Creative Advertising Collaboration: Design Developments

Based on ideas developed with Lydia during our last meeting I've started to develop illustrations surrounding the imagery we paired with each piece of copy. The use of a candle (see figures 1-2) symbolises the calm, romantic night in you could have with your partner after they decide to stay over due to the fact the consumer has finally cleaned. Many students use candles to decorate their uni rooms, making it recognisable with the use of reds further hinting to the romance aspect of the advert. Simple line drawings (see figure 1) was used at first however upon discussion Lydia and I felt adding definition by changing the colours would make the illustrations look more realistic, creating a more professional outcome (see figure 2). Pink tones where used for the background and label as this allowed the type to stand out more as this was the darkest shade on the poster (see figure 2). Making the background colour and label colour different shades allows the candle to stand out more, giving more definition so the illustration looks less flat against the background.

In relation to 'for house inspections' a simple text message (see figures 3-4) has been used as students will recognise this imagery quickly and easily as they often get texts from wither their landlord or estate agent informing them of house viewings. I decided a text message would be more appropriate than an email as the visual language of an iMessage is more instantly recognisable. Helvetica Neue has been used for the main copy as this is the same typefaces used by Apple within iMessage allowing the message to be easily recognisable (see figure 3). This is further enhanced by the use of blue which is synonymous with receiving a message on iMessage. In order to further the connection with house viewings I also looked at adding 'shake n vac 9-10am thanks'  (see figure 4)to further reference the information that would be found within a typical message (see figure 5). Feedback will be gained in order to decided wether the additional information in necessary.

 Creating an illustration for 'sober self' was more difficult than the other adds due to the multiple items associated with drinking we identified, therefore I looked at the use of a paracetamol box, cheap vodka bottle and pizza box. The use of the paracetamol box (see figure 6) was interesting as the layout of the packaging allowed the information to presented within the object similar to the label on the candle. However once placed within an advert (see figures 7-9) the focus became the paracetamol bottle rather than copy, making the advert look as though it was for paracetamol rather than shake n vac. Initially I tried to avoid this association by using type not traditionally associated with medical packaging (see figures 7-9) however the use of colour and additional featured within the packaging that are needed to give context to the box also make it appear as an advert for paracetamol. Therefore I looked at featuring the copy within a pizza box (see figure 10) however this was difficult due to the imagery traditionally on pizza boxes it was difficult to incorporate the copy whilst still making the pizza box look authentic. Consequently I focused on a cheap vodka bottle (see figure 11) as the label of the bottle allowed the copy to be featured within the traditional structure of the label. Although the vodka bottle allowed the copy to fit best the illustration doesn't look as realistic or authentic in comparison to the paracetamol box. Furthermore the colours used within this experiment don't work well, the red links to the traditional association with cheap vodka however the grey bottle and background colour make the illustration look flat and unrealistic (see figure 11). 

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Figure 11