I was lost til LostType

Have you ever experienced something that just completely changed your life? Whether it was a certain song you heard, a piece of art you saw, a certain food you tried....you get the idea. I recently had a discovery that was almost as enlightening as the first time I heard The Shins way back in the day, and I just can't wait to gush about it.
For someone who lives for art and anything visual, I am really terrible with fonts. It's ironic because I'm hoping to be an art director, yet I always feel like my writing is always infinitely better than the font I put it in. I usually just stick with Century Gothic because it's all but identical to my own handwriting, which people tell me is perfection. My days of sticking with the same font over and over came to an end very recently when I discovered a little website known by the name of losttype.com. For starters, they have this snazzy logo that just reels you in. But wait, it gets better! The browse button takes you to a small collection of some of the most amazing fonts I've ever laid eyes on. I've been experimenting a lot lately with typography to try and improve my font expertise, and I would be lying if I said 100% of the fonts I've been working with didn't come from this website. It definitely makes my life slightly easier as an art director because even though I'm still not-so-great with choosing fonts, I know anything I pick from this website is going to have a lot of potential.

Your eyes aren't bigger than your fro-yo

I've been a loyal self-serve frozen yogurt customer ever since the day they started popping up all over Austin, which is why I'm not sure how the revelation I had at Red Mango today only just occurred to me. Am I the only one who is barely noticing how freakishly large these serving bowls are? Incidentally, I want to point out that I realize this might be my first non-advertising or art-related blog, but I'm just so dumbfounded that I can't not write about this right now.
You should probably know that when it comes to things that are blatantly obvious to most people, they usually aren't to me. Anyone who knows me pretty well understands that I tend to be a little slow on the uptake, but even this is crossing a line. I don't think you realize how often I consume frozen yogurt, but just to be clear, it's often. This should give you an idea: yesterday my sister and I were arguing about where to eat dinner, and she shot down my Mandola's suggestion because "we just had Italian last night." I responded by reminding her that we just got fro-yo a couple hours ago, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna wait two weeks before I have it again. In fact, I probably wouldn't wait two days (I didn't, by the way).
If you think about it, it's actually really smart of them to only offer serving size options of huge and huger. It makes people feel like they need to fill up and they end up spending more money. It's a good strategy, and now that I've been exposed to it, I can attest that not only does it work, but it works well. I could consider my fro-yo servings to be closer to the size of a meal than a snack, albeit an unhealthy one once I pile on the chocolate sprinkles and brownie bites. I suppose this is one way that bigger is better.

The Glorious Jack and Brad Combo

I realize how ironic it is for me to keep a blog about advertising and dedicate the first post to an experience that was anything short of spectacular. So here’s a story of one of my favorite advertising experiences for one very obvious reason. I’ll never forget the glorious day that Jack in the Box commercials received my full undivided attention. It was June 20 of this year, and I know this because that day I tweeted, “@BradPaisley’s jack in the box commercial makes me want jack in the box.” For the record, I've never craved Jack in the Box in my life. Ever. However, my cravings for Brad go way back. (If you’ve never heard of him, go listen to the song ‘Water’ WITH the music video. Do it now. You’re welcome). I know celebrity endorsements are nothing new to the world of advertising, but more than the fact that my favorite country artist was actually in it, the commercial was genuinely clever. I've seen Jack-in-the-Box commercials before, and never thought they were bad, but they weren't good enough to have me marching out the door headed straight to eat there (not til June 20 at least). I've always thought the Jack in the Box character had a decent sense of humor, and my obsession with Brad Paisley/ everything he sings, writes, says, or does has taught me that his wit is very similar to mine, so the interaction between the two is brilliant. Their banter reminded me of conversations I have with my own friends. I actually felt like the commercial was made just with me in mind, hoping I’d eat there. If that’s the case, well played, Jack-In-The-Box. Well played indeed.

Bing vs. Dictionary vs. Me

The biggest challenge any advertiser faces is determining how to get a specific group to interact with them.  The catch is that said group often has a mental list of about seventeen things they would rather do than look at an ad. Their reluctance is not lost on the advertisers, who then strategize sneaky ways to make ignoring them impossible. For example, I just tried looking up the word “urethra” on dictionary.com (I’m in a Human Sexuality class, don’t judge me), and instead of a definition, I got a pop-up for Bing. Excuse me while I retract my list of seventeen things that are more preferable to an ad that so rudely interrupted my studying (actually learning what a urethra is tops off my list, followed by sixteen other priorities that are equally pressing). I exited the ad and re-clicked the ‘define’ button, but there it was again, shamelessly splayed across my screen, waiting for me to make my move. This is how I learned Bing is the most persistent search engine I’ve ever had the displeasure of accidentally encountering. I realize now that they were hoping to force me into shifting my search to them by making it impossible to access what I was using before. Clever move, Bing, but even if I wasn’t mad at you for making dictionary.com utterly useless, I still wouldn’t use you. I don’t know what kinds of things pop up when you look up 'urethra' in a search engine, but I do know I had to stop reading my textbook because of the images I uncomfortably stumbled across, and I can infer the Internet is much less modest than the textbook I'm currently afraid to reopen. However, something tells me the typical dictionary.com user is a little more mature than I am and is most likely looking up terms that have little or nothing to do with male and female sex organs. From the perspective of this wiser but less exciting version of me, I can easily see how Bing’s ad placement has the potential to increase awareness about the search engine. On an unrelated note, I still don’t know what a urethra is.