We seek to advance visual theory in the domain of commercial rhetoric (advertising) by demonstrating how objects and symbols derive meaning from their histories. We do this by examining a single visual trope common in advertising, white space. The choice of white space was purposeful in that it...

A survey of North American ad agency creative directors (n=31) reveals that they use the “white space” executional format in print ads mainly to advertise new brands of products rather than services. Their not necessarily mutually exclusive reasons for designing a predominantly white-space...

This study examines the impact of increasing the number of images in a print advertisement on affective and cognitive responses. In advertisements with both positive and negative pictures, increasing the number of positive (negative) images increases positive (negative) affect. However,...