B&M Dive Machine at Cedar Point?

Interesting. Travis becomes a meme and doesn't like it.

Vater said:

Reminds me of this, which I think illustrates the enthusiast mentality pretty accurately (and humorously).

Perfect example.

Yes. That. If putting in a silhouette of a ride at the park bugs you so much, the graphic designer for the website is not the problem.

Well, I can't say that it's a ride at the park... or that it bugs me... but in the larger conceptual discussion about placing random coasters in promotional advertising whether they are from the park or not, I think it matters.

Details do count. But sometimes they don't matter. If that makes sense.

I'll confess, I've been the vexed coaster enthusiast: I can remember getting my hands on a Carowinds brochure in early 1980, and being quite vexed they'd used a picture of Cedar Point's Corkscrew on the cover to promote their new coaster.

I look at the coaster silhouette here from a graphic design viewpoint: the designer(s) wanted a silhouette that read as "roller coaster", high on the sides and low in the middle where the various Halloween event logos go. It may be they didn't have an image from a Cedar Fair park that fit the parameters. It may be they didn't want to use a Cedar Fair coaster at all, for some reason.

In the larger conceptual discussion, I think what is sometimes lost sight of is the purpose of the design element. It's not to promote a coaster or coasters, it's to provide an atmospheric backdrop for the Hallo-whichever events advertising.

Interestingly, we seem to have this same conversation around the same time each year. It's like our own nerd Thanksgiving.

I say we make it a tradition.

Like kids do plays where some dress as pilgrims and others as Native Americans, we can have two sides too.

Every year, some of us can post as people who think it doesn't matter because it's a design element and others can post as people who think it does matter because it shows something that doesn't exist at the park.

We can invite our parents to come watch us and sell cookies and orange drink.

It'll be swell.

Why does it matter? Especially in this case, where you have an abstract image that is supposed to represent a silhouette of something, why? It frames the banner nicely, and perhaps, just perhaps, theres the possibility that the angle the picture was taken that makes it 'look like Sheikra'. Why does it matter?

In this case, it doesn't matter. The silhouetted graphic sucks either way.

I keep speaking to the larger conceptual topic that Gonch linked back to that we repeat on a regular basis. I think it matters, because there's no point to promoting your anything if you don't care enough to get the details right. It matters to me because it demonstrates quality and care in the effort.

It's the same for me with all promotional materials. If I get a brochure or flyer with obviously staged or posed actors all throughout it, it gets disregarded. If it has typos, it goes in the trash, but that's a different level, obviously.

It matters, because details are an indication to me that the organization cares to be specific. That gets my attention while random does not.

Carrie J. said:

I think it matters, because there's no point to promoting your anything if you don't care enough to get the details right. It matters to me because it demonstrates quality and care in the effort.

And this is the point of contention for me.

I don't believe this qualifies as a detail any more than color or font choices do.

Hell, the coaster that sits below the word Halloweekends is shown twice. Why isn't anyone complaining that Cedar Point doesn't have two of any coaster?

Or what about the backround with moody purple skies and what looks to be at least 10 lightning bolts? I better see that crap when I show up or I'm asking for my money back!

And that full moon looks awfully oversized. Am I going to get to ride a coaster that is being dwarfed by the rising moon on the horizon?

It's all there to convey a mood or image.

It seems like a weird place to draw the line to me.

Responding to Carrie:

Okay, I get that. I have the disorder formerly known as Asperger's, and thanks to it typos stand out to me big time. (Going out to eat, everyone else in the party will be talking about what looks good and I'll be going "they spelled that wrong....that should be possessive, not plural....") I make a connection between the quantity and type-o-typos and the impression they leave me of the business. A few misplaced or missing commas? Nobody's perfect. The sign on top of the restaurant advertises "hambergers and french fryes"? Not going there.

Maybe they couldn't afford to use photos from Coasterimage.com, so they had to take what they could get. :)

Lord Gonchar said:

It's all there to convey a mood or image.

Right. And for me, that mood or image is ****ty quality. It works for some and that's great. But it doesn't for me.

I don't expect to see cartoon images at the park based on a graphic I see. That's just exaggerating your perception of my point. The graphic makes no difference to me. It sucks either way, as I've already stated.

But when real depictions are displayed in a promotion, then I think the details make the difference. Again, for me. In this world where everything is competing for my visual attention, that's where I draw my line.

