This is a story of my friend

This is really a cool campaign no matter in the perspective of art direction or the idea it conveys. The idea is that the pill can help you dissove anything you swallow. It conveys the idea by telling us three interesting stories: the small potato swallow the camero, bow and drug and get himself out of the trouble.

The visul is cool, simple and amazing. The idea is very well conveyed that I bet that you will smile or even burst into laugh the first sight to the ad. Another detail that may surprise you is that the bubble of the pill is actually words that construct the taglines. How considerate the designer is. It looks like the moment that pill get into the water and begin to dissolve with a white and clean backgroud.

You may find that using a 3-D illustrate to tell the story is a wise choice, as the photography will make the visul either disgusting or violent. The philosophy behind the art direct I think is the one of the start an embarrassing story with the opening words like that this is a story of my friend. In most cases, actually, the "friend" is the speaker itself.

In all, a great idea needs a proper media to convey it.

humour is a way against the authority

This is definitly a tanlented poster playing with words. This is also something impossible to be seen on the street in the mainland, or even on the Internet. Do you know who the guy is? yes, it is the head of HKSAR, and where did I see it? yes, right on the pole in the street. The words on the botton left corner even encourages anyone who sees the poster to copy and communicate it.

Humour always works in political issues, as it is a way to express ideas without direct conflict with the authority. China is a highly collective country and we are not encouraged to say bad words that bear the risk of harming the stablity of the nation. Peopel who challenge the rules will get into trouble. The situation is much better with the development of the Internet, where people can express their ideas more freely. Therefore, you can always find something very interesting on the Internet. People invent various new words to substitute ones that are not encouraged to discuss and enjoy themselves in such as humorous way and keep updating them when the majority make the sense of them.

I once learned that humour is not as pleasant as it presents. Humour is a bent way to express the idea to avoid the direct conflict. As one is not allowed to say it seriously, then it makes sense that he says it in a humorous way. This kind of humorous is always meaningful and sometimes even with tears behind.

the biggest mistake is that she should not have been in the position

All Chinese people are angry with her, the Empress Cixi, the legendary women in Chinese history, and foreigners just wonder how could this women do those ridiculous things.

I am also angry with her. But what about herself, would she feel sorry or regretful for what she had done. Maybe not. She may insisted that what she had done was for the sake of the fortune of the nation and the loyalty.

She was a traditional Chinese women, deeply cultivated with the Confucious culture, which emphasized on a lot of morals that are totally opposite to ones nowadays. For example, they put family at a especially high status. What is nation? it is just the family of the emperor. As a result, Empress Cixi would do everything, sacrificed everything to keep the family. If the nation is controlled by a man in other family name, then the nation is done, another dynasty begins. Civil are loyal and crazy about the family of the emperor. For them, the emperor is everything. Nothing is more important than the existence of the family of the emperor, which is the deadline of the nation.

However, the late 19th century was quite different. Chinese territory was invaded by the westerners as well as the system of Confucious under threaten by western thoughts. People rethink about the meaning of nation and themselves as individuals. They begin to accept the western, new, modern system. Empress Cixi, still holding the old concept and system, should not possess the leading position as the trend was the change of system. In this condition, all she has done would be against the trend, and would do harm to the nation going to developing with the new system, even though she didn't mean to hurt the nation at all.

Of course, doing the wrong with a good heart is more dangerous and terrible than doing the wrong with an evil heart. Human will stick to what they think is good, and the concept is hard to change. However, what is wrong and what is right? what if the Qing Dynasty has succeed and Chinese nation kept going with the Confucious system at that time, then I supposed Empress Cixi must would be the heroin of the nation. Confucious system and western system, which is superior? It is hard to say, they are just two systems. Even if we now consider western system superior and criticized Confucious one on a lot of perspectives, all the perspectives are based on the modern system.

buy the idea instead of the product

The print ads of Wonderbra always makes me expected. No products appear in the visual but some amusing life scenes caused by the wear of the product. Reading these ads sometimes like solving a puzzle, which is that you has already konwn what it wants to tell, and you explain the ads yourself.

Even though audiences may have been quite familiar with the theme of the ads, they may not get tired of these ads since everytime the execution is different. It is in the same way as the series of successful ads of Abosult Vodka. Some of the ads may even amuse audiences a lot because of unexpectedness and leaves audiences a deep impression and conduct a positive attitude. People who buy the products can not because of believing the exaggrated idea of the ads but loving this method of expression. The ads construct the product's characteristic as amusing and funny, that's what makes audiences fall in love with. Just as that one like another not because what he said but because how he sait it. And it makes sense that if two products have similiar function, people will choose one they emotionally like.

the power of words

People like me who are not interested in economy may have a deep impression with The Economist by its unique and breath taking advertising campaign.

