A high school economics teacher in Idaho, to save money for his school, has been using donated paper with advertising from a local pizza shop.
It is widely reported that the average American consumer is already bombarded with upwards of 3,000 advertising messages a day. These kids can now add every page of every test, quiz, handout, and worksheet to that list.
It is a great lesson in economics and marketing but does it cross the line?
Have you stood in the produce section at your local grocery store pondering organic carrots versus non-organic carrots? Did you find yourself wondering if they’re worth the extra cost? Will they taste better? Are they healthier? Well, this video does not hold the definitive answer, but worth viewing anyway. Just don’t expect a surprise ending.
A fellow designer and I were admiring the very simple design of the Alma Negra wine label at a recent dinner party. The front of the label is all black on a dark bottle with just the barest hint of a traditional white theater mask:
However, when we turned over the bottle to read more, we realized that the back blurb could use some editing!
It says:
There has always been a mistery behind a mask. The seductive game of discovering who is behind the mask is a tradition still celebrated today at parties and rituals. To keep those celebration alive, we pay homepage to them with this great wine. Within this deep black soul you’ll find the secret essence of this wine, only to be revelated in the last glass.
It is an Argentinian wine… possibly the problem stems from English as a second language? “Mistery” would have been caught by a spell check, but “homepage” and “celebration” would have slipped through. When it comes to editing, nothing compares to good old-fashioned re-reading! A second set of eyes or the old-school trick of reading it out loud might have helped.
(My favorite phrase has to be “we pay homepage.”)