In new advertising for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, by Creative Director Kim Bloedorn, you can see the difference between satire (bad) and homage (really, really good):
When I was asked to create ads to run in the anniversary section of the Houston
Our hometown paper’s made room for major efforts commemorating NASA, the last shuttle launch and the milestones of space flight. The museum’s strong connections with NASA via its education and planetarium programs spurred its participation in the special Chronicle section published today.
There are a lot of us whose awareness of “the final frontier” predated Sputnik. We grew up with Double Star (Robert Heinlein, 1956), “Forbidden Planet” (MGM , same year) and the omnipresent rocket engineer of the 20th Century (Wernher von Braun, 1912-1977). For hundreds of thousands of us, manned space exploration was a no-brainer; has been, in fact, a constant presence in our lives.
For some of us, it has fueled careers that have lasted through today – in media broadly, in PR and advertising specifically. From campaigns for companies like MBDA to ongoing enthusiasm for the imagery of old Soviet rocket programs in modern marketing illustration, there’s an undying meme that feels distinctly American but has spent half a century transcending borders.
Today here’s Bloedorn in full (funky) color, spacing me out with her finned rocket ships and scuffed planetary rings and the bucktoothed kid in the zip-up spaceship suit.
For her, it’s a…jubilee of memory: I hoped it would spark an emotional connection with those of us that remember the days when the space program began and celebrate the fun that can still be had from learning and exploring space right here at HMNS.
Culture infects advertising. Advertising infects culture. In case you don’t believe that the new HMNS ads aren’t channeling meme-makers like Kelly Freas, take a quick visual peek at one month in one year of fantasy and science fiction: January 1954. Better yet, drive by the Planet Ford dealership in Humble. Or the Flying Saucer shop on Crosstimbers: “Our Pies Are Out of This World!”
So are Bloedorn’s adverts.*
*I bet Bloedorn would like me to note, 2011 © HMNS. All rights reserved.