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In an era when visual dominants, The Economist stands out by exploring and taking advantage of the power of the words. Theory goes like this: ous is increasing a visual culture, no one's got time to read anymore. However, The Economist finds an exception which proves that words still have its place especially when the world are filled with visual. Words are the basic elements we use to think. Even when you understand a visual, you will transfer the visul elements to words and analyse. As a result, using pure simple words makes advertising more readable, understandable.

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Reading The Economist advertising is like reading a small joke, amusing audiences as well as giving out the message. In addition, the large white words against the bright red background is eyecatching. It seems that audiences can get the whole sentence at one glance and smile in the next second.

A Spreading Hand

If a gesture has some certain or universal meaning, then the reason for showing in a design must be similar.

These two pictures both impress me with single big spreading hand. In what conditions will we use this gesture? When we have something to say or show, when we want to protest, argue or fight for something connected to us. It is a serious gesture and mostly with political meaning behind.

Paying attention to the detail, we can discover that in the second picture, the fingers are a little bent, which makes that hand has a trend to grab something. It is more aggresive than just spreading hands apart. As a result , I consider the second picture is more likely to contain the meaning of fight.

The abruptive appearence of hand is eyecatching as well as emotional shocking.

words on the skin

I really don't like those behavior art like carving words on the skin. This is the work designed by American designers Jenny Holzer and Tibor Kalman for a German magzine. They mixed blood with printing ink and wrote it onto the skin to enhance the power of the work.

Such behavior will certainly attract attention as well as making people nervous and serious, especially when they are carving instead of wrting words on their skins. The skin is the symbol of life, so using skin as a media of communication is a serious problem, as they are likely to take their own lifes as a risk. People who act in this way must have something really important or vital to say or who must be very characteristic, or at least, desperate for people's attention.

It is an action can arouse audiences' attention, echo as well as sympathy. Seriously, it must be an effective way to communicate. Howerver, to me ,it just makes me feel insane and disgusting just as a blood letter.

how will things going?

This ad campaign of Benz is very creative. The idea that the car can stop in a very limited distance is not new, either the execution of using a crossing street dog. But the use of the big , decreasing number blocks to execute the braking idea is quite original.

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Creative ideas like this will make me excited. Opening an ad archive, there are lots of creative ideas and combinations, but I can never finish reading an archive before I get tired. then how about these audiences buried in ads today.

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Advertising people are pursuing creative ideas. But is that possible that one day audiences will be get tired from those creative ideas? Creative work makes people think before they get the idea, which is also the goal to make audiences more impressive with the product. With the heavy workload, our audiences have already worn out, will they spend effort to understand the meaning behind the creative work? I really don't think so.

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Sometimes I doubt whether right to fill the environment with ideas, making life breathless when people walking on the street may just want to relax themselves.

some opinions

Creative work is always hard to please everyone. Because there is no definite criteria for that. You have to consider a lot when composing a work. You may have tried your best but still can't avoid facing the critics from clients and audiences. I think there is no other jobs desiring for appreciation more than creative people. Here is an advertising work for airline.



Models are decorated as stamps, parcels to show the idea that the airline is very cheap. It is a good idea as well as a good presentation. It's simple and relevant. Since Ogilvy raised the USP( unique Selling point) theory in the last century, those work with plenty of blank and only one idea expressed pervades. However, in my opinoin, to a potential audience of airline, the comfort is as important as cheapness. The metaphor of parcels and stamps ,though conveys the idea of cheap excellently, kills the concept of comfort.





This work for laudry liquid is visual impact and emphasize the
sterlizing function unexpectedly and simply. Though audiences can get the information the first glance, as well as the work is, to some extent, emotional, the tone of the work seems overdone. The potential audiences of the work are housewives, who are not in favor of the violent tone. The scene may cause negative resistence of the audiences at the same time catching their eyes.

will it be possible that we think too much?

As early as in the time of Han Dynasty, trditional chinese culture like poetry, Chinese painting and so on enjoyed a large population. People expressed their ideas by composing a poem or a painting in a both public and secret way.

