Saturday, 26 November 2011

Facebook and Twitter posters

After looking at some of the posters from both World Wars, I decided to look at some of the existing propaganda style posters for Facebook and Twitter, here are just a few that I have found. 

This poster is promoting Facebook, when you first look at this poster your eyes are instantly drawn to the "like" hand in the centre of the piece which for all Facebook users and for some non-Facebook users a huge give away to what the poster is about. The hand is also a play on the idea of the clenched fist which many propaganda posters featured, especially Russia's cold war posters, the fist symbolised victory which is where the text then makes sense. The large lettering saying "Victory" works very well as it is bold and works with the play off of the victory fist. The font is large and easy to read like many of the original propaganda posters, the same goes for the easy to read font at the bottom of the page. This part plays to the more modern idea of the "like" hand and confirms that the poster is advertising Facebook. The only think I struggle to understand with this poster is why they have decided to put the "like it on" in lower case. From what I have seen in other posters it is rare to find one with lower case letters when using such a punchy quick sentence. Apart from this the poster works well, you can see how they have thought about the layout and symmetry of the piece as the top half is blue with pale writing and the bottom is pale with blue writing, this ties the whole poster up nicely without making the background plain. 

This poster is also for Facebook and you can instantly tell this from the large, bold font saying "Facebook" this is a typical font as we have seen in many other posters and the use of capitals works well as this seems to be the general theme of propaganda posters. Using the words "join the cause" is the sort of phrase that would have been seen on real propaganda posters and this is followed by the phrase "Your friends' farms need you" this is clever as it is referring to a game on Facebook called FarmVille, this game is very well known in the Facebook community, however outside of Facebook it is not something people have heard of. This suggests that this poster has been made to target Facebook users rather than non-users, as you would not understand the reference if you had not already heard of the game. The image works well with the text on the poster as it is showing a farm, but is is also complimenting the idea of a propaganda poster as it has that effect in the sky which is commonly used in Japanese and Anti-Japanese posters. 

This poster is looking at Twitter and is playing hugely on the "someone talked" poster which was warning people that if they talk about war an enemy may be listening and it could cost lives. In the original of this poster is it set out exactly the same with the same image, colours and font choice, the only difference is that instead of "talked" they have used "tweeted". This poster is very clever as, like the FarmVille poster only reached out to the people using Facebook, this poster will only effect the people who have seen the original, as without having seen the original poster and knowing a small amount about its history and meaning, this poster doesn't seem to make a huge amount of sense. However if you know the original this poster is very effective and humorous. This poster on its own would stand out from a wall and make you stop and look at it, many effective posters used in the wars, it has a strong connection to the viewer, using this technique of pointing and eye contact, however in this poster it is not about a confidence boost, it is about guilt. Making you feel like you are responsible for this mans death and stopping you from talking (or tweeting) without thinking.  

Here is another Twitter poster, this poster has a reasonably strong link to the first Facebook poster I wrote about. The font choice is very similar and they have both used "Victory" in large letters at the top of the image. This poster however, carries on the sentence onto the bottom half of the poster, changing the well known phrase "Victory is sweet" to "Victory is tweet" this play on words shows that the poster is about Twitter without having to plaster the logo over the whole image. Both Twitter users and non-Twitter users will understand this poster making it useful to persuade people to join Twitter as well as making sure that the users don't leave. The image in the centre of the poster is of an egal with its wings spread creating a "V" shape, this compliments the use of the word Victory and also symbolises power. The use of this bird is also clever as it is a more agressive play on the Twitter bird and this is backed up as they have changed the egal to a twitter blue. The whole poster has been made in blue to make it eye-catching as well as make people link it to Twitter. This poster works well as it is simple and straight to the point, using easy to read font and clever text.

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