René Magritte as an Inspiration for Modern Advertising Design

Abstract

The advertisers would seek to create unique, unexpected, and dreamlike images for use in promotions because advertisers often try to gain consumers' attention, to fuel their fantasies and to induce them to view a product in a new light. As a result, surrealistic ads have been used to promote a variety of products. One of the artists who have the most influence on advertisers and publicity is Rene Magritte. Parodying the works of famed artist like Rene Magritte not only catches the consumer’s attention but also, it shows the advertisement from a novel perspective. Advertisers involved in designing persuasive communications have long been interested in creative ways of capturing audience attention and the use of incongruity is one effective way to do so. The surrealist advertisement is constructing the association between the images of the “unrealistic” artwork and the unbelievably good performance of the products or services as the works of surrealist painters are usually considered as a symbol of “unrealistic, absurd, surreal” concepts. In 1986 an article was published in the Journal of Advertising that sought to determine how and why Surrealism was effective in advertisements, this article stated that social adaptation theory predicts that employing surrealistic techniques in advertising design should draw attention because the information will be perceived as unexpected, novel and out-of-context. The main objective of this paper is to describe the influence of Rene Magritte’s artworks techniques as on modern advertising design, through analyzing some modern advertising designs that got inspired by Rene Magritte’s techniques. Also, this paper shows and analyzes the advertising designs of the well-known surrealist artist Rene Magritte. The importance of this paper is to explore Rene Magritte’s approach in advertising designs and to discuss the key influences and motives that were the foundation for Rene Magritte’s surrealist conception in ads designs. Also, to explore why Rene Magritte’s artworks techniques are a great inspiration for modern advertising designs. The problem of this paper can be formulated as the following: How does Surrealism art conception affect in a modern advertising design?, What was Rene Magritte’s approach in advertising designs?, What is the dissociation of image and text in Rene Magritte artworks?, What are the influences of Rene Magritte’s artworks techniques as on modern advertising design?, How do Rene Magritte artwork techniques inspire modern advertising designers?. The hypotheses of the paper: Firstly, as an effective way to highlight the product’s strength and strongly catch the audiences' attention to the advertising, designers use the concepts and techniques of surrealism such as surprise, unexpected juxtapositions, and non sequitur. Secondly, the modern advertising can explore new heights by parodying the artworks of surrealist famous artists such as Rene Magritte. Finally, the dissociation technique between image and text in Rene Magritte paintings is effective for advertising design, where incongruity is often used as a creative strategy. This paper follows the descriptive method to describe Rene Magritte’s surrealist approach in advertising designs throughout the study of his artwork techniques and surrealist conceptions. This paper also uses the analytical method to analyze Rene Magritte’s advertising designs, also to analyze chosen examples modern advertisings designs that use Rene Magritte techniques as an inspiration.