Sunday, April 12, 2009

“Build Yours” Harley-Davidson Ad Campaign


I saw this “Build Yours” Harley-Davidson ad campaign and it reminded me of a piece of artwork that I saw at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles by Vik Muniz. The piece that I saw at the Getty was a large scale photograph of his work, “Saturn Devouring One of His Sons After Goya,” 2005. Muniz recreated the painting by Francisco Goya, “Saturn Devouring One of His Sons,” 1819-1823. He used a large warehouse as his palette, items collected from a junkyard as his paint and photographed it when it was completed. If you get a chance to check his work out, do so! It’s amazing because when you look closely at his photograph, you’ll see the old tires, refrigerators, barrels and whatever else you would find in a junkyard.

Now, back to the “Build Yours,” Harley-Davidson ad campaign by Carmichael Lynch. This ad is very interesting because when you first look at the ad, you see the faces. Then when you look closer at the ad, you wonder how they created the faces because it is not a drawing or painting. They utilized parts of a motorcycle to create the faces in their campaigns and integrated a simple phrase, “Build Yours,” with the logo in the lower right-hand corner to enhance the meaning of the photograph. I don’t normally see this type of artistic Harley-Davidson ad because the ads that I have seen, usually had a more rugged type of feeling. I’m guessing they were targeting a much different audience with this campaign. Nowadays you don’t just see older males riding Harley’s but also younger age groups, both males and females.

5 comments:

  1. Wow. You describe it nicely. I was able to picture it in my mind. I wish that I was able to actually see what you were talking about in the photo. I am glad to see the Harley-Davidson campaign is using a more creative approach.

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  2. I was fortunate enough to see Vik Muniz's piece at the Getty and it's even more impressive up close. When I first looked at the Harley Davidson ads I didn't even notice the motorcycles because my eyes were drawn to the faces first. Then when I clicked on the picture to zoom in it was awesome seeing the motorcycle parts making up the images. I love when artists create a design with multiple layers. It makes the viewer feel like they are part of the experience and they can actively participate in the piece.

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  3. Great job with describing the two art pieces. Both are very creative and hard to create. The Harley-Davidson campaign is unique in terms of their ad campaigns. You don't see the typical bike rider, instead it was somewhat of a tribute to another artist and his work. I'm glad you made that connection.

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  4. I am completely impressed by the Harley-Davidson ads. They are really artistic and visually interesting. I like that there are so many levels to the visual experience; at first you see what looks like a drawing of a person but there seems to be something wrong about it that makes you want to look closer. When you look closer you realize that the "drawing" is actually three dimensional. I agree that this campaign is definitely targeting a different audience than the stereotypical Harley-Davidson rider.

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  5. Hi, I just saw the Harley Ads too, and the first thing I thought of was that I LOVE that they commissioned Vik Muniz for the work. I saw Muniz's work here at MoMA NYC back in '07

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