Viking of the Year

January 1, 2008 2:27 PM

Homeworkfilter: Help me figure out some clever viking themed titles and advertisements.

For a project in my history class, we were assigned to do a magazine article in the same vein as TIMEs person of the year. We pick someone from a certain time frame and then pick a year in their life. I'm doing Erik the Red, and his settling of Greenland.

Part of the project is the actual magazine effect: journalistic voice, cover, layout, advertisements, etc. I'm looking for a clever title for the magazine itself. The class itself isn't focused on vikings at all, so it might be better if the title isn't too specific.

I'm also looking for time appropriate advertisement ideas. I've been trying to think of things that we use today that might have a more primitive ancestor in 1000 AD Scandanavia. Are there any tools or such that have been found in Greenland or Scandanavia but not anywhere else?

Funny is always good. Thanks for your help!

posted by Corduroy to education (11 answers total)

*Scandinavia
posted by Corduroy at 2:31 PM on January 1, 2008

Whatever you do, it should feature Ralph Wiggum.
posted by mumkin at 2:35 PM on January 1, 2008

Big Red.
posted by Frank Grimes at 2:45 PM on January 1, 2008

For your advertisement question, one interesting Scandinavian phenomenon from around Erik the Red's time is the Berserker. They were warriors who didn't wear armor and acted completely insane in battle. You could have an advertisement for wolf's blood, for example, which is one of the things that has been theorized to help berserkers get their "animal rage".
posted by burnmp3s at 2:54 PM on January 1, 2008

Just off the top of my head:

¤ An advert or article inviting folks to join a cruise or settle in a new land (real estate pitch). Allude to the discoveries of Greenland and Vinland.

¤ Article or adverts for the sun compass

¤ Anger management seminars

¤ A primer on sacking villages

¤ Knots of Death motif

¤ A travelogue about things to see & do in Ireland

posted by bonobo at 3:08 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

An ad for a Scandinavian Viking longship might be a suitable substitute for an automobile ad. Wikipedia has a public domain schematic of the Clinker building used in Viking longships, which, combined with a photo of a longship, could be used to emulate the style of some auto ads.
posted by RichardP at 3:13 PM on January 1, 2008

How about, simply:

Tïme
posted by krisjohn at 3:32 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

As for a title for a theoretical Viking analog of TIME magazine I'd probably choose something like "Anachronism" or something that conjures up images of rune stones, the only surviving Scandinavian writing from your time period (perhaps "RUNE" or "Menhir").
posted by RichardP at 3:33 PM on January 1, 2008

Thanks for all the great suggestions! All the advertisement ideas are realy good. I had thought about the RUNE one before, which I like, but T ï me is also pretty clever. Shit. Maybe RUNE T ï mes or something like that, who knows.

Anyway, thanks for all the help and the good links!
posted by Corduroy at 4:20 PM on January 1, 2008

I seem to recall the Vikings in Michael Crichton's book The 13th Warrior peed on their clothes to clean them. I guess it's true:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/sysm/vikings/section2/question2/followup.shtml

So that would make a good ad for a cleaning product.

Also, this probably doesn't help you, but when you said Viking, I immediately thought of this funny video of a muscle-bound raver called "The Technoviking."

http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-technoviking-defender-of-helpless.html
posted by jstruan at 8:22 PM on January 1, 2008

SLEEP Magazine
Where You Are a Viking
posted by The World Famous at 10:21 AM on January 2, 2008