4.3.1 The strap line

Your brief to is to illustrate photographically three different advertising strap lines of your choice. The images are for use as a double-page spread magazine advertisement and also in a bus shelter campaign. You can use existing slogans but if you do, you should avoid replicating the imagery that currently accompanies them – do something quite different. Alternatively, you could make up your own slogans – or ask someone to make some up for you. Or use a combination of the two. The important thing is to get the imagery and the text to work with each other.

Select an appropriate magazine, research its format and size and mock up all three of the advertisement images complete with strap lines. The bus shelter advertisement will go on the end of the shelter using the Adshel format. (You can Google images of these if you’re not sure what’s required.) For this part of the exercise, you’re obviously not expected to work to full size, but your image must be large enough for your tutor to see how it might work in context.

Make notes in your learning log or blog. For each image you produce, try to identify the signifier, the signified, the punctum and the studium. 

Definitions:

Signifier - any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image.

Signified - the meaning or idea expressed by a sign

courtesy www.slideshare.net

 Punctum - this is the element which stands out within a photograph. It is often a smaller detail that attracts the eye and becomes more important, influential and meaningful to the viewer

Studium - the element that initially gets your attention. It can be colours, a cool background, a pose, really anything