Showing posts with label royal ontario museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label royal ontario museum. Show all posts

13 May 2007

Vox pop

In the past month, I've been reading a lot of Veller's musings regarding the rapid deterioration of the Russian language, so a more-blunt-than-usual sign [this normally includes shining examples of grammatical errors in advertisements by corporate giants such as Adobe or Global!] of the same process in the already-simplified-as-fuck English and in an advertising format earned a deserved smirk.

And a raised eyebrow.

Of course.

Of course!

As I walked past the Royal Ontario Museum last week, I noted a considerably sized poster for the current Ancient Peru Unearthed: Golden Treasures of a Lost Civilization exhibition. Its creators deemed it necessary to promote this renowned institution to the proverbial younger crowd with a single word. Bold, easily legible, light-colored font against a dark background - much larger than the rest of the advertising copy and more noticeable than the faded image of a token Peruvian gold artifact - the poster's typographic hierarchy could've earned a first-year graphic design student a solid A.

Its marketing strategy, however - not so much.

What lone verbal signifier could possibly transfer the exhibition's cultural significance and simultaneously entice those little hungry young brains?

Bling, of course!