Filled Under: Images
Photos
Photos are essential to the transference of specific information. Regardless of what medium this is through, magazine, television, internet, whatever, images make up a large and necessary part of the information that is taken in by the human mind daily. Because of this, sites that are dedicated to the hosting of images have become increasingly popular.
Photos as a commodity
Realizing the importance of photos after the blogging boom took hold; sites like Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, etc. have made a fortune on simply providing a place to store photos online. In this modern culture, people see themselves as more important than they are, and crave attention. With sites like these, photos of these people can be uploaded to them, thereby providing a platform for users to indulge themselves. They are useful for personal purposes and also for businesses.
In many cases corporations will keep private accounts at these sites in order to host their advertisements for the web or for paper purposes and sometimes, using the video function, even commercials. Photos have always been a major part of the human experience since the discovery of the camera. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that’s true, then people have been writing essay after essay all over the pages of Flickr desperately trying to help their blog break big, or to share their latest photos with their family members. This is an increasing trend in the internet age, and one that is not going to go away soon. As long as photos exist, these websites will continue to cash in on the people who host their photos.
Paintings
Paintings are pictures created on canvas or paper or some drawing medium that involve paint coated brush strokes applied to the surface of the picture. Paintings have been a popular art form for quite some time, and were even more popular in medieval times, up until the mid 1900’s because of the relative unavailability of other distractions like television.
The painting: A dying medium
Paintings are a dying medium, at least in the way they are being enjoyed now. When the word painting comes up, usually the first thing that comes to mind is a gallery where people would walk around enjoying paintings on all four walls, viewing each one for a few minutes before moving on. The amount of art is increasing to epic proportions lately, with the invention of art school and art degrees, and ironically it is because of this that so little amazing art is actually showcased in this way anymore. Because there are so many paintings out there, it is so hard to weed out the good ones from the bad.
New names in art are appearing every day and it is becoming hard for the museums to cope with all of the changes. Also a museum will usually only showcase a work if it is reasonably famous, however the question then becomes, how does one become famous in the art world if they refuse to showcase them based on them not being famous enough? It’s though work out there for a painter. And because art has proliferated so much since the early 1900’s it is nearly impossible to sort out what should be showcased with all of the great already established names. Until someone breaks through the mold, art museums will still continue to showcase what some may refer to as the same old, same old.
Graphics
Graphics can mean anything from a photograph to a picture, to a gif animation, and anything and everything in between. They are useful in a variety of situations for humorous or serious effects and are integral to advertisement on television and in magazines but especially on the internet.
Graphics and the Internet
Graphics are an integral part of the advertising ruled internet. Advertising on the internet is hard work precisely because of how much control the viewer of the advertisement and the basic psychology of the medium. With an advertising medium such as television, when a commercial comes on, the viewer has the option to change the channel, but usually will not because, especially if a very intense show is on, they don’t want to risk missing a second of the action that would be happening on screen when the show returns. When advertising in magazines, it is best to focus on color, because it will grab a person’s eye, they will not turn the page until the page they are reading is finished because it would not make any sense to do so, giving them multiple opportunities to view the graphic.
However graphics on the internet need to be flashy and need to move fast, they need to be catchy, interesting, and intelligent all at once, or they will lose their audience in one click. On the internet, people have the capability of having multiple tabs open and multiple windows as well, giving them ample ways to escape from advertisements, especially video based ones. Therefore a successful advertising graphic has to be something so good and sell a product so enticing that the person won’t even want to look away. That is what a good advertising graphic does.