Photoshop taken too far?
August 22, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
| Print
Filed under Blog, Swipe File
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
Last Wednesday, Dane Cook took to his MySpace page to vent his frustration on his new movie’s poster.
For a “lay-man” with only a “self-promotion” background, he does a pretty good job of analyzing the poster’s graphics.
I’ve copied and pasted the entire entry below (including his occasional use of profanity):
“Dear Diary
Before the downpour let me just say that my new movie, “My Best Friends Girl,” is the best / funniest film I’ve done yet. It’s got a terrific cast. Kate Hudson, Alec Baldwin, Jason Biggs, and myself really kicked the funny around. This movie showcases our talents accordingly as it expands on them. It’s a fun R-rated flick. An edgy comedy with a dash of romance.
That being said, let me address the fact that although I’m not a marketing major, I have a bit of a trusted reputation after 18 years self promoting. I’d like to inform you I had no say in this marketing campaign, but if I did, things would be different since it is obvious that this poster is boring / odd and has zero to do with the movie I performed in.
Here are a few things that truly blow about my upcoming movie poster to promote the release of the film opening on September 19th:
1. Graphics:
Whoever photoshopped our poster must have done so at taser point with
3 minutes to fulfill their hostage takers deranged obligations. They should have called Donnie Hoyle and had him give a tutorial using “You Suck at Photoshop” templates. This is so glossy it makes Entertainment Weekly look wooden.
2. My head:
The left side of my face seems to be melting off of my skull. I guess I am looking directly into the Ark of the Covenant? Are they going for the bells palsy thing here? My left side looks like Britney Spears’ vagina.
3. The Stare.
My character apparently has fallen in love with a strand of Kate Hudsons hair. Kate’s mannequin is desperately in love with the inside of my right ear while Jason is half stunned, half corsage.
4. Lips:
It looks like I’m wearing Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds Liquid Lipstick. My characters name is now Winter Solstice and I’m a hooker with a heart of gold. Jason is my floral carrying pimp, while Kate is my first trick!
5. Fashion:
My character is sporting a very high collar. I mean damn they should be snow capped at that altitude. It’s going for the vampire lurking in the castle basement vibe. An Olympic pole vaulter would have a tough go clearing that collar. I’m also able to turn my head comfortably 360 degrees, because I was raised in an abandoned barn by a family of owls.
6. Flesh:
It’s no secret that I’m more rugged facially due to a drunken visit by the teen acne fairy, but according to this poster I’ve got perfect porcelain flesh. I look like the fuckin’ bathroom floor at Caesars Palace. One of Marie Osmond’s dolls would look at me and say “shit … that guys got flawless skin!”
7. Hair:
It’s actually a close up shot of Tom Sellecks Magnum P.I. mustache they photo-slapped on my noggin’.
8. The set:
Pick one. This entire film takes place:
A. on Gattaca
B. at the Fortress of Solitude
C. inside a crystal wind chime
9. The cast:
Alec Baldwin is so fucking funny in this movie! Is he on the poster? I think so. He plays the wise talking plant Jason is clutching.
10. Final thoughts:
I set out to make a movie like the men and women, that you and I respect, are making. My generation of comedians, actors, directors and producers that I wish to collaborate with as I build a solid body of work.
Granted, one poster stinking up the joint isn’t the end of the world. Yet it sends the wrong message about our movie and I just wanted you to know, that I feel the pain. I really love the film and I know from past missteps marketing wise that the wrong poster sends the wrong audience into the theater.
Thanks again for all of your support. If you have not seen the red band trailer (which is excellent and represents the flick accordingly) watch it below! Just click of the mute button and your rolling!
PS – “Its funny what love can make you do.” I just threw up all over this awful poster.
Wow, wait … it looks better.
Hey … I love my new movie. Jeez … it IS funny what love can make you do.”
The importance of the concept in design
August 15, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
| Print
Filed under Blog, Swipe File
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
Well, this week, a bomb exploded in the form of posters from the Spanish basketball teams. Not one, but both the men and women’s teams.
For the Beijing Olympics, Spain’s Basketball Federation published a “good luck” ad for their basketball teams (the men’s are world champions, no less!) in which the members are making a slit-eyed gestures on a floor picturing a dragon.
Well, this generated a firestorm.
I doubt that their intent was to anger their Olympic hosts, that would be foolish. But seriously, who can think that this was a good idea? And that it would not be taken badly?
As a result, they are being accused of racism.
It does beg the question: should it be considered racism when there is no malice intent behind it? Or are they just ignorant? Personally, I don’t think it’s ever acceptable to joke about, mock, poke fun, or imitate others.
In The Guardian there was an article by Sid Lowe. He is a Madrid-based correspondent for The Guardian’s football weekly podcast — about the photograph. Here’s what he had to say:
Spain’s Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures. The advert for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, occupied a full page in the sports daily Marca, the country’s best-selling newspaper.
The advert features two large photographs, one of the men’s basketball team, above, and one of the women’s team. Both squads pose in full Olympic kit on a basketball court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. Every single player appears pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes. The advert carries the symbol of the sport’s governing body.
No one involved in the advert appears to have considered it inappropriate nor contemplated the manner in which it could be interpreted in China and elsewhere.
Pete Thamel, who reports for The Times, wrote “The typically sedate Chinese crowds vigorously booed the Spanish basketball team at times in Spain’s overtime victory here on Tuesday night. It’s unknown whether it has anything to do with the publication of insensitive pictures in which the Spanish men’s and women’s team appear to be mocking people of Asian descent by pulling back their skin behind their eyes.”
El Mundo, in their post “¿Racismo o guiño cariñoso?” (Racism or affectionate wink?) made an attempt to answer the obvious question: What the heck were they thinking?
