The original creator aligned the text left and the logo right. Then, they had the two sides align from top to bottom to draw the viewers eye across the ad. This is illustrated with the red lines. The blue arrow shows us how the vehicle itself is directing our eyes to the caption.
Draw-over Analysis: Color
The color scheme here in this ad is very simple. They left a lot of white space to give the eyes place to rest but still kept it interesting. The only color that we really see reoccurring outside of the logo is white. The text and border of he logo is white as well as some of the accents in the background. This helps maintain the simplicity.
Draw-over Analysis: Typeface
This original ad seems to have a sans serif typeface. Perhaps it is Helvetica. The tracking is set to have the letters pretty close together. It appears consistent between the two bodies of text however it is not the same as the text in the logo. Nor is it all caps in the logo like it is in the caption.
New Ad Analysis: Design
In my design I kept the same idea and concept but flipped them. I have the text right aligned and the logo left aligned. I maintained the same idea that the two would be aligned top to bottom. The car is also angled in a way that draws the eye to the side with the caption.
New ad analysis: Color
I kept the same pattern by having the white text match with the logo and to be the main reoccurring color in the ad. There are also white lights and undertones that bring it out just like there was in the original ad made by BMW. I didn’t add any additional colors to the scheme.
New ad analysis: Typeface
I used a similar, Helvetica based, sans serif font for my ad. It is aligned and organized similarly, however, the tracking is a bit different as the letters are spaced further apart in my ad. It is consistent with the original ad as well that it does not match the text in the logo.
Conclusion:
My ad and the original ad could very well be from the same ad campaign. Both of the ads are focused on safety and are following essentially identical patterns, just with different backgrounds and cars. While mine it aligned heavier to the right, it is only mirroring the original ads heavy alignment to the left, therefore it is still consistent and can be from the same ad campaign.
I could not find the designer of the spread, however this was published in TIME magazine. The design was even awarded the “Award of Excellence” for this particular design.The main caption in is Sans Serif while the text and subheading are in Oldstyle. Sans Serif can be detected because there are no serifs on the characters there. Old style is detected in the subtitle and in the body of the text by the thin serifs. The only exception is the “I” that begins the body paragraph. These two typefaces contrast because they do not share the same types of serifs. The contrast is even highlighted by the fact that they use two different typefaces in the opening word of the body paragraph. As I have drawn over you can see that in that bubble the typeface changes back and forth twice to highlight the contrast. The photographer here used two elements of photograph. Both rule of thirds and leading lines were used. You can see the leading line begins as the top of the text draws a straight line to the eyes of the man in the photo. You’ll also find that the subjects eyes are both in the thirds.
Each of these three photos that I took would fit in the same layout. Each one represents the “Out of the Picture” idea as some of them only show partial faces and one cuts out some of the background. They follow the same rules of photography as there are leading lines with the subjects eyes as well as the backgrounds. I also tried to use rule of thirds to get each of the subject in one of the thirds.
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