Commercial art

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Andy Warhol, Commercial artist, 1975 Andy Warhol 1975.jpg
Andy Warhol, Commercial artist, 1975

Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promoting the sale and interest of products, services, and ideas. [1] It relies on the iconic image (pictorial representations that are recognized easily to members of a culture) to enhance recall and favorable recognition for a product or service. [2] An example of a product could be a magazine ad promoting a new soda through complementary colors, a catchy message, and appealing illustrative features. [3] Another example could be promoting the prevention of global warming by encouraging people to walk or ride a bike instead of driving in an eye catching poster. It communicates something specific to an audience.

Contents

People can obtain training, certifications, and degrees that incorporate commercial arts in many exercises, activities, and programs.

History

Commercial art emerged during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Rapid technological improvements brought about a boom in mass production, and design for the purpose of advertising and selling this mass amount of product became a thriving industry. Designers created with the intention of capturing consumers' attention, and achieved this through large letters and a variety in fonts all printed in highly contrasting colors. [4]

As technologies continued to advance, chromolithography became a useful tool for designers creating commercial art. Advertisements transformed from text-only designs to highly detailed, colorful illustrations. These illustrative advertisements were popular among travelling circuses, carnivals, and theatrical shows. The addition of color also revolutionized branding and labels and attention-grabbing packaging became a large sector of commercial art. [4]

Skills

Commercial artists have the ability to organize information and knowledge of fine arts, visualization and media in a way to reach an audience's attention. Some of these skills may include the following: [1] [3]

Genres

Commercial art can include many genres of art and categories of art technique, including: [5]

Andy Warhol, Campbell Soup TAG Andy Warhol Soup Can 01.jpg
Andy Warhol, Campbell Soup

Consumerism within commercial art

Commercial art is art that is created for commercial purposes to promote services or products to viewers. [1] In the process of creating commercial art, an audience is taken into consideration when designing and/or forming the goods that are being advertised/promoted. An example of this can be seen in the recognized works of American painter and consumer ad designer, Andy Warhol. [6] Using Campbell's soup and Coca-Cola bottles as everyday products of consumers, he recreated a visually stimulating design through pop art that advertises the products through consumption habits of consumers. [6] Consumerism was present when pop art was popular. Pop art could contain mass cultural objects and/or celebrities (popular culture and mass media) to endorse markets and goods. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising</span> Form of communication for marketing

Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphic design</span> Interdisciplinary branch of design and of the fine arts

Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of design and of the fine arts. Its practice involves creativity, innovation and lateral thinking using manual or digital tools, where it is usual to use text and graphics to communicate visually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logo</span> Graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition

A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or to include the text of the name that it represents as in a wordmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial design</span> Process of design

Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufacture or production of the product. Industrial manufacture consists of pre-determined, standardized and repeated, often automated, acts of replication, while craft-based design is a process or approach in which the form of the product is determined personally by the product's creator largely concurrent with the act of its production.

Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphic arts</span> Art genre

A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface. The term usually refers to the arts that rely more on line, color or tone, especially drawing and the various forms of engraving; it is sometimes understood to refer specifically to printmaking processes, such as line engraving, aquatint, drypoint, etching, mezzotint, monotype, lithography, and screen printing. Graphic art mostly includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery. It also encompasses drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs.

Marketing communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to its desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization. Marketing communication tools include advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorship, communication, public relations, social media, customer journey and promotion.

Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is concerned with developing the message and aesthetics in media. It also creates new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Due to overlapping skills, some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably.

A creative director is a person who makes high-level creative decisions; oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos ; and directs & translates the creative peoples who produce the end results. Creative director positions are often found within the television production, graphic design, film, music, video game, fashion, advertising, media, or entertainment industries, but may be found in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising management</span> Part of the advertising industry

Advertising management is how a company carefully plans and controls its advertising to reach its ideal customers and convince them to buy.

In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, persuasively. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.

Shock value is the potential of an image, text, action, or other form of communication, such as a public execution, to provoke a reaction of sharp disgust, shock, anger, fear, or similar negative emotions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion graphic design</span> Subset of graphic design

Motion graphic design, also known as motion design, is a subset of graphic design which combines design with animation and/or filmmaking, video production, and filmic techniques. Examples include kinetic typography and graphics used in film and television opening sequences, and station identification logos of some television channels.

Music in advertising refers to music integrated into mass electronic media advertisements to enhance its success. Music in advertising affects the way viewers perceive the brand by different means and on different levels, and "can significantly affect the emotional response to television commercials." It also affects the musicians whose music is featured in advertisements.

The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual merchandising</span> Marketing technique emphasizing 3D model displays

Visual merchandising is the practice in the retail industry of optimizing the presentation of products and services to better highlight their features and benefits. The purpose of such visual merchandising is to attract, engage, and motivate the customer towards making a purchase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poster</span> Type of graphic advertisement

A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be used for many purposes. They are a frequent tool of advertisers, propagandists, protestors, and other groups trying to communicate a message. Posters are also used for reproductions of artwork, particularly famous works, and are generally low-cost compared to the original artwork. The modern poster, as we know it, however, dates back to the 1840s and 1850s when the printing industry perfected colour lithography and made mass production possible.

Advertising is a form of selling a product to a certain audience in which communication is intended to persuade an audience to purchase products, ideals or services regardless of whether they want or need them. While advertising can be seen as a way to inform the audience about a certain product or idea it also comes with a cost because the sellers have to find a way to show the seller interest in their product. It is not without social costs. Unsolicited commercial email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent that they are a major nuisance to internet users, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising increasingly invades public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation. Advertising frequently uses psychological pressure on the intended consumer, which may be harmful. As a result of these criticisms, the advertising industry has seen low approval rates in surveys and negative cultural portrayals.

<i>Marilyn Monroe portfolio</i> 1967 print by Andy Warhol

The Marilyn Monroe portfolio is a portfolio or series of ten 36×36 inch silkscreened prints on paper by the pop artist Andy Warhol, first made in 1967, all showing the same image of the 1950s film star Marilyn Monroe but all in different, mostly very bright, colors. They were made five years after her death in 1962. The original image was taken by Warhol from a promotional still by Gene Kornman for Monroe's film Niagara (1953).

Emmett R. McBain Jr. was an African-American graphic designer and art director.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "What is Commercial Art?" . Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  2. Woodward, Gary C.; Denton, Robert E. Jr (2014). Persuasion and influence in American life (7th ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press. ISBN   9781478607892. OCLC   879527515.
  3. 1 2 "Commercial Artist: Job Description & Career Information". Study.com. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
  4. 1 2 Meggs, Philip B.; Purvis, Alston W. (2012). "Chapter 9: Graphic Design and the Industrial Revolution". Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
  5. "11 Types Of Commercial Art". Simplicable. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  6. 1 2 "Andy Warhol Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works". The Art Story. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  7. "Pop Art Movement, Artists and Major Works". The Art Story. Retrieved 2018-04-28.