Author: Levi Stum

Ad Campaign Reverse Engineer Post

Original Post

Apple – Original Video Link

This is an advertisement from Apple concerning their main product – the iPhone – and it’s privacy and how that’s one of the priorities and high points of their phone.

C.R.A.P Original Ad

C.R.A.P (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity)

Contrast – the gold/bronze iPhone contrasts with the dark background. Also the white text on the dark background as well.
Repetition – subtle but it’s the repetition of their product/logo.
Alignment – the text centered over the phone in the center.

Color

The color is the same principle as contrast above. The iPhone is a nice smooth color that contrasts the background, in addition to the words contrasting.

Typography

It’s a simple sans-serif font that contrasts the rest of the photo in order to grab your attention.

C.R.A.P. principles on my ad

C.R.A.P (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity)

Contrast – The text at the bottom contrasts against the wood background. But admittedly could’ve done better with contrast.
Repetition – The contrasting white elements and repeating apple products. Specifically the white iPad, white iPhone, white Apple Watch, and white AirPods.
Alignment – The words are aligned with the laptop. Also could’ve done more here.
Proximity – I kept all of the apple products together.

Color

The color is pretty simple. There is a desk of things cluttered around and the outstanding items are the contrasting white apple products.

Typography

Used as similar font as I could as the original ad. Simple sans serif white font that draws your attention.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that the ads are pretty simple and pretty similar.
Simple font. Simple colors. Simple background. I tried to keep them similar without over complicating it.

Type and Photography Reverse Engineering Post

Gale Magazine Spread
https://esthergloria.com/portfolio-item/gale-magazine-spread/

This is a magazine spread for the Gale Magazine Spread. The designer’s name is Esther Gloria and I grabbed this image directly from her online portfolio.

Examples of Script, Oldstyle, and Sans serif fonts

Script, Modern, & Sans Serif types

For better or worse, this magazine spread uses three categories of type that I can see.

  • Script – The name of the magazine is done in a script style and it “appear[s] to have been hand lettered with a calligraphy pen or brush…” (seen at the top left)
  • Modern – The example of modern text is the small (contrasted to the name of the magazine) subtitle. At first I thought it was oldstyle but after further investigation I realized it is a modern font because of it’s vertical stress and “radical thick/thin transition in the strokes”
  • Sans Serif – The rest of the text on this spread is sans serif including the “For the Young & Young at Heart” and everything on the right page.
Examples of contrasting typography

Script vs Modern

This is a cropped picture of the title. This shows the contrast between the script type and the modern script. There are a couple of type contrasts here including (but not limited to):

  • Size
  • Weight
  • Form

They focus on their brand name of “Gale” but of course if you’re looking for the details you can look closer to see that they are a hotel/residency company located at Fort Lauderdale Beach.

Example of the Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds

Now, turning to the photo, it demonstrates the rule of thirds. It’s very simple – the happy couple are obviously the focal point of the picture, the beach/horizon provide leading lines that lead us across the page as well.

Replacement Photos

Me at some fields
My friend Tyler at the dunes
Me on the Oregon Coast

Alright here are three photos that I’ve taken/set up to be taken of me in the past. I tried to find photos that were on beaches or had similar themes but ultimately didn’t have any exact replicas. I felt these three images matched the rule of thirds and I made sure they were the same direction as the original photo to show similarity.

Reverse Engineering Post

First assignment for Comm 130.

In this post I’ll be analyzing a Cafe Rio advertisement. It’s not the highest quality photo because I saw it while I was out on a walk today. I didn’t actually take this photo but I did my best to google search a similar image to the one I saw.

The actual location of this image was on yelp reviews for a Cafe Rio in Florida.

Ad for Cafe Rio's Taco Tuesdays
Cafe Rio Ad

Alright so because of the reading and this class I’ve been thinking about design properties and I spotted this ad while I was walking around doing errands today. (well I didn’t spot this exact one, but an identical one here in Rexburg)

C.R.A.P

Contrast
Repetition
Alignment
Proximity

Let’s look at some examples (for better or for worse) within this ad:

Contrast

Examples of contrast on the Cafe Rio ad.
Contrast

On the right here is an example of Contrast. This was used best of all to emphasize the price of the Tacos. Which are only $1.99

Additionally I feel the red is generally used for contrast as seen on the date at the top (“every Tuesday”).

And finally I feel the taco is a source of contrast because it’s the only real image on the page and it really pops out and grabs your attention by comparison (e.g. contrast).

Repetition

Repetition

As mentioned in the previous section one of the repeating elements throughout this advertisement is the usage of the color red to pop out.

To be more specific though the repeated usage of dividers really helps with proximity (mentioned later) and unifies the ad all together.

And finally, although it’s subtle, the usage of a uniform bulleted list.

Alignment

Examples of alignment on the Cafe Rio ad.
Alignment

Alignment. This ad is pretty simple and straight forward. It’s center/justified text so it spans the whole width and it goes straight down in a straight line.

The bullets, although on the right side of the ad, are aligned to the left.

I’ll admit I feel that alignment is one of the weaker points of this ad. Or at the very least it’s not one of the points that draws in you in as much, as say, contrast does.

Proximity

Proximity

This ad has three basic sections. It’s organized into when it is, price, and flavors.

These are organized in a fairly standard and clear way. Each is a different size and spaced closely together. Additionally each section is separated by clear red dividers.