Leslie’s gallery is near a grocery store. Sometimes people who eat food also buy art. Additionally, all art buyers eventually eat food, so how about them demographics? When Smith’s told Leslie she should advertise on their shopping carts, and they would make the ad for free, how could she say no?
Leslie contacted me one evening, to get my blessing or any suggestions regarding the ad that was supplied to her. It was to be printed the next morning. Unfortunately, the ad was a brimming bowl of clean-out-the-fridge soup. Pictures! Words! Social media! More words about things we don’t care about!
That meant coming up with heads and faces: an intriguing headline in a more appropriate typeface and an eye-grabbing mask, which also fits nicely into the head-and-face theme of this paragraph. I wanted shoppers to bag their briskets and bananas and bop over to the gallery on a whim. Or on a scooter, if the family whim is in the shop getting a new la-di-da pump. Oh, yeah, and I whipped together a logo on the spot, because I was feeling badass, and with all those images, it needed an anchor. Logos are so handy!
Foot traffic increased by—actually, I don’t know; let’s make up a number—say, somewhere between four and Gutenberg percent. But what warms my heart the most is the mental image of toddlers sitting in that weird seat shopping carts have and being forced to stare at that freaky Indonesian mask.
I never claimed this was a parenting column.