Assignment #2

For your second assignment, due by the end of Sunday night, please collect five advertisements and/or pieces of visual rhetoric (corporate windmills could be an example of this) and write a short blurb as to why you picked this series of cultural artifacts and what themes you think they embody. 

This will be the beginning of a series of assignments that will end in your analytical paper, so be careful with what you pick, since you'll be stuck with them for the next blog post and the paper.

The idea here is to find a series ads/cultural texts that share something in common--a theme, a brand, visual composition, or a social issue, etc. You want stuff that you can later analyze in depth.

Requirements
- Make sure your choice is thoughtful, and that the relationships between the pieces offer us the possibility of a multilayered analysis.
- Please have *at most* one overlap with another student. This means you should check the blog before you post.
- Please post your pieces on the blog. This is a key requirement. We want everyone to be able to see your choices and to work with them. A few tips as to how to embed content onto your postings:

A. For picture files that you find, it is as easy as dragging the picture into your posting window. You could alternatively click on the icon that looks like an image and you can either upload or link to a URL.

B. On many streaming video websites, aka youtube etc., there will be the option to embed the content somewhere else. It's very simple. There will be a link that says something like: "embed video" or "get video embed code." Copy and paste that code into your posting window and you have it. Web 2.0 is made for things like this.


For more information, see the following link http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80259



Below are a few sources that archive advertisements, which you may be interested in:

The CLIO Awards -- this includes an archive of recent (2010-2009) winners of the Clio design and ad awards. 
http://www.clioawards.com 
Note: As far as embedding a clip from this website goes, I found that if you drag the image/link for the video you want into a different tab of your browser, it'll ask you if you want to download the video. You can then upload it. Feel free to contact me if this doesn't work.

The Walter Library also has DVDs of previous CLIO collections. You'll need to use handbrake or another software to clip the DVD however.




Ad*Access @ The Duke Scriptorium -- Old print advertisements, mostly 1930s, 40s, and 50s. But very interesting if you want to talk about the changes in advertising/corporate image since the depression days.
 http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess/

Adbusters - the source of the windmills, they work on "counter-advertising" which attempts to jam the way that corporations work on us.They do, however, sell a "black-spot sneaker." 
www.adbusters.org

There are, of course, many many more places to find interesting material. I trust you to be able to navigate the world wide web...