The Power of Design

Advertisements are everywhere in today’s society. Whether it be a flier taped to a door or street post, a commercial on television, or even a banner on a commonly visited website, advertisements are meant to be in your face. The companies want you to purchase their product or service or attend their event. In order for companies to achieve their goals, they must use effective design principles to catch the viewer’s interest.

Golombsky and Hagen give basic tips for print design in White Space is not Your Enemy. They give five steps to visual success including: establish a clear focal point, minimize the number of groupings the eye must scan, guide the eye with visual sightlines, set type properly, and use simplicity and restraint.

I will provide an example of an advertisement that follows the guidelines and one that does not follow the guidelines. Seeing the differences in these advertisements will help highlight the importance of the guidelines presented by Golombsky and Hagen.

When I come across advertisements, they usually have to do with swimming because I invest so much of my time in the sport. Speedo does such a great job marketing and advertising their brand that even people who are not involved in competitive swimming know the brand. They find athletes like Michael Phelps to help their campaigns.

In Speedo’s “Worn by world champions. My speedo” advertisement, the company uses Phelps as the focal point. The positing of this ad uses the rule of thirds meaning that the key information is at one intersection and the focal point (Phelps) is at another intersection.

The ad maintains simplicity, which keeps the eye from wandering around the photo. The way Phelps’s right arm is extended, guides the viewer’s eye to the type set in the photo. Speedo effectively uses the steps to properly display their message. At first glance the viewer notices the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time and then the eye is guided to the name brand that he wears.

In contrast, Arena, another competitive swimming company, does not embrace the guidelines as well, which can distract the viewer and make them less interested in the product. Arena’s ad for the carbon series seems to be two focal points, but according to Golombsky and Hagen, “if you have two focal points, then you don’t really have any focal point. Without a focal point, the eye wants aimlessly around the layout” and that’s exactly what we find happening here.

In addition, the three different groupings of text prevent the eye from being able to scan the ad. The text is not set properly on the page. They should avoid centering it because centering creates visual flow issues. Last but not least, the ad is very busy. It tries to promote two different suits in one layout, so it becomes confusing.

Comparing the two advertisements shows without a doubt that simplicity is key. One focal point that is not centered and leads the viewer to a message is the best way to effectively maintain the viewer’s interest.

Can Trinity Advertise?

Advertisements are all around us everyday, and they change our actions and views in our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not. Everything about an advertisement matters, and White Space is not Your Enemy points out the little nuances of type, text, color, and design that make an advertisement what it is. After reading the posts from Golombsky and Hagen, I decided to look at some advertisements and posters different organizations post around Trinity.

I took a trip down to our very own Coates University Center and looked at the main cork board for advertisements, and TUFit was the first advertisement that caught my eye. I think the TUFit poster utilizes fonts very well, like mentioned in the "type and color" section of our readings. The headline and logo have contrasting fonts and utilizes different headline fonts well.

There is enough white space so there isn't strain on the eye and the viewers don't feel like they have too much too look at. The poster also utilizes the Om symbol, which is spiritual to the Indian religions. The logo of TUFit also uses the logo basics by adding and building off of a basic shape (a triangle) to design their logo and using simple text. Overall, I think the TUFit advertisement does its job well and attracts people by just the look of their advertisement.

Another advertisement that stuck out in the multitude of posters on the Coates billboard was this one advertising the 2016 Lennox Seminar Lectures. This poster is conveying a lot of information, so it is a lot for the eye to look at, but this advertisement uses one of the suggested font strategies in White Space is not your Enemy. The advertisement uses a bold and different heading text, but uses a more simplistic font for the body information. The simple body font makes it easy to look at even though there is a lot of information to convey.

The third and final advertisement I looked at was this advertisement for the student success center workshops. This advertisement is a lot more information that the previous ones and presents it with ease. The bold text font that presents each workshop makes the advertisement work well. The bold and simple font makes it easy for viewers to find what they are looking for and presents the information concisely.

