22. Blocking Your Advertising Images

What exactly is blocking?

     In advertising, blocking is the arrangement of words and images in print or television advertising. In television advertising, it also refers to deciding the direction in which a person or animal will move.

     For example, if you see someone sitting still in the middle of the screen, someone has decided that he should sit in that place in that manner. If he rises from his seat and walks to a certain spot, stops, and turns to look at the camera, every movement he has made is because someone has decided the moves he will make.

     You want to arrange the words and images so that they’ll be most appealing to the reader or viewer.

     Mentally divide the image into six parts, like the image below:

     The image you see here is poorly blocked. As you can see, it’s perfectly balanced, and the viewer can tell that the photographer mentally balanced it as he took the picture. The land runs precisely along the center of the picture. The two skyscrapers are almost equal distances from the center of the photograph.

     Your picture should look balanced, but it should appear naturally balanced. Your photograph shouldn’t draw attention to anything the photographer did.

The Six Elements of Art

     Professional ad men don’t just “eyeball” a picture to decide whether it looks good. They also have certain standards for deciding whether it’s good and how good it is. Their standards include the same standards used by art critics:

1. Color: What colors and color combinations “say” what you want to say about your product?

2. Light: Shades of light and shadow help to set the mood.

3. Form: Do you want your images to look 3-D, like solid images, or should they appear more like line drawings?

4. Perspective: Do you want to create a feeling of distance or depth, or does flatness strike the proper mood?

5. Proportion: The way the size of some things relate to the size of other things in the picture.

6. Motion: Rapid movement creates excitement. No movement can indicate rest.

Color:

     What colors and color combinations “say” what you want to say about your product? The use of green in this image fits the image of a “natural” product. You can see the word natural on the product label. If you could see the above photo in color, you would see that the blue of the water matches the green in the background. It also provides a space for the advertising copy.

Light:

     Shades of light and shadow help to set the mood. In black and white, what mood does this image strike?

Form:

     Do you want your images to look 3-D, like solid images, or should they appear more like line drawings? Notice that the top of the bottle in the picture hides part of the shoreline. The unconscious mind wants to think of the shoreline as one continuous line; but the image of the product breaking up the shoreline suggests that the bottle is a solid object.

     By contrast, take a look at the image below. The form may fit some products, but certainly not a health-food product.

Perspective:

     Do you want to create a feeling of distance or depth, or does flatness strike the proper mood? In most of the advertising images in this lesson, distance and depth are used because they fit the image of health better than a flat line drawing would.

Proportion:

     The way the size of some things relate to the size of other things in the picture. We recall seeing a billboard advertising an insurance company. The billboard covered most of a multi-story building. The building in the picture appeared to be normal sized, but the gorilla in the picture was gigantic. A casual viewer would think that it looked as though the King Kong-sized gorilla were tearing down the multi-story building. This image was intended to suggest the emotional effect of problems that are too much for us to handle. The insurance company is suggesting that they are able to handle it for us. By this means, they are offering us a feeling of security.

Motion:

Rapid movement creates excitement. Lack of movement can indicate rest. In this advertisement, a more peaceful mood is required. Only the gentle movement of the water is seen.

Now it’s your turn!

Decide what kind of images best fit your product. Work on images for your advertising.