we see an image, we respond with our own subjectivity, values, and experience. Photography is a powerful tool in the hands of a campaigner. We identify strongly with photographic images because we see a close representation of what we assume to be the reality. However, photography is the selective framing of an event. In one brief moment, the photographer edits both space and time. An understanding of photography can help us to make our own images, and help us make them persuasive to the viewer.  The composition of the image is crucial to its meaning. In this case the subject is a shrouded body. We assume that the body is a dead one and we invent reasons why the subject might have died. The body might have fallen from the building in the background. Alternatively, the rocks in the foreground might have crushed the body. The subject might have drowned in the nearby sea ...