Thursday, May 2, 2013

Seamless.com and GrubHub.com



Pr*tty
I’m not necessarily in love with the design of these ads, or the Seamless identity with that awkward .com, but I think the writing is pretty sharp and well-targeted to their audience. I’m certain references to the urban lifestyle, as well as other online experiences, ring true to many people who encounter these ads.

Sh*tty
This competitor’s ad is flawed in so many ways. It’s half a premise: where’s the “There’s an easier way to get lunch” headline payoff? Next, the cut paper “illustration” is too obviously a Photoshop effect. Would it kill them to actually cut paper? Also, I can’t help but think those speech bubbles should be thought bubbles... hard to talk with scuba gear in your mouth, and, well,  fish don’t talk. A minor quibble, but it irks me.

Perhaps what irks me more about the fish talking is what it’s saying: S#!t.

Seriously, what is that? S#!t? Would it have killed them to go with a conventional comic strip convention like a grawlix (i.e. @#$%&!)? No, instead they thinly veil their profanity with two alternate characters that look very much like their alphabetic counterparts, which sucks all the very-little-to-begin-with humor out of imagining just how vulgar this fish is. And sushi, after all, should be more like old-school Eddie Murphy: Raw.

4 comments:

  1. Is that a cut paper illustration or a water illustration? After all, both the person and the fish are swimming.

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    Replies
    1. Not sure I understand your question, but to be more clear, the illustration of the water with the man and fish in it, is meant to look like cut, collaged paper. But it's not actually made of paper.

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    2. Could you show us an example of what you're talking about?
      I'm still not getting it.

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    3. The example is the ad... the illustration of the man in the water with the fish is intended to look like it's made of cut-up pieces of paper, collaged into the illustration you see. But it's not actually paper, it's just photoshopped to look like it was handmade. Check out Ivan Chermayeff's collages to see a similar, but authentic, technique, or the collage artwork of Henri Matisse. Or attend a second grade art class.

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