Madvertising Systems

Communication Design (BA) University of Lisbon, 2012

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Madvertising is a multiplatform work that examines the complex relationship between advertising, new media and the role of the graphic designer, as a mediator in this process. This is the result of a year-long research for my final project in Communication Design (BA), under the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon.

This investigation explores multiple issues, such as: the impact of marketing and advertising tactics in everyday life; the excess of unprocessed data in contemporary societies, as semiotic pollution; the connection between advertising and mass media; and the role of artists, designers and the public in general, in this context. Even the name of the project (mad + advertising) reflects these themes and ideas, laying the groundwork for future works.

The project is expanded through several platforms. It includes an online blog and a project dossier, to document the development of the research; a video montage with approximately 3’, to represent the saturation of information in public spaces; three A2 posters that subvert well-known ad campaigns (in the spirit of "culture jamming"); and, finally, a small magazine that explores all these questions. The magazine has 48 pages (250 x 158 mm), printed in 90g/m² Munken Pure paper, manually bound.