About five minutes ago I got in the door, and heard all about the way the day went with the babysitting here at DK World HQ/Kornerhaus. About ten minutes ago, I was contemplating exactly how I was going to choose the right words to tell you about the movie I just saw, Art & Copy.
SIFF films are hit and miss, and I’m definitely not the best picker of them. So imagine my surprise when I got THE LAST ticket they were selling to walk-ins tonight at Pacific Place. I mean, of all the cinemas to be busy with art films, I never thought Pacific Place would have a line for a graphic designer geek film.
Anyway.
This is a good movie.
First off, there’s actually a story. Which is hard to pull off for a documentary, once I started thinking about it. It’s a little forced, sure, but we follow this average guy’s life as he goes around putting up the signs for billboards and then we get to know the ad people who created the… yeah! Art and copy.
Besides the one slightly irritating fact that they only covered the BIG campaigns we remember (the Budweiser “frog,” the Got Milk stuff, “Where’s the Beef” if you’re old enough to remember that one, and of course, Macintosh campaigns and the Nike ads for Just Do It.”) Did you know this last one was inspired by a condemned man who said, right before they offed him, “Let’s do it!”? Imagine that. Imagine that this executionary last stand would inspire lots of people actually acting on stuff they’ve been sitting on for months, even years. People wrote letters to the ad guys saying, “Thanks, I finally left the bum!,” or, I saved that and gave it to my daughter. Yes, they made lots of money for Nike through a campaign of ads. But those ads connected with people. They locked into people’s emotions. That did it.
I wish they’d interviewed us over here at DK to ask us about our big design ideas and projects, too. Heh. But you know, it’s interesting, because often we get people saying examples of logos and brands they like are, guess what? Nike. Apple.
What these folks don’t realize is that what they like about them is everything the brand image represents and has come to be associated with the iconography. It’s not the logo design itself that appeals: it’s the message that it sends that connects to our hearts. Yeah, I can revolutionize the world with my Macintosh. I can get up and go. Phew, this is bigtime stuff, and I should probably sit down and process it all a bit longer, but I wanted to say, that with that all aside, this is a fun movie and worth the $11 it costs to get in. I love the framing for the shots, very composed, very thorough, and very structural.
But most importantly, this is a good movie for all of us in design to see for inspiration. It’s a reminder that truly great work comes when clients trust you, and let you take risks, and go with it when an idea is really so “out there” it’s just to hard NOT to do it.
If you saw/see it, tell us what you think!
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