Samsung: Creating a New Ad for an Existing Ad Campaign

Here I am, writing my final blog for my Visual Communications class.  It has been a lot of work, but very rewarding.  This project is similar to my last one.  My mission is to create a new advertisement for an existing ad campaign.  The new ad I created was not to be identical, but it should look as if it were part of the same ad campaign.  I feel like the most difficult part of this project was choosing my original ad, the one that I was going to use for inspiration.  I finally chose the Samsung Television Ad that you see below.  Once I had completed the ad, I had to design a slide presentation which focused on several specific design talking points of the original ad and then showing how those same items are replicated in the new ad.  This campaign speaks to the parents who still have children at home.  Those who watch their children in activities and then want to come home and watch the video of it again on their television.  If you buy this television, it is like reliving the experience all over again.

---

Original Samsung Ad

The original Samsung ad shows a girls and butterflies in movement, appearing to come out of the television screen. Without using words, it is saying “bring your entertainment into you home”. I chose to use this same look, only there is a boy instead of a girl and the flying objects are kites instead of butterflies. The text box at the bottom on the new ad is changed to orange to match the boy’s shirt. The television in the new ad is from 2017 and currently being sold so I updated the yellow and black information boxes on the bottom left to reflect the new television information.

---

New Samsung Ad

---

Slide Presentation

I will let the slide presentation speaks for itself but I will discuss the slide design decisions that I made. It is difficult to see against the white background here on my blog, but the introduction slide, transition slides, and logo slide have a white background. For the other topic slides I chose a blue background that color matches the Samsung logo. I liked the “Samsung” blue against the blue sky in the ad, the two don’t compete with each other, the text is easy to read in white, but the focus is still on the ad. The light blue on the rectangle behind the photo and along the bottom are matched to the cloud color. The only other color I introduced was the pink on the title slide. That gives repetition to the pink on the advertisement. Initially I used only the Coco Gothic font which is a Sans Serif style. It is the same font used on the actual ad on the bottom colored text box of the new ad. Since the Samsung logo is also a Sans Serif I didn’t want to add a third font. However, I decided the first slide needed a little contrast to the sans serif font so I chose a decorative font called AR Darling for that slide only. The rectangles on the slides are chosen to ad repetition, repeating the rectangle on the ads. The text is right aligned to the ad. I have to admit, before this class I definitely would have centered it! I love it much more right aligned.

---

Conclusion

There were quite a few photos combined using Adobe Photoshop because the kites in the new ad were each individual photographs. I think the new ad fits with the original ad campaign nicely. If there were any design adjustment I would make, it would be to make the writing in the colored text boxes bigger. I chose not to do that in my new ad but keep the two ads the same on the bottom. I guess you could say I’m a fan of Samsung products. I’m watching a Samsung television in a few minutes in my family room. Merry Christmas!

---

Photography Credits

jackimx.deviantart.com

publicdomainpictures.net

bestbuy.com

billcorbett.blogspot.com

 

worldmarket.com

gombergkites.com

 

omgcoolgadgets.com

brookite.com

planthunter.sakura.ne.jp

18cjoj.deviantart.com

gaminglaptopsjunky.com

tcl.eu

 

Sharpie Markers: Markers for Your Permanent and Not so Permanent Needs

This week I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop.  I love it already.  With just a few tutorials I feel confident that my family pictures will no longer by ruined by my husband’s unique ability to close his eyes in almost every picture.  My project this week pushed me well past the eye replacement trick as I tried my new found skills at making a creative ad.  The assignment was to make a creative and unique ad for an everyday boring item.  My item was a permanent marker.  The ad was supposed to appeal to married men between 35 and 44 years old with a high school diploma and earning $40k to $59k annually.  I needed to make two versions, one for a magazine ad and one for a social media ad.

Permanent Marker Creative Ad

When I hear the word permanent I think of three things. A marker, a tattoo, and a hair perm. Since this was marketed to males I knew pretty quickly that I was going the way of a tattoo. I decided a married man in his late thirties and early forties would probably have children and very likely a teenage daughter. Fathers of daughters are often known to be very protective.  This ad represents a father who doesn’t want his daughter to grow up and make grown up decisions.  I used three different photos and the logo to create the final piece.

I started with the tattooed girl as my base. I flipped her so that she was facing the other direction.

Next I opened the tattoo artist photo, flipped it, and moved him so that he was putting the tattoo on the girl. I took off his tattoo, removed the tattoo pen, and added the sharpie permanent marker.

