Without Heinz

I love humorous advertisements! Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yum, yum, yum, but not in this advertisement.  Here, the common first meal of the day is shown as bland as ever.  Literally as boring as a piece of cardboard.  It is lacking everything from vibrant color to its customary, lively (and tasty) looking shape. 

Each element in this ad is neutral toned. Ranging from grays to whites to brown, it is, for the lack of a better word, BORING. It is set up in a conventional manner.  Plate, fork, knife; everything is ready for a real meal. The table is just lacking the main attraction- real food. 

Heinz did a great job with this advertisement. Immediately you wonder, "Why is this fake food? Why does everything look so blah? Why does everything look so normal but so not real!?" 

Simple and to the point.  Without Heinz, this is what you are eating.  The text and tiny image of the Heinz product speak.  Everything is center aligned here, but it works.  Your eye is drawn from the table setting downward to the bright red. Though the important elements are tiny, they are immediately understandable.  The usual font used for the Heinz product is introduced, "WITHOUT." And the color! Red always attracts attention and here it is doing no less.  The contrast is used to its full potential... "Go big or go home."

EVERYTHING about this ad is boring to the max, but once the ketchup bottle is shown, energy flies out the roof! Your meal will be amazing! Your food will taste ten.. no, a million times better then a crummy piece of cardboard bacon! (It will actually be edible.) Proximity is playing some key points as well.  Boring, blah colors stick together. Red! exciting tones bring life to a meal.

New and Improved.

Nutru-Grain

That's different, right? It seems that so many products are changing their packaging and labels. Its crazy!

I kind of like this new box.  I feel that it could still use some work, but overall, I think it gives a fresh kick to a semi-bland product.  

As common as it may be, I love when the flavor is advertised via color choices.  Obviously, this flavor is apple.  Here, I just see sour, maybe the lime green hue is doing that to me. 

The composition is okay in my eyes.  I think its hard to use angles but here it is so subtle that it doesn't look bad.  The different shades/boxes of green allow the information to be separated and therefore more easy to read.  The text is simple and easy on the eyes.  Nothing is blaring about this box, except for that sticker.  I don't like it.  I do not think that it "fits" at all It just looks like an afterthought, throw on the front to capture attention. And it does, but I don't even care to read it so its not that useful. 

The images are nice and repetitive.  The bar with green filling... the bright green apple. The dew drops add to the freshness of the product.  There isn't that much contrast, but I don't think that that is hurting the ad.  In conclusion, I want a nutri-grain bar. ASAP.

PEPSI.

I love this advertisement… my eye must be drawn to Pepsi products, though I hate soda.

The large fingers frame the tiny ice cube tray. You immediately wonder, why is this tray so small? Or, why are these fingers so big? Pepsi does a great job showing contrast in size. Like in the Non-Designer’s Design Book, “Go big or go home.” In this case, Pepsi isn’t a wimp. The giant -like fingers crack the tray and let the allow the baby ice cubes a chance to gather the viewer’s attention. But why?

Your eye finally travels to the bottom right corner of the advertisement. Pepsi uses their text-logo to show what product the ad is marketing and then provides a visual image of the new can. The new “mini can,” specifically is written in all lower case letters, to even further the idea of small, compact, miniature.

There is a repetition of fonts- Pepsi uses a specific font whenever they type their product name. They also use a repetition of color. When used over and over again, that common blue becomes associated with the soda. Using it in the background is repetitive and purposeful. All text is also aligned to the right, creating an organized and simple layout.

Newspaper Advertisement

mini-Cans!

...Actual Final Logo

New final logo!

the CAN