Startup Notice

     

     This notice for "Startup Weekend" by the Business and Economics department of Cal State L.A. uses crisp typography and minimalist graphics to conjure a specific aesthetic that effectively pitches its offer.  As it states at the very bottom, this advertised program has no limitations on the audience it's reaching out to, other than them being students of the school.  Students don't have to have a major in the Business and Economics Department in order to take advantage of this opportunity, in other words.

     Startup was clearly intended with a broad student demographic in mind, so to facilitate that need this ad, which could be installed anywhere on campus, is hung on a public tick-board, placed inside a campus hallway and surrounded by ads from other independent bodies and organizations.  This notice's place is very clearly the public forum of the campus as a whole.

     This notice's design implements clean typography and a single solid block of color with minimal graphics, likely in an attempt to visually distinguish itself from its surrounding competition and give it a "professional" look.   Professional, in this instance, would mean a clean aesthetic with no typographical errors, no unnecessary images, and an appropriate balance established between all the elements.  The white and yellow color scheme, for example, provides a light contrast that is then complemented by the bold sentence beneath the color block and set just below the ad's center line.  To distinguish itself as professional is to induce confidence from the audience, confidence that the people and the program behind the ad know what they're doing and will be genuinely beneficial to any student who takes up the Startup program.

     The idea running this ad was to draw attention to a student-based program that would only be available within a limited time-scale.  Obviously, the design problem at hand in achieving this end was to draw enough students and incur enough enthusiasm in order to  maximize the number of participants who will take advantage of the program.

     Unfortunately, despite this ad's aesthetic quality, it lacks crucial information about Startup, namely what the program is even about.  If this ad was going to work, it needed to explain to its demographic, the general student body, why Startup would be beneficial for them.  It needed to provide incentive for students to take advantage of that limited time-scale.  This is especially important when students are likely occupied during their regular schedule, be it with work, extra-curricular activities, or personal affairs.  This is especially problematic when the ad itself claims that the Startup will take up 54 hours of someone's time.  It is unclear, taking the ad on its own, how many of those 54 hours will involve the students directly working with the program.