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Akai ads—one size does NOT fit all
After the closing of Linn Electronics, Roger Linn developed this highly-regarded drum machine/sequencer for Akai. I was greatly pleased when Roger requested of the Akai people that I be brought in to prepare the product’s first ad, especially after the strain of our last meeting, the day I resigned the Linn Electronics account. The ad features my typical big big product shot. The vertical stripe layout worked alright, but it would have worked much better had a second product not been added to the ad at the behest of the Akai Professional people in Texas. But that is nothing, nothing compared to what happened subsequently, as you will see below. Having “bought” a professional graphic design from a “big shot LA designer” (who, me?), the Texas people proceeded to milk the layout for subsequent products– hacking, hammering, bending, and beating it into submission every which way.
What: Copy assistance, design, production art.
For: “A Midi Production Studio in a Box” full page color magazine ad
Client: Akai Professional
When: 1987
The result of their hammering and hacking was a weird and exceedingly ugly group of ads that I collected for my own amusement. I include two of them here for yours. Please remember that, beyond having my original layout “borrowed,” I had nothing to do with bringing this ugliness into the world.
Oh, and that headline! Automate! Eliminate! —Sounds like some sort of robotic laxative! The ad with that brilliant headline was for the Akai Digital Matrix Patch Bay System PG1000 DP3200 and appeared in 1989. The other ad, for the Akai X7000/S700 digital sampler appeared in 1988.
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