While seated at the bar of our favorite cidery, my friend noted that one of the posters on the wall near our seats was hard to read. Paula Nicewanger, the Creative Director of this publication, wondered why a designer would craft an information piece that no one could read. Her comment set off a firecracker in my memory. As an erstwhile creative director, I remembered overseeing young designers who were so enamored of their skills that they would pour every trick they knew onto the page. It would be my job as the conductor of the information train to remind the designer that advertising does not work if the customer cannot decipher the message.
When I worked in the advertising department of the Famous-Barr department store in St Louis Missouri, one of my responsibilities was to oversee the creation of print advertising, which included newspaper ads, as well as direct mail catalogs that were sent to charge-card customers. When Macy’s absorbed Associated Dry Goods and assumed control of Famous-Barr, new personnel descended on the St Louis store, and new assignments arose. One of those assignments was the design of billboards. I vaguely remember a traffic study about the amount of time that drivers of cars and their passengers have to read billboards. After the new Senior Vice-President of the advertising department settled in, she gave me the responsibility of overseeing billboard design. Our designs were to be brief, and direct. We would craft a mockup of the billboard – to scale – and she would stand at one end of a long hallway and wait for me to hold up the ad. If she could not read it easily, she would send us back to the drawing board.
In 1986, the advertising department’s crew at L.S. Ayres designed a poster and invitation to a black-tie gala to benefit the “New Indianapolis Zoo.” The Indianapolis Zoological Society was opening a new zoo at White River State Park. The original zoo had opened in 1964 at George Washington State Park, which was east of Keystone Avenue between 30th and 34th streets. I still have the poster, which proclaims, “A New Look For A New Zoo,” and shows a parade of animals, each of which is tricked out in some item of formal attire. The penguin is a natural, in its black and white tuxedo; the zebra is also appropriately striped while the giraffe, elephant and lion have tuxedos and top hats. There is a bear, but oh my: no tiger. The poster is clean and clear and legible, and the formal fundraising affair was successful.
Advertising design can be challenging, but it is important for the designer to remember that the objective is to sell something, and that can’t be accomplished if the potential consumer cannot read and understand the message. Throwing color at the page and mixing typeface fonts may capture someone’s attention, but they will not stay on the page long if they are required to struggle to decipher the message. A murder/mystery show that I’m currently watching is set in New York City during the early 1990s. Many of the street scenes show graffiti-covered walls and embankments. Almost none of it has recognizable text, though. “Taggers,” as graffiti artists are called, expect to be recognized by their individual style. Few of them hope to get the kind of notoriety that Shepard Fairey and Banksy get, though.
As the “Zoobilation 86” poster demonstrated, with vigilant supervision and an understanding of the purpose of the design, the outcome can be positive. And even when the animals are, the designers will not go wild.
cjon3acd@att.net