Finally the text and logo were added. There were man other steps involved getting these photo to look like they are one. The drop shadow on the man’s arm was important. The girl already had a shadow and it helped pull the two pieces together.

Principles of Design

I used right alignment for my main text.  On the bottom of the magazine ad I chose to line the text below the “h” in sharpie.  I used only one text in the magazine ad because the Sharpie logo was already in a script font.  The font was Adobe Casion Pro was used for all the text.  The smaller ad had two sentences next to each other but weren’t to be read as a paragraph.  For this reason,  I added the call to action sentence in an Agency FB font with a slightly different color that I pulled from the photo background.  The colors were neutral so that the girl and the sharpie pen would pop out of the ad.  The pink marker is supposed to repeat the pink color in the tattoo.

Conclusion

I know I have a lot to learn but I am happy with the finished product.  This is my very first time using Photoshop but I have seen many things that it is capable of.  I am looking forward to learning more.

 

Photography Credits

tattooton.com

pix-collection.com

supplygeeks.com

 

en.wikipedia.org

 

Seminary Icons: Creating Digital Art Using Only Four Shapes

Currently I am a student in a class called Visual Communications. It is my final class required for my Associates in Office Management. You may wonder what this class has to do with working in an office or business environment. Well, I have learned how to create a blog, improved my photography, gained knowledge about the basics of design principles to be used on such things as brochures and business cards, and designed an article layout using Adobe InDesign. Now using Adobe Illustrator I can create art like these icons to be used as logos, clip art, widgets, or on websites. The remaining weeks of class are sure to teach many more skills that can be used in my career or for personal projects. This class requires a large time investment because of learning a new software program every two weeks but aside from a few late nights I have loved it. Similar to learning Adobe InDesign, I found learning Adobe Illustrator was tough for week one, while week two was much more enjoyable.

The amazing thing in this program is how four basic shapes are used to create so many things. These shapes are polygons, stars, ovals, and rectangles. Each of these are selected depending on what you want the end result to be and then it is manipulated to bring about the end desired result. Polygons can have sides added or subtracted, stars can have points added or subtracted, an oval can become a circle, rectangle a square. Combine them, overlap them, remove overlapping sections, the list goes on and on what you can create. This week my assignment was to create a set of icons of anything I want.  Right now, my mind is most often on my volunteer work as a seminary teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That was my inspiration. The requirements were to have each be original creations, consistently designed, with no text or gradients. Each icon is saved as a 60×60 PNG and a 400×400 PNG.

Target Audience Analysis

My target audience for these icons are seminary students and instructors. I can see them being used as widgets for small devices or a seminary website.  I personally will be using them in my PowerPoint I use every day in class.  The colors I chose are slightly warm primary colors to reflect the youth age demographic.

Design Analysis

I developed the set using the design principles I have learned so far. Repetition was the design principle I applied the most. I repeated the same yellow in each icon with the exception of the church which needed a softer yellow for its light. Each icon uses round corners to help them look uniform and give them a younger cartoon look to them. The Moroni on the Book of Mormon is the exact shapes as the youth.

Book of Mormon

The key to the Book of Mormon being recognizable was having Moroni on the cover.  He is instantly recognizable as someone from the scripture book we are studying this year.  By using a simple form with the trumpet I was able to communicate what book it is without having to use any text.

Journal

Although the journal looks real simple because it has no real color, it took the longest to achieve. The spiral required alignment and even spacing. The handwriting was created by using the paintbrush tool. I think my biggest struggle continue to be making triangles out of the star shape. The tip of the pencil was triangle shape and it caused me a lot of grief. I’m sure there is a simpler way to get the end result that I did, but I got it done and I’m pleased with it.

Sunrise

Our seminary class meets early in the morning before school starts. The sunrise is to represent that. It was the most basic icon I did, but I like the way the green ground and blue sky work together to show it is a sunrise. The ground is a lot of circles and ovals combined to create one shape and then I removed the lower half by layering a rectangle shape on top and then using the shape eraser to give it a nice straight edge.

Church

I am happiest with the church icon because my local building inspired the shape. It required the most shapes to get the end result. Alignment was important.  The door, circle window, and steeple are all vertically aligned.  The windows are horizontally aligned and evenly spaced.

Youth

Originally I was only going to do the above four icons. These youth were a last minute addition. The baseball cap is the one thing that adds the look of a school day to the youth. With the church and scriptures I wanted it to be clear that this wasn’t necessarily a youth group going to church, but rather a youth group going to school.