The student success center also does really well with this advertisement with the columns it uses. This makes it easy for the eye to track back and forth, like White Space is not your Enemy mentions. The dates and times on one side in contrast with the bolded workshops in columns is what makes this advertisement work, especially because it is presenting a lot of information at one time.


Overall, I think the Trinity advertisements around campus do very well at presenting their information concisely and thoroughly. Each advertisement had a different amount of information to present and in different ways, but each did well in different aspects as discussed by White Space is not your Enemy. 

Less is More

After reading the Design Basics excerpt from Golombsky and Hagen’s White Space is Not Your Enemy, I thought about what companies advertisement’s always stand out to me. The first three companies that came to my mind were Apple, Chick-fil-A, and Nike. These three companies are all have strong advertisements and are incredibly successful. This correlation goes to show that the media associated with your company can have a large impact on success.

  This iPhone 6 add from Apple exhibits several positive qualities discussed in the Design Basics reading. First, there is a focal point in the middle of the page that emphasizes the phone. This is the focal point because the rest of the advertisement is very simple, so your eye is immediately drawn to the image of the phone. Apple also only used one font in this advertisement that is easy to read, which is much better than having an array of busy fonts competing with each other. They were also not afraid to use white space which makes the ad very clean looking overall.

Chick-fil-A advertisements use two very busy fonts, but they consistently use these two, and only these two fonts, so it works because the customer recognizes these distinctive fonts. Using a combination of these fonts and their signature cow, a focal point is established.  Similar to Apple, Chick-fil-a is not afraid of white space and always has a simple background in their advertisements. Also similar to Apple, they limit their color use to avoid making the

ad too busy.

Nike ads can always be recognized by their signature font and Nike swoosh. Many of their ads showcase an image of a particular product, athlete, or sports scene with a bold statement and Nike swoosh somewhere on the page. They create a focal point by using a simple background and letting their product be the main focus. They also consistently use the same bold font, which makes is easier for customers to recognize. Most of their ads have text, but it is not an overwhelming amount and is usually black and white.  A pop of color usually comes from the image of their product.

 One interesting thing to note is that design basics suggested to not center everything, but all of these companies seem to do that quite often. This works with these companies because they are widely recognized and don’t have to say much for people to know what the ad is for. They also all have very simplistic designs, so really only a few things end up being centered.

Are all of these companies successful because of their strong media production? You can’t contribute their success completely to advertisements, but these companies are all extremely successful and their advertisements share a considerable amount of similarities while attempting to sell very different products. Even though these three companies produce very different products, I believe that the similar qualities found in their advertisements and similar rates of success prove that the media associated with your company can influence your success.

Impacting Memory: Quantitative vs. Qualitative

According to Green Doors, (a community housing service that caters to the Homeless to help them get back on their feet) "On any given night, approximately 643,067 people experience homelessness in America." "Approximately 238,110 of those people are in families, 25% suffer from mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression, 17% are considered chronically homeless, 13% are fleeing domestic violence, and 12% are veterans." We hear facts like this all the time, but never truly take them to heart. Its because Quantitative data isn't always the most effective form of research.

To truly affect an audience, a good media source must  include both Quantitative and Qualitative data. In the article, What is Qualitative Research, by Jackson, Drummond, and Camara, Quantitative data gives an "accurate representation of a body of messages," but in the form of hard facts and statistics, while remaining an impersonal way of representing information. On the other hand, Qualitative data seeks to understand and experience the research and construct knowledge from said experiences. Often these experiences and stories are the ones we remember because we can relate to the information represented, and come to understand and construct a deeper knowledge of the subject ourselves.

There are many approaches to Qualitative research. Some common methods are Fieldwork, Interviewing, and the Human as Instrument Approach. In fact, all three of these methods were used in Tuned's video. 

In this video, two friends, Dave and Andrew, choose to experience homelessness for a day. Both go through different unique experiences and approach their day's differently. Dave and Andrew both do a form of content analysis while out in the field, one looking specifically at how homeless shelter seeking individuals live and go about their day, the other taking to the streets and parks to live outside. They use the Human as Instrument Approach in their Fieldwork, focusing on understanding homelessness and reflecting back on their own lives and how the two differ.

