Art & Copy

ART & COPY

by Doug Pray

Art and Copy means visual and text simultaneously. A good advertising should contain both Art and Copy. In modern world, the use of smart phones and gadgets are becoming more common that it creates many opportunity for many business and company to advertise their products and services.  

Using text as the main elements in the advertisement may achieve great result if proper words or phrases are being used. In order to do that, extensive research needs to be done. Analyze the market, the target audience, whats trendy, etc. There are different types of advertisement, for example political and commercial advertising. They both have different purpose and different target audience which only appeal to a certain group of people. 

In the movie ART & COPY, it tells us about several great artists and writers who works in advertising company about their experiences and their thought about nowadays advertisement. They were discussing about how advertising affects people's daily life or routine. Research said that we as consumer receive at least 5000 advertisement a day. Most of these advertisement are fast paced which last about 5 minutes or less. Such short advertisement must be able to catch the consumer's attention and must be able to engage people so that they will want to find out more about the products or services. For example, stunning and eye-catching visuals, great music, or even great performance involved in the advertisement.

This type of business is often associated with manipulation, as in a way the designer creates some trends that will influence other people to behave or to act in a certain way. 

Branding is a different type of advertising. By creating a brand-name or brand-image, the designer will give identity and idea to consumer and company. Branding can be a powerful weapon to use in advertising, as it's an important point to be able to distinguish between one company and the other if they are to create similar products. 

credits for the picture http://www.marketingdirecto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/art-and-copy.jpg

Photographer: Monte Zucker

Monte Zucker(1930-2007) was a photographer from America and he specialized in wedding and portrait photography. He operated a studio in Silver Spring, Maryland, and later he lived in Florida. He was a famous photographer who has worked in several renowned magazine companies such as Brides Magazine and has a monthly columns in magazines such as Shutterbug. He was nominated as United Nations Photographer of the year 2002. Not only was he a mentor, but he is also an inspiration to many young photographer.

From Monte's works, I can see that he enjoyed capturing people's facial expression and their body language. He put a lot of emphasis on the figure's face by adjusting the light that fell on their face and/or body. He used a simple background for a lot of his photos as such the main focus fell on the subject and also he preferred to work indoor using light that he can control rather than work outdoor with distracting background and uncontrolled lighting. In his picture, the subject would stand out, as there was nothing in the background that would take the viewer's attention. He used window lighting  and portable flash for his photograph and that was a very clever ideas. It allowed him to set-up and shoot anywhere in the room with minimal equipment. That became his photography style. 

 As you see the above pictures of brides, the brides became the center attraction of the picture. He played with ambient light and used it to his advantage combined with controlled lighting  to capture the best moment possible.

Besides taking a full body photo, Monte's also worked with close up portraits. Again, he used simple background as to let the subject stand out and manipulate light to highlight the face. He shot women and men differently, with men as the stronger and more masculine subject, he would strengthen the light that fell on the face to create contrast between the shadows and the highlights. While with women, he would bring the face to attention and usually the light will be pointed directly at their knee, not pointed upward toward their faces. That would give the face a little glow from the light, no shadow would form on their face, thus highlighting the eyes and make them more vibrant and alive. Posing the model to a certain angle will create depth and adds more to the dynamics of the photo.

Credits to Monte Zucker, http://www.montezucker.com