This black and white advertisement for summer work briefly and concisely offers opportunities to any interested individuals. It combines enticing images with details of the offer in order to draw attention. Its place on a tick board among many other advertisements within a university hallway is a clear indicator that its intended audiences are unemployed college students who are seeking paid summer work. These kinds of students would likely not attend classes during summer and probably need or want the extra money from work to cover college costs or living expenses, thus they are more likely to take their free time for a job opportunity.
These details explain why the employers responsible for this ad would specifically target this audience with this time-slot. It is the most optimal period to attain student employees for their positions. Due to this ad's heavy university student focus, its intended place is naturally the college setting, specifically a location that many students would frequently attend. A tick board in a hallway wedged right in between several classrooms is the most optimal placement that remains non-intrusive. Non-intrusiveness is important here because the ad needs to be inviting - not overtly aggressive - in order to sell its message, so being out of the way of students' schedules while still being present within them works well for this purpose. The black and white printing is very functional and to-the-point, likely to ensure that the message won't be lost surrounded by unnecessary colors or graphics. The simplicity of the typography is supposed to give the ad maximum readability, as with the interplay between dark background and white text.
Based on the two graphical images, the idea intended behind this advertisement is to associate summer work with a positive attitude by presenting itself alongside ideas that it believes will appeal to students: the pursuit of success in life, which is often associated with college as a whole, and freedom, be it the freedom to choose whatever career students want or just the abstract concept of freedom. The design problem being addressed here, as with any ad, is to establish an initial connection between the intended audience and the product or service being advertised. In this case, the design problem was figuring out how to convince students with free time in the summer and a need or desire for a wage to call the number on the ad or email the address and take advantage of their opportunities.
On paper, it is a good idea to reach this audience for summer employees, but in practice this advertisement does very little to present itself. The black and white aesthetic, though minimal and to-the-point, is unexciting to the human eye, and the values between light and dark are not well-balanced here. The text at the lower left is too dark and blends in with the grey background. Said background is also too light to allow the white text to properly stand out. The two images of "Success Just Ahead" and "Freedom" feel out of place, wedged in the center and saying absolutely nothing about the actual jobs being offered. That is the biggest problem with this ad: it doesn't present any images or descriptive text about the actual job or jobs being offered here. It doesn't give students enough of an idea of what they may be potentially participating in to make an informed choice.
A lot more information, both visual and contextual, needs to be added and revised about this ad before it can draw viewers. It must present more essential information about the job in question, from expected wages and hours to the physical location and exact months that the job will be available. Images should include the work location and the employer, possibly other employees as well, allowing students a visual window into the job. If the employers want to save money on color printing, they need to improve the contrasting of values to allow their text to stand out better - including changing the black text to white. However, color is a powerful visual tool that shouldn't be ignored in the ads construction. With the right application of color, the text can be highlighted better than with gray-scale, the ad itself will stand out from its surrounding competition, and the images will look more appealing.
No comments:
Post a Comment