Looking back at the beginning of the post, the Quantitative facts given (though true and straightforward) may still seem a bit hazy. However in the video, the facts become alive and clear when Dave and Andrew experience them firsthand, and while both Quantitative and Qualitative data contribute to an effective content analysis, it is the Qualitative data that is typically remembered. A quote by Albert Einstein sums this up perfectly.

Subconscious Beginnings

Today, the younger generation is fixed on social media. They spend countless hours browsing and posting on media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat etc. As a viewer of these social media, one constantly analyzes the content posted, whether it is conscious or not.

Content analysis can be performed on any media that one can examine further and explore the underlying contexts in the subject.

Taking selfies and posting them to social networking sites has become quite popular in the recent years. Many people begin the process of content analysis described in Wimmer and Dominick’s article when they notice multiple selfies that are posted on their newsfeed. Viewers do not typically go through the entire content analysis process, but they form their own conclusion of why an individual posted a certain photo.

By doing this, the viewers have already began the steps of content analysis by forming their own hypothesis. When the same gender or age group is posting the same types of photos, there is a defined population in question. The most interesting thing is that, the viewer is not analyzing the photo in hopes to perform a formal content analysis. The beginning steps of analysis are simply a natural reaction for some people.

The initial steps of content analysis are performed by social media viewers, which create conversation about the content and can lead to more formal content analysis. For example, What We Instagram is a scholarly article that analyzes Instagram photo content including selfies, which was mentioned previously.

The constant buzz of the selfie is what lead researchers to look more into the subject. In fact, the term became so popular that it was named the word of the year in 2013 according to oxford dictionaries.

The selfie became so popular that a band known as The Chainsmokers produced a song titled “#Selfie” in 2014. The song is not only about the social media trend, but also seems to describe situations in which selfies would be taken.

In the first verse, the band describes an insecure girl who is questioning the actions of a guy who is of interest to her. She takes her mind off of it by taking a selfie and posting it to Instagram. The song continues to point out her insecurities, while the main idea of the song is all about her selfie.

This song is proof that people are analyzing the pictures posted to social media and developing their own ideas of what thoughts or actions preceded the photo. Even when they are not conducting formal research, the trend of a selfie is being analyzed.

Do you ever find yourself beginning the content analysis steps without even thinking twice about it?

What is in a Question?

The article entitled Content Analysis by Wimmer and Dominick discusses on page seven what process goes into creating the research questions. This analysis is very important as the way questions are structured can radically affect the result of the question. An analysis of how questions are written can reveal the bias of the questioner and or company that was hired to ask the question.

In this blog post, I am going to talk about something that is very unknown and rarely discussed outside of political circles. The only time that this practice gets mentioned on the news is when one campaign accuses the other of doing it. This practice occurs every year and is used in almost every close election across this nation no matter if the election is the primary or the general. One of the dirtiest parts of politics is a little secret known as push polling. Push polling is the practice of pushing negative and potentially false information on an unsuspecting voter using questions that pretend to be official polls. In push polling a person pretending to be a pollster will call you and ask questions that are effectively canned. The questions before they are ready to you, have been carefully analysed and constructed in order to result in you having an unfair change in opinion of a candidate. Push polling played a very important part in the 2000 Republican Presidential Primary according to CBS. 

These types of polls are often used by challenging campaigns that are attempting to prove that the incumbent is less than ideologically pure in the primary. Another reason to use push polling is that the incumbent is overly ideological to the point where he is putting his party preferences over the well being of his constituents. Everyone everywhere on the political spectrum has at one point or another used push polling in order to try and get a win.

In this video, push polling is showcased in a video. The push polling ranges from asking questions about your preference for governor to state treasurer. A key point is that all of the questions asked include very damaging, nasty, and potentially untrue information. The important point to analyze and think about is how each question was carefully constructed in order to help the person paying for the push polling to win the election.  To be fair, push polling is officially condemned by most professional organizations of political consultants, however fair politics is an oxymoron.

