Visual Techniques

 

Instability

Complexity

Fragmentation

Exaggeration

Activeness

 

Balance

Depth

Simplicity

Economy

Juxtaposition

 

These two Nike advertisements use a lot of visual techniques to convey their messages.  The first advertisement uses complexity, exaggeration, and movement to show that the shoes are powerful and cool.  The advertisement uses fragmentation and instability to draw in the viewer.  The second advertisement uses depth along with juxtaposition, simplicity, and balance to draw in the viewer. The advertisement uses economy with the simple text of “FIND YOUR GREATNESS.”  The two advertisements are both done by Nike but both convey a different message.  The first advertisement is more about the shoes, and customizing your shoes on NikeID.  The second advertisement is more about motivating the viewer to go work out, and “Find Your Greatness” and then go and buy Nike shoes.

Contrast

This Nike advertisement uses contrast very successful.  There is contrast with the bright text against the black-and-white background.  The football player’s shoes, socks, and parts of his uniform also contrast well against the background.  The uniform, itself also uses contrast because the bright yellow is placed on a white and grey uniform.  The text and the uniform give a pop-out effect when placed in the black-and-white background.  The background is also out of focus, which is in contrast to the player, who is in focus.  This also makes the player pop out.  This advertisement uses contrast very well.

 

This advertisement uses bad contrast.  The advertisement uses transparent boxes to place the text in because of the brightness of the background.  However the text in the boxes are still hard to read.  The boxes are too transparent.  The boxes are overlapping too many things in the background and the result is difficulty reading the text.  The logo and the text in the bottom white space are also hard to read.  They are not bright enough to highly contrast the white area.  Overall this advertisement does not use contrast very effectively.

Movement/Motion (Option 1)

 http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/nike-women-rock-victorious/

 

Implied motion is being used in this Nike advertisement with Serena Williams.  Serena Williams seems to have just taken a swing with her tennis racket, which is motion in real life.  In this 2D print it is implied motion because we don’t actually see her in motion.  It is implied motion by the position of her racket, her position of her feet, and the particles that follow her racket.  The particles move from Serena’s left side to her right side and follow the direction she would have swung the racket.  The particles in this advertisement do a lot to show implied motion.  Without them we might just think Serena was just standing there.

 http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/nike-sandile-10088705/

   

In this Nike advertisement about skateboarding implied motion is being used.  On the right side of the advertisement it shows a person doing a trick on a skateboard.  But since it is a print ad it has to show us the progression of the trick in 3 still shots.  When the 3 still shots are shown next to each other and overlap the viewer gets to sense that the skateboarder is in motion.  The viewer follows the direction of the skateboarder to get the sense of motion.  There is also some blurring of the person on the skateboard.  The blurring also gives a sense of implied motion because the viewer thinks the person on the skateboard is actually doing a trick and moving.