Whether I’m shopping on 34th Street at lunch or running to catch the bus in Hoboken before work, I am always taking in all the ads around me. So last week while I was waiting to cross the street it’s no surprise I watched every bus go by and saw as many movie posters, vacation offers, and television series ads as I could. One caught my eye, but as the bus whizzed by I couldn’t put my finger on why. It was just an ad for a magazine with the guy from Six Feet Under (Michael C. Hall) on it, no big deal right? Well it wasn’t till later in the week that I started seeing him on what felt like every magazine ad all over the city.

It turns out that the people at Showtime created a new ad campaign for the TV show Dexter where they featured Michael C. Hall on the cover of some of the most popular magazines around. As a designer I thought this was so amazing because they really took every element from each magazine into consideration. I loved the photography and wardrobe they used for different covers: the close up of Hall with the unbuttoned black shirt on the Rolling Stones parody cover, the cheesy tabloid lines like “He’s drop-dead gorgeous!” on the US Weekly parody, and the wacky or reserved poses on the Wired magazine or GQ parody covers. This looks like the kind of project that everyone evolved really enjoyed and while they were constrained to a certain look and feel for each cover I think the designers had the chance to get really creative with the copy, photos and wardrobe to have each cover look the part.

This campaign reminds me of those Magic Eye pictures you see in the mall, if you look quickly it’s just a colorful image, nice but no big deal, however if you look closely you see that 3D sailboat. I just hope that designers arren’t the only ones who are noticing one of the best ad TV ad campaigns I’ve seen in a while.

So as I walk home tonight I’ll keep looking for more ads all over the city. Oh, and I think I’ll TiVo Dexter this season to see what all the buzz is about…