It is important to understand that push polling occurs so that if you ever find yourself in the situation where you are being push polled on you will not allow yourself to be manipulated by intentionally fixed sentences or false data. Remember what the two writers wrote in the article and think about how specifically the questions was phrased in order to determine the bias.

Finally remember that if a poll looks like this, it’s probably biased.

Hollywood's Cradle Robbers

In Hollywood, age is not just a number -- it is also a double standard. One of the most interesting and disturbing phenomena in Hollywood is the pairing of older male stars with much younger female costars. As one article aptly puts it, "Leading men age, but their love interests don’t."

In the article mentioned above, the team at Vulture uses content analysis to explore this age disparity. They decided to focus on a sample of male A-listers, including Denzel Washington, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp. For each subject, they picked "a representative sample of films" where the star had a "notable love interest or wife."

Vulture's findings show a trend: Almost all of the love interests were not even in their mid-thirties while some of these A-listers are already in their sixties. The rare occasions where the age difference dropped a bit were when the partners were also A-listers like Angelina Jolie.

Take Johnny Depp, for instance. Only two of his notable love interests have been in their mid-thirties, and several women whom he kissed onscreen, including Kiera Knightley, Christina Ricci, and Winona Ryder, "would have been carded at the time they swapped spit with the star."

The epitome of this trend is embodied by the James Bond franchise, which features a British secret service agent who changes women more often than Donald Trump makes a stupid comment. Some critics applauded Spectre, the most recent Bond movie, for having the "first age-appropriate Bond girl in as long as we can remember." However, this praise was premature, as Bond's "conquests" in the movie include two women in their late twenties.

Monica Bellucci, age 50, plays the main love
interest of Daniel Craig, age 46.

This age gap in media is an apparent contradiction to reality, where most couples are much closer in age. So, what does this suggest about our media and society? Does it hint that Hollywood is dominated by the male fantasy of dating younger women? Is this phenomenon just ingrained into society due to centuries of older men marrying younger women being the norm?

As Wimmer and Dominick suggested, one of the roles of content analysis is to provide quantitative evidence that makes us more aware of mass media, since this fantasy world influences our daily lives. At the very least, this article's use of numbers was successful enough to merit a follow-up article that followed the same same style but focuses on female actors.

Wimmer and Dominick would probably suggest that Vulture's argument could be solidified by a larger sample size and more data. The study could also be expanded to address potential correlations in mass media. For instance, is there a correlation between the gender of the movie director and the age gap between the costars? Is there a decreasing age gap trend? But overall, this article is a good start at using content analysis to raise awareness of this issue. 

Who Said Orange is the New Black?

As Wimmer and Dominick discuss in the Content Analysis excerpt, one way to analyze media is to assess the image of a particular group in society. This analysis can measure things like social trends or media policy toward a certain group.

We are all familiar with the overrepresentation of white males in the media and now more than ever people are starting to speak out about their dominance. For example, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started trending on Twitter because for the second year in a row all the nominees were white. 

This realization of the underrepresentation of people of color and other minorities in the media is not a formal content analysis, but it could easily be turned into one if a systematic procedure were used to analyze the content of media in relation to race. People speaking out about this problem can spark changes in social trends or media policy towards people of color and other minorities, which in turn gives us new media that can be analyzed and critiqued in an effort to improve media diversity.

In addition to race, sexual orientation is another hot topic in relation to media representation. Orange is the New Black is currently the most watched series on Netflix and one of the main themes in this series is same-sex relationships. This popular Netflix series has peaked at the same time the same-sex legislation discussion peaked. A content analysis of this show would likely reveal a pattern in how popular media and public opinion depend on each other. 

Quantitative research methods like those discussed in the Jackson excerpt could be used to compare the rate of public acceptance of lesbian and gay couples with the prevalence of same sex couples in the media. If a positive correlation was found between these two categories, this would suggest that popular media has an influence on social trends and vice versa.

It wasn’t until 1972 that the first TV movie dealing with the subject of homosexuality was released (Gays in Pop Culture ). In just a little more than forty years, that once unheard of scene is completely acceptable.

