Revision of Ad Project

Find a newspaper or magazine advertisement that you think would benefit from redesigning. As a way of beginning to learn some of our software, try to create this redesign in PageMaker, using a scanner and Photoshop to capture and manipulate images from the original.

While staying within the parameters (size, medium, costs) of the original, your redesign should improve the ad not only visually, but rhetorically in how it implies images of its audience (pathos) and the advertiser (ethos). Start by looking at Williams' description of "The Process" on page 176.

Avoid choosing ads that you think are already effective and attractive. Also avoid ads that are slick, spare and minimalist in style; it's almost always the case that the more elements you add to such a piece, the more cluttered and heavy-handed it appears in comparison to the original.

The Creative Challenges:

• Robin Williams' PARC: applying Williams' principles of Proximity, Alignment, Repetiton and Contrast to improve the visual of the ad;
• typography: using what you've learned about type styles; concordant and contrasting relationships, etc. to improve both the readability and the style of the ad;
• landing place: finding, or improving, a focal point for the ad which provides a starting point for the reader's/viewer's eye, heightens the sense of flow through the composition, and sets the visual and rhetorical tone for the ad;

Annotated Printout and Copy of Original

Hand in a copy of the original ad, marked "original," and a printout of your revision with handwritten annotations on it. Please see the requirements for handing in an annotated printout of assignments on the syllabus.