The 1919 Ford Touring Advertisement

The Ford Touring advertisement was printed onto on regular paper as part of a magazine, a common supertextual style at the time. Only a few of the magazines during the time period used glossy paper and color, such as Colour magazine, which ran from 1914 to 1924. The main reason behind the lack of color and glossy paper was because color and glossy paper were more expensive. The document features completely black ink, with a bit of a grayscale, most likely for making the graphics and headings look like they have more depth and stood out more. For magazine consistency, as symbolic of the page of the magazine, the document is boxed by a black, solid line, with a bit of a heading for the magazine to the upper right above the box. Separate extratextual elements include the graphics, from the Ford logo, to an actual ink drawing of the Ford Touring, each of which specifically serve to grab the attention of the audience. In addition, the drawing’s exquisite detail gives possible buyers a good picture of what they would be purchasing.

Below the graphic, the text is organized intertextually by placement in the vertical center of the page with a large horizontal margin for the first paragraph, then smaller margin for the second, and continues back and forth in this pattern. The document aids the audience in focus by forcing the reader to gain the most impact from the first paragraph, and then read on for more information. During the list part, of the third section, the audience is once again more impacted by the numbers displayed with the smaller margin and the listing format.

Several different intratextual elements present themselves in the document, beginning with a large, bold bookman antiqua style font, proclaiming the mainline statement about the Touring, “A Joan of Arc Machine,” to punctuate how much endurance the vehicle possessed. Then, at the beginning of the first paragraph, the dropped capitalized S is fairly standard earlier magazine style, as well as newer magazine article style, and in this case, the first word, “She”, serves as another audience lead to emphasize the vehicle. After this, the text’s main purpose is to persuade with the war talk, and some statements about how long the car could last in difficult situations. The text talks about how much endurance the car had, which was an important advertisement back then because cars would break down rapidly. After that, the font shrinks down to less than half what it was before. After examining the small font area, I noticed that the text there mainly consisted of different prices for different models and accessories, which may have been on purpose so as not to scare potential buyers. Finally, at the bottom of the document, there was a listing of the company name and location in large font, which I have discovered was standard at the time.


The 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser Advertisement

The Chrysler PT Cruiser advertisement was displayed on the newer glossy magazine paper common to magazines since printing presses and other document production technology improved over time, making the glossy paper less expensive. Supertextually, these improvements lend a more photo-like feel to the whole document, giving an audience the impression that the document consists of a single piece, and therefore is similar along the lines of the rest of the magazine. One of many supratextual elements, the background design for the document consists of a whole graphic using a wide range of colors to present that document. The main graphical feature of the document, a large picture of the PT Cruiser, shows the vehicle in a great amount of detail from the side to emphasize the size of the vehicle. The Chrysler logo, presented in color with the Chrysler motto, appears at the upper right, more of an understated presentation of Chrysler, so as not to detract from the impact on the car image.

A few key intertextual elements found in this document begin with usage of a primarily standard Arial font, a font that’s easy to read. Also, the document has all of the main subject text arranged beneath the car picture, with a very small margin, each line sharing that margin, until the disclaimer text is reached. After noticing those elements, arranged mainly to focus the audience’s attention on the text, some more aggressive intratextual elements presented themselves. The bold, all caps usage of the name of the vehicle to the upper left, is presented smaller than the text underneath the car image, mainly to keep the audience from being distracted away from the image and the text. Underneath the image, the text being in a smaller Arial, then progressively grows larger, with the intended purpose of bringing the attention of the user to the bottom large line where the price is bolded in the document. At the bottom right, the text disclaimer shrinks once again to the size of the headings to the top left, where the document describes the price of the image vehicle and the usual corporate disclaimer common, and legally required, to car advertisements. Car companies, like many other businesses, put a great deal of effort into selling the vehicle before the buyer knows the actual price of the vehicle, as shown.