It is important to understand how media changes in response to public opinion, or the opinion of those who control the media. Content analysis allows us to consider this relationship and understand how the changes in public opinion could be harmful or beneficial.

Is it good that media is portraying same-sex couples because it gives them the equality they deserve? Or is it promoting an immoral act that undermines the importance of traditional marriage? How is this shaping public opinion and is it harmful or beneficial to society? Content analysis provides the answers to these questions.

Burned Out

The topic of "burning out" among young up and coming athletes has become an increasingly popular area of discussion in the sports world. In a culture that eats up athletic excellence and the entertainment that accompanies it, highly talented young athletes are under a microscope and have pressure on them unlike ever before. But, when does it become too much and when is it time to walk away? The concept of qualitative research allows people to examine this issue more closely and potentially bring more issues to light, possibly leading to some kind of resolution to the problem of burning out.

One of the big examples of this, and possibly the most shocking in recent years, was when elite women's basketball player Elena Delle Donne, who now plays for the Chicago Sky WNBA team, walked away from almost certain college basketball stardom at the University of Connecticut. She had been groomed and conditioned her whole life for the opportunity that was presented to her, but she couldn't handle the idea of playing four more years at UCONN. The amount of time and energy she had put into her craft had made her feel distant from her loved ones and she decided to reprioritize. It didn't matter that she was the best in her class/the nation at what she did, basketball had still become a negative presence in her life. So, the Delaware native decided to move back home and attend the University of Delaware, take eight months off of basketball, and figure out who she wanted to be. Eventually, she went back to basketball and was immediately dominant for the University of Delaware's women's basketball team; this dominance led her to the WNBA and she is now one of the most popular and dominating players at the professional level. The video below involves ESPN's Outside the Lines and how they examined Delle Donne's situation closely, being a great example of qualitative research.

This example describes one individual's experience from high pressure from a early age and how it almost broke them down, but the topic as a whole depicts an even greater and widespread issue in youth sports. In today's youth sports culture, parents want their kids to be the best and they want their kids to be the next Lebron or sports superstar, which is leading to an increasing number of kids dropping youth sports or losing their grip on balancing sports and academics and the pressure of sports negatively affecting their school work. This "more is better" mentality that is being expressed by parents and family also leads to a lot of serious injuries for young athletes; these injuries potentially affect the athlete for the rest of their lives. When does the pressure become too much? When does the pressure ruin the sport for the individual? The answer for these questions starts with examining the culture more closely and then ultimately changing it for the better.

Reality Check

Reality vs, Fantasy is certainly an interesting concept in terms of media. What constitutes what is probable and improbable? Factual and Actual? Phantasmal and free-spirited? Potter's Mass Media Content and Reality reading struck a chord with me. I tend to be a daydreamer whether I like it or not, and sometimes that line between reality and fantasy is blurred. Which is a memory and which is a dream?

Creating media is a basic concept according to The Media Literacy Project, but changing our media system is an advanced concept. For the day dreamers like me, who fantasize and create, the media has already influenced our thinking. We may have fantasies, but are those fantasies really ours? Or were the main ideas or concepts placed there by something we read or watched on TV? Potter spoke of "automacity," about tuning out the bombardment of messages we don't want to hear, to protect ourselves, but what if the message we choose to listen to are already twisted an untrue?

There is a music video by Cro entitled Traum that places an interesting twist on a typical pop song. Since its in German, the link to both the English and German lyrics are posted here.

The song speaks of a girl whom Cro thinks is perfect and wishes to take away from all of the negativity he sees, and treat her the right way. In the music video, he wishes to take her away from the ridiculous men trying to win her favor by impressing her with elaborate dates. There is no cussing or foul language or talk of her in a demeaning way. While this seems like a great song, or a wonderful fantasy, we have to look at the things we ignore, and move past automacity. For example, it is a terrible societal norm that the man has to be rich do everything for the girl, yet that norm is present in this video. The girl is being fought over like a piece of property, and not once voices how she feels on the matter.

