Meadow Hall (website/homepage)
My first impression of the Meadow Hall homepage is “girly,” if you took away the Meadow Hall title I would know this is a website targeting a female audience. I think this for many reasons, the elegant design. All the graphics are easy following. The lady in the middle of the page is drawn in a modern fashion, it is representative to what is known as the “perfect” woman, big eyes, small nose, cute lips, long legs, slim and light hair. All the main design (the lady and the header) is symmetrical, which makes it nice to look at and easy on the eyes. It has a basic easy to use navigation layout with only one menu, which without sounding sexist also tells me it’s a female based site. The designers have been clever with the fonts, they have used a larger fancy font on the headings they want your eyes to be attracted to, however for the information side they have stuck to a much smaller standard “Ariel” font. That tells me they are pulling you in with fun, but they have something serious to say.
The colour scheme is used to the sites advantage. There are very few coloured parts to the site and they are pastel coloured mostly blues and pinks. Although there is one section, which is right in the middle that is yellow. This is under the ladies bags the “what’s on” and “the shops” parts. I guess that these are links, they are basically the only things that Meadow hall want you to click. This is clever designing because your eyes are attracted to the odd colour, it isn’t completely away from the colour scheme, but a big enough change for this to work. There is a lot of white space also know as “negative space,” which I think works in the sites favour. If it had stuff going on in the background it would lose its simplicity.
When we had a group crit somebody mentioned it looks very “sex and the city” (T.V program) and I have to agree, like Meadow Hall are trying to sell you “come on girls have fun and shop.” When looking at it from this view the site looks cheap and tacky. The actual layout isn’t great looks like it could have been made on “word.”
My final thoughts on the Meadow Hall homepage are if I was a male customer not knowing what shops were in Meadow Hall I would be given the wrong impression. It just looks like a clothes shop, where is the technology side…saying that where is the male side.
Absolut (big poster)
When you look at the Aboslut poster you can tell straight away it is for the night life scene, it’s first job is done. The second job is what part of the night life scene is it an advert for? Well, the big bottle definitely tells me its for a drink, second job done. Finally the third job, does it sell Absolut too me? Lets find out.
The design is current with the popular static silhouette imagery, which I have seen a lot of this year. This also confirms it is targeting a young commercial audience. It isn’t singling a target gender more a social culture. The poster isn’t just selling a drink it is selling the versatility of the drink, no matter what lifestyle or where you are Absolut can fit in. The designers do this by splitting the poster into three. Three very different locals, but all look like fun with Absolut. The poster is full of life with no negative spaces, which again says fun to me.
There is very little text on the poster and what is surprising is the word “vodka” is not mentioned. We do have the phrase “find your flavour” I the middle of the page, I would say this is the focal point of the poster. Absolut have been clever with this instead of telling you to buy the product they invite you to find your Absolut. Another reason why I don’t think they mention the word vodka is that Absolut don’t want to be a vodka they want to be Absolut. Somebody said in the crit that when people go into a bar and purchase a vodka drink they will ask for a vodka and coke, Absolut don’t want this they want people to be asking for an Absolut and coke. I agree with this person, Absolut don’t want to advertise vodka because there are many other vodka brands.
Comparing the two together, these are two very different pieces of design, however they do have similar target audiences. The “sex and the city” ladies that shop at Meadow Hall will be the same ladies that Absolut want drinking there drink. The too companies have taken a different approach, Meadow Hall have opted for a gentle touch where as Absolut have gone for the wild side.
From a designers point of view the Absolut poster is a much better piece of art and a better advert. I say this because they have not left anybody out, they have dealt with there target audience well. Meadow Hall has split the gender barrier when they could have quite easily catered for both sex. The Absolut poster had me sold (if I was a vodka drinker), I would like to find my favour, however Meadow Hall makes me think it is going to be filled with lots of annoying high street women.
To sum up my personal analysis would be that Absolut gets ticks in all its boxes where as Meadow Hall have failed to impress me with its sexist tacky style.
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