Ads

I am not much of a sports fan (did you know that comes from sports fanatic? Yup.) but I do understand some of the delight in the game when you see someone doing what they do with effortless elegance. Hearing that solid thwack, seeing the arc into the basket from thirty feet away, or the perfect spiral across the autumn sky, I suspect that many people just shake their head in bemused admiration.

They also think "Why, heck, I could do that...and for a lot less money than that guy's getting, too". But they know in their hearts that it takes a goodly amount of talent to throw a blistering fastball, or catch a long fly ball deep in the shadows, or tap the ball in while three hundred people watch, and though they still think that they might be able to do it, they sometimes just admire the ability that makes that possible.

This Slate article, about a series of elegantly simple UPS ads, celebrates that same sense of achievement -- both the ads themselves, and the creative effort that brought them to life.

I liked it.