Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

http://www.adpunch.org/entry/wwf-ad-focusing-on-endangered-species/

I have chosen these two advertisements because it is related to my interest. I love how in advertisements can sends out a strong message to their targeted viewers. But sometimes some advertisements can lead to confusion.   

This advertisement of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an example of good syntactical design. The ad itself represents an eye exam chart replace by many shadow images of gorillas. On the bottom it said, “Save endangered animals before they disappear in front of your eyes.” I really like how the gorilla images can lead the viewers to read the tag line. This ad sends a direct message to the viewer to save/protect endangered animals before they get extinct. The horizontal image of the gorillas shows balance and proximity as each image is evenly space. Viewers can easily look at the ad at ease. The top gorilla image is the largest while all the images below are getting smaller and smaller, and then leading the viewer to read their tag line. The colors on the ad have a good balance of distributing colors and strong use of positive and negatives on the colors. The black shadow images dominate the eye as the viewer would look only at the images, rather than the gray background.       

http://www.geekpolice.net/t8580-monopoly-ads

This advertisement for Monopoly is an example of bad syntactical design. The red background and the woman standing in the center is the main focus of the ad as it first attracted my attention. But the message for this ad is too confusing. It fails to send a message to the audience. When I first saw this ad I assume it was about traveling or clothing. With the Monopoly logo placed on the bottom right corner, I would not have noticed this advertisement was for Monopoly. This ad shows no leveling because it looks as if it is coming from a side perspective.  The furniture show vertical and horizontal, but for the ad itself there is no distinct verticals or horizontals. The red background and the traveler wearing different color clothing are too distracting for the viewer. Since red is an intense color, looking at this ad makes me feel strained. I dislike it how this ad is misleading the viewers.