Monday, August 25, 2008

Clear Days in the Pittsburgh Symphony Advertising Department


The Pittsburgh Symphony has the above gorgeous, slick, full color ad for its Sunday Ovation Series. The layout and colors and typography all just look lovely. Lots of time and lotsa money was spent on that ad. Lotsa people involved too, I bet. They're a class operation. Hoo boy.

Too bad there is a glaring error in there. I didn't see it for about 30 seconds, but then it hit me. Maybe you don't know your classical music musicians, but if you do, then you'll spot it. And there's a "tell" in the photo too.

I'll tell you the mistake after the spoiler alert header:

SPOILER ALERT

OK, there is a simple error that should have been caught during the initial proofing of this ad. The "tell" is that Joshua Bell is holding a violin. You can see the scroll of his fiddle in his hand. But the copy reads, "Joshua Bell, Piano."

Joshua Bell is one of the biggest names when it comes to classical fiddle, gang!

A big thanks to dear ol' Professor Lynch (AKA Dad) for spotting the glaring mistake and sending this clipping. Even though he had written on a sticky "Clear days in the advertising department!" right next to it, I just could not believe whatta dopey mistake this was.

5 comments:

pattyrea said...

Wow, man, this is what you deem worthy of news? Do you know there are a few larger events in the nation about which you could be blogging?

Just in case you are stuck on proof reading symphony announcements, there is a Democratic Convention and a controversial war which may be more appropriate for you to discuss.

pattyrea said...

Wow, man, this is what you deem worthy of news? Do you know there are a few larger events in the nation about which you could be blogging?

Just in case you are stuck on proof reading symphony announcements, there is a Democratic Convention and a controversial war which may be more appropriate for you to discuss.

Mark Anderson said...

That commenter was so serious she posted it twice!

Personally, I love finding errors like that. It's also why I have my wife, the English minor, proofread most of my marketing stuff before it goes to print. God love 'er!

Mike Lynch said...

Thanks, Pattyrea, for your comments. You are correct: there are political conventions going on, as well as war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And, as I'm sure you would agree, the list could go on.

The nice thing about the Web is that there are plenty of places to find political blogs (over 16 million says a Google search). I don't usually post about politics here.

You may feel entitled to your opinion, but it is not valid criticism.

Remember long-time theatre critic for Irving Wardle's 3 rules of good criticism:

What was it? Was it worth doing? Was it done well?

This is a cartoon blog (although I did go off topic on this one, Pattyrea). Anyway, I think it's worth doing. Sometimes people send a note to let me know it's worth doing.

Mark, thanks for your comment as well.

Onward!

Empiricus said...

Hey Mike, how ya doin? I found your blog via Andrew Drukenbrod's blog associated with the Pitt. Post-Gazette. I don't know if you've seen his meta-criticism about your critique of the Symphony's typo--which, by the way, is exactly the kind of thing we do over at our blog (exaggerate nitpickyness)--but I find his objections not so different than pattyrae's. Not sure if it's worth a post on his blog.

Also, beware, I believe there'll be a meta-meta critique post over our way in the next day or so.

Keep up the good.

-Empiricus