Significant Ads: Cracker Barrel Ornament

by Rob Walker | Tue, Feb 16, 2010

ABOUT the PROJECT

I mentioned earlier that students in Art Novak’s advertising class at the Savannah College of Art Design, carrying out an assignment to create ads for Significant Objects, were given four to choose from. Among the choices was the Cracker Barrel Ornament + Story by Maud Newton. Only one student opted for this, but Kathryn Clendinin’s creation, designed as a pair of online Flash-driven ads, was a favorite.

Picking up on the story’s invented-historical tone, she extended it with a “breaking news” look and feel, amusingly placing the ornament in an archeological-discovery visual context, and running news-crawl underneath:

The Flash plugin is required to view this object.

A second ad slips the ornament into the art of our ancestors, like an Illuminati clue:

The Flash plugin is required to view this object.

Very fun stuff, in my view — quite in line with the tone of Maud Newton’s absurdly delightful story.

More Significant advertising from Art Novak’s students tomorrow. . . .

The significance of this object has been invented by the author; see the project description for details. Click here to receive email updates.

About the author:

Rob Walker

Rob Walker is the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, and writes the Consumed column for The New York Times Magazine.

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