The study on image advertisement design survey: Taking the medicine advertisement of Rendan on Shun Pao during 1912∼1921 as example

Abstract

People cannot live without medicine. Except for taking medicine when sick, the majority of Chinese people, from ancient times to the present, hold the view that taking medicine could be contributed to become physically strong. Chinese had close relationship with other countries in the early of the Republic of China era when the domestic and foreign medicine advertisement appeared frequently on the newspapers, featured by Rendan medicine advertisement. How was the representation of advertising creativity and design vision for those Rendan advertisements? Was it closely relevant to the life style in the early of the Republic of China era? The objective of this study is to discuss the expression of the characteristic culture elements of Rendan medicine advertisement from the prospective of the advertising creativity, layout design and text planning, as well as the influence and function of the generating visual effect when applied in the advertisement design. 52 pieces of Rendan medicine advertisements in Shun Pao during the period between 1912–1921 are collected and mainly adopted as the samples of the study, which applies content analysis and summarized comparison method for inductive research to analyze the elements and features represented by the advertising creative. Based on multilevel inductive analysis, it is found that the commonly-used subjects and methods can be classified into six categories such as scene, people, things, and so on, of which female images are in the majority. The pattern of advertising creative is shown by three stages as sampling→creation→layout design of image and text to complete the advertisement design. Four features as character representation, scenery representation, representation of both character and scenery, and decorative representation are processed as primary sections and partial replacement and the focus on information of product function and eastern traditional characteristics are highlighted to stand out the inheritance of Chinese culture.