The photograph, widely disseminated now by the press, was made during the preparation campaign for the Olympic Games in Beijing. …
Jose Manuel Calderon, an icon of the national team, explains in his blog at elmundo.es that it was a wink of the sponsor, something they thought appropriate and affectionate. He is blunt: “Whoever wants to interpret something different, totally confused.”
“It turns out that in the photo shoot for the submission of our team, one of our sponsors asked us to make, as a ‘wink’ to our participation in Beijing, an expression of Eastern eyes. We felt it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture,” says Calderon. “However, some European media have not looked on it well,” laments the linchpin of the national team.
Calderon denies any racist tinge in the gesture and expressed his “great respect for the East and its people.” The Extremaduran highlighted his great personal relationship with several Chinese friends by his team in the NBA, Toronto Raptors, and recalled that the sports brand Li Ning China outfits the Spanish team as one of its sponsors.
El Pais reported that the Chinese embassy in Spain has pronounced the ad “ni racista ni ofensivo.” (neither racist nor offensive).
U P D A T E :
The Argentine Women soccer team did the same thing!!!
T A K E A W A Y :
- Has it become so “common” to make this gesture that we couldn’t tell that this might be considered offensive to the Chinese?
- It doesn’t matter what your design will look like. If it’s offensive, no one will pay attention to the graphics — but they wll to the content of it.
Think about where your designs will go!
May 9, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
| Print
Filed under Blog, Swipe File
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
WARNING: Parental discretion is advised. Sort of.
Some things just crack me up.
You know how I always emphasize that you should know how and in what context your designs will be used?
Well, you should also take into account how and where it will be printed.
Here’s a ad that appears on a bus. I don’t think I need to really explain why it’s really not all that appropriate do I?
I guess the designers never took into consideration what the bolts on the bus will do to the picture did they?
This is what happens when you don’t go and check out where your design is going.
C O N C L U S I O N :
Whether you are creating a poster, billboard, or an ad for a bus, go check out where it will appear. Check out if there are any marks or imperfections you should know about.
Another classic nipplegate example!
Dove’s “Real Beauty” isn’t so real afterall!
May 9, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
| Print
Filed under Blog, Swipe File
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
This just makes me sad. By now, you’ve probably figured out that I generally don’t believe in much of anything these days that’s in print.
I know, as a graphic designer, that E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G is retouched. However this blew me out of the water. I didn’t even think to question if the new Dove ads that are dubbed “Real Beauty” were in fact “real”.
As usual, it all starts off with a comment (or perhaps a gloat?)
Annie Leibovitz who shot the ads hired Pascal Dangin, a photographers/photo retoucher, is claiming that they were retouched. Pascal who works for Box Studios in New York, told The New Yorker (click here to see article) he worked his magic on the ad photos.
“Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”
Unilever didn’t comment on the statement, but a spokeswoman for the agency who created the ads did:
“We are unsure right now what he did,” the Ogilvy spokeswoman said. “He works with Annie Leibovitz, the photographer. And we don’t have any record of him actually working on any of the Dove campaign.”
“There was no retouching of the women,” she said. “If there was a hair that was up in the air, that might have been the kind of retouching that was done. But until I know what he actually worked on, I can’t comment on it.”
Statement from Dove about The New Yorker Article
9 May 2008, 4:45pm — Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.
The “real women” ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand’s advertising agency, from start to finish and the women’s bodies were not digitally altered.
Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr. Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty. There was an understanding between Dove and Ms. Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched – the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.
“Let’s be perfectly clear – Pascal does all kinds of work – but he is primarily a printer – and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching and there was not,” confirmed Annie Leibovitz, commenting on the ProAgecampaign.
Mr. Dangin responded, “The recent article published by The New Yorker incorrectly implies that I retouched the images in connection with the Dove “real women” ad. I only worked on the Dove ProAge campaign taken by Annie Leibovitz and was directed only to remove dust and do color correction – both the integrity of the photographs and the women’s natural beauty were maintained.”
T A K E A W A Y :
How much Photoshopping is too much? Removing a pimple here or there, smoothing out skin tones, and removing wrinkles that’s acceptable? But more is not? And then how many pimples, wrinkles, and bags under the eyes removal is acceptable?
Do we really need to retouch so much???
What’s “real” and what isn’t anymore? Can we trust anyone, anymore?
As Cindy Crawford said, “Even I don’t look like Cindy Crawford in the morning.”
Absolut Blunder
April 11, 2008 by Maria G. Nozza |
| Print
Filed under Blog, Swipe File
Friday’s Creative Review for Graphic Designers
I LOVE IT!
Well, DUH. That’s all I have to say. Like the ensuing firestorm could not have been predicted!
Have you checked out the latest Absolut ads?
In their infinite wisdom, Absolut Vodka have withdrawn their ads advertising a good chunk of the US (California, Arizona and other states) as being a part of Mexico.
Titled “In an Absolut World” it’s a pre-1848 map where certain states were still a part of Mexico.
Now, where this gets really interesting is that Absolut initially defended the ad. They said it was made “with a Mexican sensibility” and besides, it wouldn’t appear in the US publications but in Mexico only.
Digging their grave even further they issued the following excerpts on their website “In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues […] Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.” the spokeswoman wrote.
C O N C L U S I O N :
It’s a global world, baby. There was NO WAY this would go unnoticed.
Remember designers: It’s a global world and your designs may be seen throughout the world. And thanks to the internet, it may spread like wildfire.
You can’t design thinking you live in a vacuum. Never bank on the fact you think a certain segment of the population won’t see it.
Seriously, who’s bright idea was this? And couldn’t Absolut Vodka predict that this would cause a commotion?