Discussion

For the two documents, obviously the difference in colors and paper can easily be connected to the growth of printing technology. The format of magazines itself has changed a number of times since 1900-1920 era, as more money has been invested by companies into advertisement, photo technology has grown greatly, and magazine production companies have established themselves over time. The documents remain similar by each document being dominated by a large representative graphic of the vehicles they advertised. Apparently, this similarity is due to the strategic extratextual advantage of using a representative graphic near the center to immediately capture the audience’s attention when they first glance at the document. Another given similarity is the attempt to “hide” the information containing the actual pricing for the representative vehicle, as found in both documents. Sellers of expensive things need to help the buyer make a decision about the thing before they tell them the actual price, so that the buyer basically is trapped by their decision and finds it easier to go along with the sale. Even on current television commercials, these communications have shown a remarkable tendency to understate the same information by using very small descriptive text and very quickly say the prices involved.

For each document, the type of font has changed almost completely, most likely because during the 1900-1920 era, the popular fonts in use did not include Arial fonts, and in the 2005 document, Arial has been proven to be easier to read. Also, the placement of the company logo is different on the two documents, but that may just be an example of how the size of the older document was smaller and in a more tall layout, whereas in the newer document, obviously larger and in a more wide layout. The choice of text also differs between the two documents, partially because the audience has drastically changed from post World War I, to consumer economy, with different subjects having more effect for each audience. In conclusion, though the time between each document differs by more than eighty years, the attempts to convince the potential buyers who represent the audience to consider the product in question has not changed very significantly.

The supertextual aspects of the document are what would be expected of 1673. The bond was most likely to be shipped from one place to another, so it needed to be made out of something stronger than paper but easier to manage than cardboard. The bond does not appear to be written on thin paper but more than likely on stiff parchment. There are no bindings or any holes on the side of the bond which means that this small document was made to easily be carried, traded, or stowed away safely. There are some faint signs of text that has been printed backwards. This has two possible causes, the first being that the document had text printed on the reverse side of the document. This is unlikely because parchment is not see-through when placed upon a table (as the document is pictured). The second, more probable explanation for the reversed text is that the document was pressed against another document, perhaps inside a book or ledger causing some of the ink from the second document to transfer to the bond. This would also be likely in that the bond’s size would allow for it to be placed inside of a book or ledger.

Extratextual

The extratextual aspects of the bond are almost non-existent. There are no icons or pictures and the most noticeable visual aspects of the bond is the first letter is twice the size of the other text; the amount of the bond has the only numbers in the document, and the signature which takes up almost as much space as the printed text. The ink is all the same color, leaving the only indication of important text being the handwritten portion. Although there is a lack of extra-textual properties this does make sense for a document of its type. It had to be repeatedly produced and it would have to travel under extreme conditions on the ocean. This means that extra pictures, icons, or symbols would be costly after a certain number of prints, and would possibly fade and be of no use after some time. This is also probably why there are no different colors in the document. Because the handwriting was so different from the printed text, this would be the only needed visual cues to show the important aspects of information in the document.

Intertextual

The intertextual aspects of the document are mostly consistent. The printed text is setup in a block format so that no word or character extends past a certain point. Hyphens are used so that the document follows an exact format. Each line contains the same number of characters (with spaces being counted as a character). The line to line spacing is consistent as well. An exception to this is the beginning of the document where the first letter is more than twice the size of the other printed letters. One difference of text in the bond is that the printed text is in manuscript whereas the handwritten text is in cursive. However, all of the printed text is manuscript, and all of the handwritten text is cursive, so there is still cohesion within these two groups. Unlike the printed text, the handwritten portion does not follow any boundaries other than the size of the page, or the amount of space allowed for writing.

Intratextual

The intratextual aspects of the document are mostly consistent. Within the printed text, there are no differences in font size, style, spacing, or alignment with the exception of the first letter. The only other differences in the printed text are the spaces left for handwritten text. The spaces are not consistent in length, but this may be due to the information that is expected to be provided. The handwritten text seems to have some sort of priority over the printed text as it is of a different font size, style, spacing, and alignment. In one section the handwritten text crosses out the printed text and it appears to either change or add information that was particular to this bond.


Historical Document

Source: Adclassix.com

Revised



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