Colors And Lines In The Ford Fusion Advertisement

Colors and Lines. They are an integral part of our world today. Imagine a world without colors or lines. What would it be like? It would likely be a shapeless monochromatic world with varying shades of white, grey and black. Colors and lines are vital to the world as we know it, and they can be used as tools for gaining our attention. In a car advertisement, the Ford Motor company portrays the image of a car key with unusual grooves on the blade. The Ford Fusion ad employs the use of colors and lines to attract attention to itself.
In the center of an advertisement for a Ford Fusion car, a car key is shown against a background with various shades of blue; however, this key doesn’t look like a normal key. Instead of the normal grooves on the side of a regular key, the key in the ad has grooves that are carved to look like a city skyline. The grooves are in all sorts of differing sizes, tall buildings, short buildings, round buildings,
square buildings. The blade of the key is silver, contrasting sharply with the bow, or hand of the key which is black. On the hand of the key is the Ford emblem and a silver button, likely indicating that the key is a modern flip key. Above the image of the key in white font is a simple sentence, “The city is in your hands.” Below the key in the right hand corner is more text, stating “The first Urban Activity Vehicle” and the Ford trademark. Across the top of the ad an orange line pops out to add interest to the picture.
The Ford Fusion ad strongly relies on the colors in the ad to appeal to a reader. The dark blue variating to a lighter blue in the center around the shiny silver key brings attention to the key’s grooves. At first, the orange bar across the top of the key seems out of place, but it is integral to the ad. The orange bar makes all of the other colors in the ad stand out and makes the ad much more likely to catch someone’s attention. If the ad was colored in simple black and white tones, it would just be another picture. However, with a few, well-chosen colors, it pops out of the page it sits on and catches the eye of a reader.
Colors are important, but equally important are the lines in the ad.
The lines are mainly found in the grooves of the key depicting a city skyline. The skyline is the centerpiece to the ad. If the groves were regular, the ad would not be nearly as powerful. The key is also placed in the ad with the handle on the left side and the blade second on the left side. The key was placed this way because we read left to right. The handle of the key is simple, but the blade leaps off the page with the portrayal of a city skyline in the grooves. The pursuer will see the softer lines of the handle first and then the strict lines of the blade second, making the city skyline stand out even more. With the white font above the skyline stating “The city is in your hands,” Ford is claiming that their car, the Ford Fusion, gives you the ability to own the city. The lines of the skyline are so important because they carry the message of the ad; and the one sentence of type on the ad ensures that a reader will understand the whole
message.
Utilizing colors and lines, the Ford advertisement is eye catching to a casual reader. We often take colors and lines for granted, but in reality, our entire lives are based on them. Without them, our world is nothing. No shape and no color completely tears apart our image of the world. In its advertisement, Ford acknowledges the power of colors and lines and that power to make a simple advertisement very effective and extremely impacting.