Analyse the connotations of fonts and colours in relation to the marketing of rival brands of a selected product.

Guidance

For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module, see the general criteria.

What Key Features Do I Look For? Familiarity with relevant texts Evidence - the stronger the better Argument - coherent and balanced Theoretical discussion - relation to relevant theories Understanding of relevant concepts Reflexivity - reflections on methodology Examples - insightfully analysed Style - readability and effective presentation

Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here.

Advice for this particular assignment:

Obviously you need to demonstrate your own understanding of what connotations are. Investigate other people's consciousness of the connotations of each brand's uses of fonts and colours. Demonstrate similarities and differences with illustrations of paired examples. In what ways do they seem to assist in targeting a particular market sector? What other associations do these fonts and colours have for the target consumers? You might try asking people where they have seen similar fonts and colours.

Note also that this is an assignment for which the inclusion of relevant pictorial illustrations is essential. These should be inserted electronically into your Word document rather than cut-and-pasted in. You can scan such illustrations in from print sources, save them from disk-based sources, download them from online sources (such as my Powerpoint slides) or even create them from scratch in a graphics package. Use them to help you to make points more effectively. Label each one, 'Figure 1' etc. and add a caption.

Some suggested reading

• Anon. (nd) 'Content Analysis' [WWW document] URL http://doj.shef.ac.uk/ResearchMethods-Lecture%20Eight.doc [reference to research on gendered fonts]
• Baker, Stephen (1961) Visual Persuasion: The Effect of Pictures on the Subconscious. New York: McGraw-Hill
• Barnard, Malcolm (2005) Graphic Design as Communication. London: Routledge
• Beaumont, Michael (1987) Type & Colour. London: Phaidon
• Bernard, Michael, Melissa Mills, Michelle Peterson, & Kelsey Storrer 'A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which is Best and When?' [WWW document] URL http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/3S/font.htm
• Brumberger, Eva R (2003) 'The Rhetoric of Typography: The Awareness and Impact of Typeface Appropriateness', Technical Communication 50(2) 224-231
• Carter, Rob, Ben Day & Philip Meggs (2002) Typographic Design: Form and Communication (3rd Edn). New York: John Wiley
• Chandler, Daniel (2007) Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge
• Davis, R C & Hansel J Smith (1933) 'Determinants of Feeling Tone in Type Faces', Journal of Applied Psychology 17: 742-764.
• Emmison, Michael & Philip Smith (2002) Researching the Visual: Images, Objects, Contexts and Interactions in Social and Cultural Inquiry (Introducing Qualitative Methods). London: Sage
• Frere-Jones, Tobias (2000) 'Drugstore Travelogue'. In Steven Heller (Ed) Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design. New York: Allworth Press, pp. 40-42
• Hallock, Joe (2003) 'Color Assignment' http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/index.html
• Haskins, J.B. & L. Flynne (1974) 'Effects of headline typeface variation on reader interest', Journalism Quarterly 51(4), 677-682 [gendered fonts]
• Hecker, Sidney & David W. Stewart (Eds) (1988) Nonverbal Communication in Advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D C Heath
• Kress, Gunther & Theo Van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge
• Meggs, Philip (1992) Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley
• Picariello, Martha L, Danna N Greenberg & David R Pillemer (1990) 'Children's Sex-related Stereotyping of Colors', Child Development 61: 1453-1460
• Rowe, Camille L (1982) 'The Connotative Dimensions of Selected Display Typefaces', Information Design Journal 3(1) 30-37
• Schroeder, Jonathan E. (2002) Visual Consumption (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research). London: Routledge
• Sharpe, Deborah T (1975) The Psychology of Color and Design. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams
• Smith, Ken, Sandra Moriarty, Gretchen Barbatsis & Keith Kenney (Eds) (2005) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods and Media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
• Taft, Charles (1997) 'Color Meaning and Context: Comparisons of Semantic Ratings of Colors on Samples and Objects', Color Research and Application 22(1) 40-50
• Vandergrift, Kay E et al. (nd) 'How Does Gender Color our Preferences and Decisions on the WWW?' http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/gender_project/home.htm
• van Leeuwen, Theo (2010) The Language of Colour: An Introduction. London: Routledge
• van Leeuwen, Theo & Carey Jewitt (Eds.) (2001) Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage
• Will-Harris, Daniel (2003) 'EsperoFonto Typeface Selection System' http://www.will-harris.com/esperfonto/index.html