When Southern Living subscribers thumb through this issue of their magazine, we

Transcription

1 Cait Buckalew Austin Post Thomas Wegner Rachel Yeates Midterm 2: Pin Point Heritage Museum PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE When Southern Living subscribers thumb through this issue of their magazine, we want them to stop and take a moment to take in all that is going on in our advertisement. The first reaction we want viewers to have of our ad is a feeling of nostalgia and comfort. Whether the person is black, white, Asian, or any other ethnicity, we want the advertisement to take them back to a place in time when family and tradition were the most important things in life. The Pin Point ad is very personal towards the African-American race because people can see themselves in the face of the hard working, rugged man in the bottom left corner of the page. Local people may, or may not have heard of the history of Pin Point, so the picture of the oyster net in the bottom right corner gives a sneak peek into the colored past of this wonderful place. The text experience the legacy that we placed over the Pin Point logo implies that there is something greater that the person viewing Southern Living can become a part of. The colors are warm and inherently southern, a familiar tone for readers of Southern Living. Bottom line is, this ad will effectively draw people in to see the museum because it pulls on the heart strings of all ethnicities that are connected to the desire to be a part of a legacy. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE We had to tread cautiously and consider historical context of Pin Point and African American culture, especially considering the demographic to whom we d like to 1

2 appeal. We did not want to turn readers away by appealing to African American stereotypes. Instead, we pulled from Pin Point s legacy. The video described the people of Pin Point as hard working and rooted in their culture and to their community. Their history is that of Gullah, and specifically Geechee, culture. The Geechee people are descendants of people from West Africa who were forced into slavery, brought to the Americas, and then travelled to the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point; however, as much as he is a part of the promotional video, his picture, unfortunately, wouldn t be well recognized nor would it fit the tone of the ad, and a small mention of this fact at the bottom of the page seemed cheap, so we chose to omit it all together. We hinted at their history of crabbing and oystering with picture of the net in the lower left corner, we acknowledged a cultural history with the mural on the side of the crab picking house turned museum, and through the age of the African American man on the bottom right, showed the generations who have devoted their lives to Pin Point. We did not want to explicitly tell much specific history in the ad, so the viewers would have reason to wonder and go visit Pin Point. We were after conveying the mythic truth of legacy rather than describing it in detail. Our ad has more of a modern style in the square and distinct images. The content of a legacy and history, but the modern techniques make that history alive and accessible to a modern audience. CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE We included that Pin Point is near Savannah, a cultural centerpiece of the South, so as to give our audience a point of reference for location, prompt ideas of visiting 2

3 Savannah and also Pin Point because they re so close, and tie Pin Point to the preconceived notions people have of Savannah, a quintessentially Southern city. The color palette warm, the scenery marshy and coastal and, to the main audience of Southern Living, familiar. These elements combine in a slow and familiar way to evoke associations with a warm and welcoming South. The inclusion of a wiselooking and elderly man is another appeal to that old, traditional, rooted South. That he is African American we hope will catch the eye of those African American readers and make them interested in tracing a collective history in Pin Point. CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE The photographs used in the advertisement for Pin Point were chosen because they clearly denote and connote the aspects of the lifestyle effectively. What s denoted from the ad are the words Experience the Legacy, the official logo of the town, an old house with murals of African-American people, a net, the view of water to show that the location is near water and an older African-American man. We chose these photos to stir the imagination and speculation of the Southern Living readership. As a result they take the denoted items in these pictures and start connoting what they mean about Pin Point. For example, the words Experience the Legacy gives the reader the inclination that Pin Point has historical value and significance and encourages the reader to begin to wonder what legacy is associated with Pin Point. To continue this train of thought, we hope that the picture of the house with the murals of African-American people will be connoted to mean that Pin Point is an African-American community that places an importance on family and unity. The net will hopefully be understood to mean that this community s legacy is associated with some type of fishing. The picture of the waterfront view from Pin Point would 3