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When we study these works nowadays, teachers instruct us to explore as many meanings from the elements they used as possible. For example, when they drew bamboo, the meaning expressed is more than just bamboo, but claiming their unwilling to surrender to the authority as well, as bamboo is the symbol of the uprightness. However, I am always wondering that will it be possible that we think too much, maybe the writer didn't mean that but just wanted to draw bamboo simplitly?

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It is true that people communicating with each other by using symbols to stimulate meaning in other's mind. However, the symbols, especially signs has their original meanings themselves, when we read these signs, we should not add too many meanings on it violently. It reminds me of tragedies happened to scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties. In order to enforce their regime, the authorities killed many scholars because of their works, which the authories regarded containing antisociety meanings.

postmodern ads?

What is postmodernism? I have no idea. But I think, the work which you can't get information from or you can't figure out the connection within the elements it uses, can be postmodern work.

The mission of advertisements should be communicating information of the product, however, I find many advertisements quite confusing. I can't figure out what they want to say by adding this elements on the picture or by putting element A and element B together. Maybe I am out dated, which should not have happened. I am young and surrounded with so many information everyday.

So, I put those advertisements into the category of postmodernism, and come up with an explanation, or I should better call it supposal. In the development of advertising, people has tried information appeal and emotion appeal. However, consumers has get used to those appeals and aware of the expectation of those appeals. In other words, those approaches don't work in this days because of consumers' resisitence. As a result, advertisers try something new, something unexpected to catch people's eyes. They may don't have any reason or connection in a work, but presenting a feeling like cool or crasy, instead. What's important in these works is there "look".

Does it mean that in postmodern world, we don't need rationale, reason or direction. Feeling dominates everything, because seriously, I will fall in love with a brand just because the feeling it presents instead of anything else.

shanghai girls, more than a movement of art

Shanghai girls is the art movement that opens the advertising era of China. The basic enforcement of the movement, I think, is the open to the foreign countries, which results in sudden and various goods arriving, which also explains the content and the form of the advertisements.

This printing ad, in the first place, is a formation of new year poster or calendar, which is a tradition in China. The arriving of the plenty of goods take the advantage of this popular posters to sell their products. As a result, we can find the biggest difference of the modern advertisements is that the product shows up as an attachment instead of the figure.

As to the content, it astonishes people both from home country and aboard that some of them so nudity and full of sex overtone, totally different from the tradition of China. I think it is a result of two facts. The first is that with accompany of the foreign goods comes the open thoughts about sex and other things. The other one is that sex is the instinct of human. Chinese people have shut up for thousands of years. When they get oppotunity to open the mouth, things are easy to be overdone. The scenes described in the poster are activities quite popular or modern at that time, like bicyling and the girls showing up are all beatuties with the most modern dress. Judging from that, talking about sex may not a big deal either, or even a modern thing I guess.

What I want to especailly point out is that the social system of China before is quite different with the one we do today and in the future. There is no judge of right or wrong towrds social systems. But it take steps and time to transfer from one to another, during which period things may overdo or get wrong, but it's quite normal. Things always progess in zigzag, isn't it?

An Example of Reification

The Trademark of the Federal Express is a good example of Reification, one of the Gestalt Precepts. By the second look at the trademark, you may notice the arrowhead constructed by the letters "E" and "X" ingeniously, which stands for the high speed of the product.The design successfully took advantege of this precept by changing the letters' sizes properly and impresses people a lot.

A Pleasing Noise

This huge painting advertisement on the street wall caught my attention successfully. What was the white figure on her tongue? A pill ? a gum? or a tongue ring? I walked towards it to reveal the answer. It surprised me greatly by turning out to be a normal white sticker advertising airconditioner repairing, which used to be disgusted by people.

Such paper stickers actually are quite common in cities in China, and are usually accused of destrucing the city's appearence by appearing on the public walls or poles disorderly. I never take a glance at these stickers seriously as most people do. But this time, this small sticker caught my attention by appearing differently, and I suppose many other people were just deceited as I was. Honestly speaking, the sticker made the picture more cute and more attractive.

Actually, the person who pasted the sticker may even not did it on purpose. However, the coincidence reminds me that a little change may have a big effect. Though one can not change the fact of being a noise, he can change the way he appears to make oneself more acceptble, pleasing and effective.

Ambient Ads, Really Cool

Contrasting with traditional Ads like TV comercials, posters, radio and so on, ambient ads take advantage of the environment, perfectly combining content with the media, which always give audience surprise and deep impression.