And slithernoggin I'm with you...there is no way I want to ingest food at an establishment that doesn't take the few minutes required to proofread their materials...er, at least their sign out front. :-)

Edited to be less dramatic. :-)

Carrie J. said:

I don't expect to see cartoon images at the park based on a graphic I see. That's just exaggerating your perception of my point. The graphic makes no difference to me. It sucks either way, as I've already stated.

But when real depictions are displayed in a promotion, then I think the details make the difference.

But in this case, I think the coaster in question is part of the cartoon image, not a real depiction.

That's the difference.

You can't pull one element out of the cartoon image and say it's inaccurate - which is what I meant to convey with my exaggerations.

Right. Which is why I've now said three times that the silhouetted graphic makes no difference. It sucks either way. :-)

I've been speaking towards the larger conceptual discussion that involves the websites or TV spots that we've discussed in the past and that RCMAC referenced earlier in this thread where real depictions of coasters are used.

That's the difference to me.

I don't find it offensive or important to my enjoyment of the website in any way at all, but I do wonder why they don't use a photo of a coaster they they already have at the park. Their people are out taking photos all the time. I bet they have plenty to choose from.

I would think that they would want to promote one of their coasters in the banner, even if it is very subtle. Get the images of their coasters and not another park's coasters inside the heads of those who look at it. Insinuate that "our" coasters are the only coasters.

They have a product to sell. They should show enough pride in that product to show one of their coasters in the banner, even if they think no one will notice.

I recall Cedar Point's old website. The animated skyline banner at the top was so freekin' cool. Is the Halloweekends banner insinuating that there is a coaster like that at the park the same way the CP skyline banner did? I don't think so, but it is something to think about.

Carrie J. said:

I've been speaking towards the larger conceptual discussion that involves the websites or TV spots that we've discussed in the past and that RCMAC referenced earlier in this thread where real depictions of coasters are used.

Oh. Ok.

Then I feel the same way I did last year:

If the spot says something vague along the lines of "Come to our park, we have fun rides" - then they can put whatever visual there they want.

I think it falls under the same rules as the sucky silhouette. Just a generic visual meant to generically represent rides & fun. Background dressing for the bigger message. The key being generic. Not sure if that equates to lazy or bad or not. It could, but it doesn't have to.

For example, Cedar Fair making one commerical they use nationwide and slapping a different park logo at the end seems resourceful more than anything - and it creates a definite consistency across the company. It makes sense to me.

If the spot says, "Come ride this ride" - then it better be accurate. And even then, early promotional material will sometimes use similar coasters because the ride doesn't exist yet. Although, admittedly, it seems like more and more they just use the renderings (which have their own inaccuracies, I suppose, if you want to nitpick).

In these cases it's flat out misrepresentation...except when it's not.

I'd suspect promoting a Cedar Fair coaster never crossed the designer's mind. Their assigned task was to create a moody background image for a banner promoting the various park Halloween events. They did have a product to sell. In this particular instance, that product was the Halloween events at the various parks.

And if the goal was to promote a Cedar Fair coaster in the banner, then they would really have had to create a separate banner for each park, highlighting a coaster from each park. There would be no value to promoting Nighthawk on a banner on CGA's website.

Can we talk about the grossly exaggerated artistic park maps now? I can't find Magnum because it looks taller on the map!

Carrie J. said:

Edited to be less dramatic. :-)

All my edits seem to work in the opposite direction...:~P

Thank you, Carrie J. Once again you are the Voice of Reason. :-)

The person who did this is probably somebody who freelances for the Sandusky Register.

I get what was going on in the designer's mind and what his assignment was. I get that the image is of a generic nature and they're not promoting a particular ride with the image, but an event that occurs in various forms nationwide. I get that the general population won't know or care what the image is, and that it's nice because it fits in the space. I get that the image, for simplicity sake, has to be standardized in order to work for every park in the chain.

This designer will never be accused of taking the extra step to show he's actually thinking of his client and the images associated with their business. If he was smart, he'd find that scary coaster element that appears most often at Cedar Fair parks, let's say the cobra roll, and reproduce it for the banner. That way everyone can imagine the ride depicted on the banner is a ride from their home park and relate, subconsciously or not, the coaster experience to the event. Done. And correctly.

What I don't get is how this detail, no matter how minute we deem it to be, slipped by. First of all, if I was Busch I'd be screaming bloody murder. (well, ok, I don't know. Maybe they sold their coaster images as clip-art for some bucks and they dont care if somebody uses their exclusive ride designs for personal gain.) But, for sure, if I was in charge at Cedar Fair, the second I saw a competitor's ride (clip art or not) on my ad for one of my events somebody would be fired. And I wouldn't care if anybody but me ever noticed or thought twice about the error.