4 confirm this assumption made about the community being heavily involved with fishing and then the reader would conclude that it is likely some type of ocean fishing. However, the reader does not know for certain that the community of Pin Point actually fished, which would peak their interest to find out more. Finally, the reader looks at the picture of the older black gentleman and concludes again that this may be an African-American community. They also connect him with the legacy and historical emphasis of Pin Point. Additionally, the ad utilizes the indexical in each photograph. Showing only a portion of the building, the net, and the man makes the reader imagine the rest of the pictures. This unknown in content and in context leads to a desire to know more about each picture and how they pertain to Pin Point. Then the ad uses the code of condensing because we took individual pictures and put them into a collective context and the result is the essence that is Pin Point. The mythic truth that we want the readers to believe is that this is a family oriented, hardworking town that is important to the history of southern Georgia. TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE We kept in mind that the ad we were designing would be in a magazine. We made sure we stayed within the page size constraints we were assigned and used images that could easily translate in print as opposed to images that would better used online. We chose Avenir Heavy because it was the closest typeface we had to Verlag. In the actual ad we would have used Verlag because that s the typeface the Pin Point Heritage Museum uses in their logo and we would want to keep that consistent. The typeface keeps the text simple and allows the message of the words and photos to 4

5 shine through more fully. We also chose to leave EXPERIENCE THE LEGACY unpunctuated to keep the phrase open. If we had added ending punctuation, like a period, it would end too abruptly and wouldn t be as inviting and continuous as the legacy we want people to feel invited to join. Our dominant visual is a picture of a mural depicting an African American community on the exterior wall of the old Varn Oyster Factory. We wanted to be sure to include the building itself, or at least part of it, so our audience gets a taste of what the facility might look like. We chose pictures that had more earth tones to create a sense of unity within the set of photos. They play into a color scheme that most people would associate with the South. They also connote the idea of the Pin Point community making their living off the land. The highlights in the photos help move the viewer s eye across the page, leading across the dominant image, and then down and across the bottom three panels. We also kept most of the images fairly light in tone to keep the ad open and welcoming. The ad is bottom heavy the three bottom panels act as a base. This makes it seem sturdier, much like the people of Pin Point whose legacy we are pitching to bring people into the museum. The color scheme creates unity between the photos. The neutral browns and tans tie the images together and ad a cohesive element. The ad has a slower rhythm which causes the reader to digest the images more slowly and spend some time looking at the ad. Pin Point is a small, slow paced town, so this is also reminiscent of their lifestyle. It also is indicative of the South, romanticized as a much slower paced region of the country. The bottom of the ad is much heavier with three panels as contrasted with the single panel upper half. 5

6 Western readers naturally start at the top left of the page. Our ad then draws their eyes to the mural, a horizontal image. We don t have much of the diagonal element of the Z, but because there are two distinct rows of images, the reader finishes scanning one and will jump to the far left side of the other, like rows of text. The reader then scans the bottom row from left to right, but the man s gaze back to the inside of the ad make the reader return back to the middle of that bottom row where the written information about Pin Point their website and location can be found. ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE We were extremely careful when creating the ad because the history prior to Pin Point s prowess in the oystering and crabbing business is dark. Before the African- American community began their successful business, they were slaves of the plantations in that region. As a result, we avoided using photographs showing the African-American community working, as they could be connoted as slave work. As important as religion is in Pin Point, we did not include image of their church services for fear of promoting stereotypes, as well as questioning the effectiveness of those images within a magazine without overt religious affiliations. With this in mind, we creatively constructed a collage that safely and accurately depicts the culture and atmosphere surrounding Pin Point during the time after slavery. We leaned heavily on the community, family and history in a sense that it is universal, yet we also used photographs that show the differences in this community compared to others in a respectful manner. The advertisement passes the veil of ignorance as it avoids stereotyping, racism, prejudice, etc. However, as a group of white men and women, there may be biases we are not aware of. We tried to eliminate those prejudices of 6

7 which we are aware, and researched to try to eliminate those of which we might not be aware. 7