Week 7 | Picini

The first example of use of color I chose a Rice Krispies commercial. Rice Krispies commercials are known for desaturating their commercials so that everything is in greyscale and the only color is in their product. I chose this particular commercial just because it's so sweet. The use of partial color is incredibly effective because it brings out the product. Our eyes are automatically drawn to color compared to the black and white. At least for me, when I watch a black and white commercial I immediately start looking for deep meaning or color, because color is more cheerful. Rice Krispies' blue wrapping is a cool color, which is the color of "calmness and serenity" as well as "dependable and committed". The calmness is portrayed through the sweet actions of the little girl in the video and the the lighter/brighter shade of blue adds youthfulness to the product. Rice Krispies also uses the ideas of a mother knowing best in their commercials, so the blue showing represents the dependability of a mother always knowing.

The use of partial color reminds me of reading Garfield in the comic section of the weekend newspapers. I remember one particular comic that was in black and white and gloomy because Garfield thought it was Monday, but then he saw the paper and realized it was Sunday. Immediately everything burst into color. I think I read that comic when I was 7 or 8, so clearly it really stuck with me.

My example of bold color is the Jet iPod commercial. iTunes is known for their silhouette advertisements, which I think are absolutely brilliant. They use bright, neon colors as simple but bold backgrounds to offset back silhouettes of dancing people with white headphones and ipods. The white looks extra bright against the black and always stands out against the colored backgrounds, bringing an excellent focus to the product while having the epic visual of the dancing silhouettes. This technique has become so big that I even saw a website once where you can pay to send in a picture of yourself and have your own ipod silhouette made. The iTunes commercials also have excellent song choices, props to them.