Advertising with an attitude: an aesthetic, emotional and intellectual experience - on the art Career track - Brief Article

Arts & Activities, Nov, 2001 by Berniece Patterson

Career awareness in the art field is very important in education. To introduce advertising design to my fourth- and fifth-grade students, I showed them examples of advertisements in magazines and pamphlets in which the products for sale had been illustrated with a well-known artwork.

I explained that the targeted audience is considered to be composed of tasteful people who are familiar with fine art and appreciate beauty in "the finer things in life." By placing the product within the work of art, the advertising designer is hoping to create the desire in people to buy the product.

LEARNING ABOUT ADVERTISING DESIGN AND RENOWNED

ART We looked at a magazine ad in which a Jaguar automobile had been placed in the middle of a Rousseau-type jungle painting, and discussed its connection to the jaguars that live in the jungle. Students also responded aesthetically to the beauty of the jungle painting.

We observed a pamphlet in which a radio station had reproduced one end of Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and had placed headphones on the people and the monkey. We discussed how the headphones connected the radio station to the painting and added humor. Students responded to the advertisement emotionally through laughter.

We admired a Cheese Nips advertisement in which Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was holding a box of crackers. The caption stated, "Cheese Nips put a smile on your lips." We discussed the clever combination of a painting of a lady from the 1500s with a modern product, noting that the ad used humor to appeal to our emotions.

Students also discussed a Mercury automobile advertisement that they had seen on TV, which showed a Mercury being driven over the bridge in Edvard Munch's The Scream. Students responded intellectually to the painting because they were familiar with it.

Pretending to be advertising designers for a large company, students were asked to design an ad to promote the sale of a real or imaginary product. The students were required to select a well-known work of art that would connect with their product.

In teaching balance and emphasis, I explained that students did not have to reproduce the whole artwork, but that the blank space could not be larger than the objects they have drawn. I stressed the need to place objects carefully in the work of art, to draw the largest and most important object first, and then incorporate the product being advertised and any details that they wished to include.

I mentioned to students that, in their advertising careers, they were being paid for quality artwork, so it was important to use a ruler when straight lines were needed and to paint carefully.

Students organized their ideas by sketching them in pencil first. Then, they skillfully painted their subject matter on 12" x 18" construction paper. When finished, they shared important facts about the artwork and the artist they had selected.

LIFE SKILLS--PREPARING FOR A CAREER Students did an outstanding job of connecting their products with well-known works of art and producing quality artworks. In many cases, a sense of humor was illustrated. Students were successful in using their imaginations and technical skills to create unique products for purchase, if the viewer responded, aesthetically and emotionally, to the advertising.

Looking through reproductions of art and viewing their classmates' selections helped familiarize students with many well-known artworks. Levels of visual literacy were raised as students learned about famous artists and their work, and successfully communicated sales messages in graphic form.

Students participated in life skills such as decision making, problem solving, and evaluating and producing quality work. They were linked to real-life work experiences and became familiar with a career in art.

Berniece Patterson teaches art at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Denton, Texas.