Week 5 | PICINI

This is a poster for the annual Special Olympics Nebraska. Lincoln-based agency Bailey Lauerman created this design to mark the event and spread the word. I think this ad shows several signs of The Gestalt Theory. The initial thing I noticed is the Rule of Closure. The Rule of Closure deals with items grouped together to create a complete entity. In this case, the P representing the Polar Plunge is merged with a snowflake to signify the cold that characterizes the event. The Rule of Simplicity is also applied because the top half of this ad is a simple blue background with the white symbol and two words, and the bottom half is a photograph of a glacier. There is very little going on in the ad which draws more attention to its meaning.

Although blue is a cool color and thus generally draws less attention than a warm color like red would, the contrast of the white on the blue is very striking. I also really like that color blue of the top background matches one of the middle blues in the photograph below it. I think this a striking and effective campaign of the Polar Plunge.