just bounce it

I love this Nike ad by Neville Brody - especially his use of typography.  After some of my classmates did a presentation on the digital era and Neville Brody specifically, I became interested in his work.  I started searching on the web for examples his designs and this appealed to me. It is obviously an advertisement to sell Nike shoes using a twist on their famous Just Do It campaign. The design is definitely digital in its treatment of the text and artwork.  The word bounce looks like it is bouncing and slam it & smash it are vertical on the page – kind of like visual onomatopoeia.  The text (Helvetica) is overlapped and various type sizes & colors are used to emphasize the words.  For example the text that is on the photo is white & large and it changes abruptly (in the middle of the u) to black at the edge of the photo.  This is in contrast to the backgrounds (black to white and white to black). The entire ad is basically in black and white except the words just zap it (superimposed on the picture), a little portion of the bottom of one of the shoes, and the Nike logo which are in red.  The red balances out the page, accentuates the colored text, and leads the eye to the Nike logo.  The tightly cropped photo of a woman’s face shows passion and the strength.  I love the balance of large & varied text and the powerful, intense photo.  It really works even though the shoes play a surprisingly small role in the advertisement.  This ad is selling shoes but it is also selling an athletic lifestyle – effective as well as artistically edgy.