Saturday, July 01, 2006

A Bad Cover Design

A magazine like Cosmopolitan or People can imply it's own name. The Saturday Evening Post almost always covered up the bulk of it's Header because it was so obvious - that and Rockwell's paintings were good enough to gain primary position. But Butterick is not well enough known. And some alternatives are more likely to catch the mind's eye.

Then again the type to read this sewing magazine is the type most likely to miss the joke as well.

-image courtesy of the Russian Marketing Blog-

2 comments:

  1. Ha! -- somehow I missed that one. That page reminds me of that white-covered book that's always sitting on my desk in Heavilon: "Homo Zapiens." It's all about a guy who wanted to be a poet, but who decided on the day after Russia "got capitalism" to get into advertising. There are some ridiculous attempts at adapting American slogans so that they make sense in Russia. Like when the hero recognizes that calling Sprite "uncola" in Russia would amount to calling it facist -- since cola was so strongly associated with democratic/reform movements in the 1980s.

    Weird!

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  2. ...or the translation in Chinese (not sure which dialect) of Coca-Cola: bite the wax tadpole.

    From my own experience my favorite two examples come from Brazil. The paper towel brand "Snob" and the delicious fruit drink "Bat Gut."

    And then there is the unexplained failure of the Nova in Mexico. The phrase "no va" would translate to "it doesn't go" so Chevy Nova would translate to "Chevy doesn't go"

    ReplyDelete

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