Cartoons (Before 1950)

Mickey Mouse Piano Solo - The Opry House (1929)

citation: 
The Opry House. Prod. Disney. Perf. Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney Production Studios, 1929. Youtube.com.

This was Disney's fifth Mickey Mouse film. It is notable that this is the first film in which Mickey is wearing gloves. Disney chose to add the gloves so that his hands would be more visible against darker backgrounds or when they crossed across his body. In this short film, both animals and inanimate objects take on human characteristics. The curtain has the word "asbestos" on it which indicates that it is made of that material. Asbestos is fireproof and would prevent the spreading of a fire if one of the lights in a theater happened to cause one.

Research Paper Outline

Assigned topic: DDB's Volkswagen Advertising Campaign of the 1960s

Paper title: Think Small: DDB's Volkswagen and the Evolution of Advertising

Abstract: Doyle Dane Bernbach agency's advertising campaign for Volkswagen automobiles can be described as one of the most innovative of its time. It connected to consumers on an emotional level, conveyed the product's benefits while explicitly identifying (read: poking fun at) its shortcomings, and most importantly relied on refreshing simplicity. The intention of this piece is to compare and contrast other automobile advertisements of the mid-20th century with DDB's Volkswagon campaign, consider the social climate at the time, and examine advertisements thereafter in order to analyze the campaign's influence on the nature of advertising.

Outline:

1. Introduction (Thesis)
2. Body 1: Social Climate: A car designed in Nazi Germany
3. Body 2: The Challenge: Growing families and tiny, ugly cars (Lemon)
4. Body 3: Radical Advertisement: Volkswagen vs Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler
5. Body 4: A deeper look at DDB strategy
6. Body 5: Ugly is only skin-deep: laughing at yourself
7. Body 6: Volkswagen Station wagon: bigger than the biggest, smaller than the smallest (family as target market)
8. Body 7: The Aftermath: Development of advertising thanks to thinking small
9. Conclusion

Information Graphics

WALL STREET JOURNAL
STATSHOT: David Goldenberg
Graphics by Carl De Torres

Saturday/Sunday, March 1-2, 2014

Urban Earnings:

This graph does NOT communicate information effectively. For one, it needs a vertical axis label and more concise information about what the numerals stand for. The "ratio" is not clearly stated, so although we can see that the point from 2012 for Atlanta is close to 20 on the y-axis, it takes some thinking to figure out what that really means.

Sitting Pretty in the Box Office:

The graph above shows the proper proportions for the information provided in this graphic. From this we can concur that the journal's graphic is fairly accurate and communicates the information relatively well. The images of the Disney princesses get progressively bigger according to both their release date and number of domestic box office receipts. It is obvious that more people went to go see Snow White in theaters than Frozen. 

In With the Old:

This graph is also pretty easy to follow. It is explicit that the number of people age 85 and older in the US is drastically increasing by the decade. The men and women color coordination seems almost unnecessary because that information hardly changes over time but it does give the bar graph a pop of color. Also, while the image of the canes is cute and fits the subject matter, it is slightly misleading because it almost makes it seem like there is another gender or demographic being accounted for. At first glance, I was confused as to what the blue represented. 

Graphic Designers: Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd is an American designer and writer in New York City. He is best known for his book cover designs which have established Kidd as a revolutionary in book packaging. He has received the National Design Award for Communications as well as the Use of Photography in  Design Award from the International Center of Photography. Kidd published a graphic novel Batman: Death by Design along with two other novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners. He has been regarded as one of the world's greats in graphic design and packaging. 

Kidd, Chip. True Prep Book Cover. Digital image. ChipKidd.com. Alfred A. Knopf, 8 Sept. 2010. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.

Kidd worked in collaboration with Lisa Birnbach to produce this written parody of modern prepdom. The cover of the book is a reflection of preppy style in the most ridiculous of senses. The striped pattern is obnoxious, while the dogs are a humorous take on an old style of design. The words in the center of the cover serve to list the various topics covered which are inherently poking fun at the preppy lifestyle suggesting things that mark the values of the privileged.

The piece is especially interesting because he worked beyond the cover to design graphics for each of the pages within the book. Below is an example of one of the pages Kidd designed, intended to provide some introspect into the mind of a dog.