Word and Image: Lemon.

1960s Volkswagon Print Ad

We're talking about words and images and I often think of Magritte's "This is not a pipe" drawing as a perfect example of how these two ideas come together. Something else that came to mind today as I was thinking about words and images was a classic advertisement for the Volkswagen Beetle from the 1960s. The ad consists entirely of two things: a single image of the car and a single word "Lemon." In the ad the word "lemon" refers to the shape of the car, which as you can see in the image is shaped just like a lemon. But the genius of that ad comes from the fact that the word "lemon" is often used to refer to cars that are broken down, old, and don't work. The ad is a play on the meaning of the word, as if saying: we know what lemon used to mean, but this is what it means now. It's that irony of using a term for a crappy car to advertise your new brand that effectively sells this product. It is completely reminiscent of the Magritte drawing that I mentioned earlier, it's almost saying "This is a Lemon" while the picture clearly shows a new car just like the phrase "This is not a pipe" is written below a well drawn pipe.  This ad is a perfect, simple example of how words and images come together to effectively convey the purpose behind the design. It's such a simple design, one word, one picture, yet this ad revolutionized the advertising industry. It's clever, it's smart, it's simple. Without that one word all we'd have is a nice looking picture of a car, but anyone could do that, any ad man or designer could take a picture of a car and put it in a magazine. And, obviously, without the image of the car the word is meaningless, you'd have no idea what it was advertising. But the two come together and word and image create very effective design. Words and images make for great design.