Photo Chop Shop

There are a lot of examples of bad Photoshop work around, in fact there are sites dedicated to it. Normally it doesn't bother me but the other day I was browsing through the Oceanico Signature magazine and was appalled by the obvious cut-outs of their star players and unit owners placed in front of sundry landscapes. With different colour temperatures and opposing lighting angles, these stars had obviously not been present when the landscape was photographed.

Then I came across this, on a bus stop. I think Keira Knightley has done herself no favours with this image. She was great as a skinny, flat-chested tomboy in her many film roles. As a girl, it just doesn't work, and the photoshop guys have done her no favours.

But I'm rarely a fan of advertising...

Mythical beast from Funchal

BANIF's new image has me rather baffled, I'm afraid, not helped by the coincidence of the teaser campaign, that had the Centaur image but no name, with RTP's screening of the Chronicles of Narnia, featuring large numbers of centaurs, fauns and other mythical animals.

So having established that the stylised centaur logo represents the Banco Internacional de Funchal, I still don't understand. Could it be that the Mad Hatter who runs the archipelago has decreed that centaurs do, in fact, exist, and thus needed one of his key local businesses to support him? Does anybody have a better idea?

Publicidade Parva

What on earth do MediaMarkt think they are doing, using an actor dressed in full Scout uniform to portray the fool (parvo) in their recent advertising campaign? The Scouts simply cannot be depicted like this. It's a scandal!

Of course there are two guilty parties here, the company and the idiots from their advertising agency. Unfortunately, the scouts are too restrained to react. On the other hand, it would be easy for irate parents to block access to the stores. Hope they do!

Shoot the Publicist

The December issue of the SAP magazine had a full page advert from Hyfas (see the panel at the bottom of their homepage). What conclusions can we draw from that advert?

1. They do not speak English - "Be right!". This may be a problem when implementing SAP.
2. They don't know how to shoot an arrow, nor even how to hold a bow! What exactly are they expecting us to consult them about and how far will they take it?

The site is equally awful, with trite pseudo-English sound-bites in abundance. I hope their consultants are better than their publicists.