It is these small details that the media uses to influence our thinking, and we may even not be well aware of. We can change our media system, yes, but it is only through careful analysis of what messages hold truth, and which messages only seek to influence us into falsehood or attract us to a product. If we are to change our media system, media literacy is the key to reality.

~Madison

Power Dynamics in the Media System

Our media system is very capable of influencing society in a big way. Major television networks reach a massive audience almost daily and with the infusion of social media, the reach grows exponentially. I've noticed, because of my interests in sports, that ESPN has some of the power to determine who becomes mega stars in sports. As the premier and go-to sports outlet in America, both on television and online, - ESPN holds a tremendous amount of power in how they can report and portray sports stars.

If you look at ESPN's (Sportscenter) twitter account, or Instagram, it becomes quickly apparent who they are pushing to be the face of sports. Steph Curry is rivaling LeBron as the star of the NBA, Cam Newton is rising very rapidly, and Jordan Spieth has completely taken over golf. I will say it is very deserved that these gentlemen have reached this status in their respective sports but that's only because it serves ESPN's interests to report about them.

There hasn't a sniff of reporting on Rory McIlroy as of late and that coincides with his lack of winning recently in golf, yet in 2014 he was the talk of the town in the gold world. This was evident in his election as the new face on the cover of the EA Sports PGA Tour video game franchise. Yet, here in 2016 the dominant force in golf is Jordan Spieth - 2015 Master champion and 2015 U.S. Open champion.

Rory McIlroy dethroned the long-standing Tiger Woods
as the face of EA Sport's PGA Tour Golf game

Just to show how big of stars guys like Steph Curry and Jordan Spieth have become one can look at Under Armor's massive increase in sales and web traffic since signing Curry and Spieth to contracts - obviously enough due to their success.

However, one could certainly say that Under Armor isn't known for their golf apparel and gear, yet ESPN (shocking, huh?) reports that golf polos sales are up and also a big reason why "visits to Under Armor's website are up 300 percent".

Yes, this increase in sales/traffic is always going to happen when sports stars rise, especially sponsored by such a brand. However, ESPN throws these men on any report, hype commercial, or channel they can manage because it serves their interests to make guys like Spieth and Curry explode so that they can generate a profit. ESPN will always invest their media interests in the biggest most marketable stars and with such an expansive reach in society they will continue to dominate the world of sports.

Media in Moderation

Media can be used as a tool to improve society in many different ways. Media may expose people to current events, provide entertainment on a Friday night, or tell us the weather forecast for the upcoming week.

All of these things are beneficial, but they are just a few examples among the vast and growing collection of media we have today. Media can be healthy, but only in moderation. As mentioned in the Living in a Saturated World excerpt, a recent study showed that the average person spends 70% of their day using some form of media.

According to the excerpt, college students are the most heavily reliant on media, spending an average 3.5 hours a day on the computer and an additional 7.5 hours a day engaging with some other form of media. This amount of time spent engaged with media is not in moderation and is not healthy.

I personally find it frustrating that so many of our assignments for school are reliant on computers. For this semester alone I have purchased online homework programs for multiple classes, downloaded electronic books, added an app on my phone that allows me to participate in class quizzes, and visited the TLearn website too many times already. I believe that the widespread use of media, specifically computers, has made us too reliant, too lazy, and too out of touch with reality.

We have become too reliant on computers to give us instant gratification and tell us anything we want to know… now. We have become too reliant on computers.

Media had allowed us to become lazy by passing the time watching a Netflix series about fictional characters when you could be doing something meaningful for your own life.

Computers are a form of media that has caused us to become out of touch with reality because they give us the answers we want exactly when we want them, which isn’t how the real world works. It also allows us to compare ourselves to the rest of the world and what everyone else is doing even though we are supposed to be living our own lives.

I find the statistic about how much time we spend using different forms of media, college students specifically, because it goes to show how reliant we are on media. Think about the fact that our parents, just a generation ago, rarely used computers in college. It is important to consider how quickly our reliance on media is advancing and what this could mean for generations to come.

Welcome!

In this blank space, students of Media Interpretation and Criticism apply critical thinking to evaluating media messages, as well as creativity to blog posting.