People get used to the traditional ads channels and can escape from it according to experience easily. For example, when comercials appear on the TV, people go away to do some other things and get back accurately to continue with the TV programme. Ambient ads are kind of unavoidable because you don't know when it will appear. As a result, ambient ads are kind of being received passively and risk being percepted as offensive. Anyway, I am quite fancy about talented ambient ads. However, I can hardly find even one in Hong Kong. I am not sure about the reason, maybe because of the risk or some regulations against the ambient ads which, after all, have to do some change on public facilities.

Ambient PSA(public service advertising) is more acceptible than commercial ambient ads because it's non-commercial attributes but for public interest. On the other perspective, commercial ambient ads are thus more tanlented and creative than the ambient PSA, to make themselves more easily to be accepted.

In the way of conveying the message, ambient ads usually impress audiences by inviting them to experience themselves in various ways, taking advantage of the three-dimension environment.

Here are some examples of tanlented ambient ads I think really cool.




ambient PSA. emotional and impressive by asking you to experince yourselve abruptly.









commercial ambient ads asking for your experience.

copy: at this moment ,your bum is completely exposed. if it were in a sexy pair of jeans, it would attract attention all the time!








another successful commercial ambient ads I think.












There are, of course, other talented ambient ads as well which I can not put all here. Ambient ads is really something magic, but we should be really careful when using it as it is also easy to cause people's offensiveness. Ambient ads should be pleasing, entertaining, without disturbing people's normal life. However, it is hard to define whether you have disturb others or not, it is impossible to please everyone, after all.

The Rich District

Before I came to HongKong, I have heard that Kowloon Tang is a rich distric. However, to tell the truth, I did not notice it the first three weeks. I just find that, compelling to the Mongkok, here is much more quiet, with fewer cars, fewer people, fewer tall buildings. Today, I went out for a walk, and what I saw convinced me that this district is really a rich one.

One of the scenes that convinced me can be seen from the picture I pasted. It is a gate of a house. the golden rice on the gate attracted my attention in the first time. It is really special and beautiful and somehow glorious. We can imagine luxious interior design inside and that when we ring the bell, a servent will come out to open the gate, and some precious dog barking in the garden. The rice not only makes the house much more beautiful and special but also expresses the wish of a good harvest, which in the modern world tranforms to maybe wealth. As a result, I guess the host of the house must be a business man.

Materials always come the first. When we find someone spending money on things relating to spiritual satisfactory, he must be a rich man. Art ,as well as any other form of the beauty, in most cases are just for the rich.

Ideas Here?

The first time that I saw this ad, I totally ignored it. I thought it must be kind of PSA(public service announcements) telling people to save energy after I have noticed the big bulb on it. PSA is always easy to be ignored as the messages they carry are those cliche not new to people. Until one day I waited a bus there did I realise that It actually had nothing to do with public service.

It should be a commercial ad, as we can find the name "JCDecaux Texon" and the contact number on it. The bulb is actually not a usual bulb with something like a bottle in the middle, as well as the slogan"ideas here", but they are too small to be discovered. However, this new discovery makes me more confused about the ad as I can not get the information from it.

I can not agree it as a succesful ad. It is unattractive with its small size and the visual use of the bulb, which I haved mentioned before that is easy to be ignored as a PSA or ads of bulb repairing. In addition, I think it is exposed to the wrong audience. "JCDecaux Texon" is the name of an advertising agency, so the audience should be businessman. However, people who take the bus are mostly housewives, at least not the businessman. The last but not the least, even if I am the target audience, I still can not get the information from the ad. I do not understand the relationship between the bulb and the slogan and it can not move me to call the number attached on it.

Modern Rules

It is a Fire Escape Map posted on the back of the door of my dormitory room. We should be all familiar with it. But seriously, how many of us have read it? Not too many, I guess. We kind of ignore it because firstly, we know what it is, we know roughly what it talks about. In other words, there is no curiosity to drive us to read it. Secondly, it's not that relevant to us. The opportunity for us to encounter a fire accident is really small...wait, it's not actually true. The first night I arrived here, I heard the fire alarm ringing in my hall. I was so surprised but luckily it was just the smoke that caused the trouble.


Well, what I want to say is that such kind of information is important. It tells us how to escape a fire in a simple, straight way. The map was posted on one of the most obvious places to remind us every time we close the door.

We can find many other maps or instructions in especially modern cities. These instructions contain all the rules that people should obey when live or travel in a modern city. The styles of the design are similar, brief, straight, kind of cold and authoritative which is more like a command. It is, of course, consistent with the modernity.