Conclusion

I am a beginner. This software is completely new to me. Yet, I am so pleased with the result and already thinking of what to make next. Maybe a school set that represents my online classes? I’m thinking that is a great assignment for a new college class called Icon101.

“I Believe” I can now design a magazine spread

Well, these past two weeks have been a real learning process. I was introduced to an Adobe program called InDesign. The first week was a bit rough, happily, week two brought a real appreciation for what the program can do. Below is my first project in the program.  The criteria for selecting an article was that it be from LDS.org with at least 600 words and have no section headers. I really enjoyed Bonnie Oscarson’s most recent talk in the October 2017 General Conference but since that one wasn’t available yet I selected her talk from the April 2016 General Conference.  If you are interested in reading the entire article you can find it at LDS.org or select this link.  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/do-i-believe?lang=eng

Main Design Decisions

Let me explain a little about why I selected the photographs I did. The talk begins with a mother in a medic helicopter with her two-year-old son while he was experiencing a medical emergency. The were on their way to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. During her flight she recalls flying directly over the Draper Utah Temple. Passing by she saw other temples nearby and the question came to her mind: “Do you believe it or not?” The temple in my spread is the Draper Utah Temple and I selected it purposely because it is taken from a view above the temple, the same view that the mother had. This beautiful photograph was taken by J. Travis Washburn. It was found at HelamanGallery.com at  https://helamangallery.com/2012/utah/draper-temple-twilight/.  I provided the other two photographs. The photo of the scriptures and cherub represent the gospel of Jesus Christ and prayer. The last photograph catches some young men in my ward embraced in a big group hug after each had shared their testimonies upon returning from Camp Helaman, a church camp. They make a daily choice to have “faith over doubt” which is the quote linked to that photograph. They truly lift each other up united in their faith. I could go on for a while about them, but that is for another post at some other time.

The colors were initially chosen to represent peace and hope. This led to a calm blue and other beach colors. It turns out that the professional photograph of the Temple had these colors in them so with just a little adjusting to the blue I had my colors. My target audiences were youth, young adults, and those who are struggling with their own faith. Youth and young adults are targeted because part of the talk addresses the youth, this is also the reason that I included the photograph of youth in my article. Youth are at the age where they are asking themselves, “do I believe?”  My hope is that those who are struggling with their own faith will see the title and its placement next to the temple and they will have a desire to read more.

 

Principles of Design

Proximity: I used proximity in a few different ways to organize my spread. The two lines of the title are close together even though they are different sizes to show that they go together. The section headers are grouped immediately above the first paragraph in each section. Finally, on the last page I overlapped the youth photograph with the quote because the youth represent young men who have chosen faith (the quote).

Alignment: My spread is left aligned. The Believed part of my title and the author’s name is aligned to the left text on the first page. I decided to align my photographs along the bottom and outside edges of my spread.

Repetition: Color was an important way that I showed repetition. The blue in the Draper Utah Temple photograph was repeated in my quote boxes, title and section headers. The rose in the sunset was repeated along the bottom of every page to connect all three of them together. For the quote text I used white, partly for contrast, but also to repeat the whiteness of the cherub in the second photograph. The distance between paragraphs and sections were repeated throughout.  On page two I repeated the width of the photo and quote so that they are both expanding into the other column of text.  I repeated the blue background on every page.

Contrast: I did end up changing my fonts from the initial ones in my rough draft. I initially used a script for my title but ended up using Californian FB which is an Oldstyle font. I changed it because I didn’t like the way the script lined up with the temple. I used this same font for my body text. The contrasting font I used for quotes and section headers is a Sans Serif called Calibri. My colors of blue and rose contrast with each other also.

 

Conclusion

I realize when comparing my design to some others in my Visual Communications class that it is very basic. I spent a lot of time experimenting with the photography on this spread. I tried to feather, I did an object cut out, I even tried to full-page transparent. Ultimately, I decided my simple layout works well with the topic. The message I wanted to portray was that a belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ brings peace. I think this is a peaceful spread and I am happy with it.

 

Photography Attribution

https://helamangallery.com/2012/utah/draper-temple-twilight/

https://helamangallery.com/blog/

Photography by J. Travis Washburn

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography by Patti Hyatt

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography by Patti Hyatt

Photography: Existing Equipment + Simple Tips = Great Photos

This week I learned a little about the basics of photography.  Did you know that there is a best time of day to take outdoor photos?  It is called the golden hour.  This is the first and last hour of the day when the natural light is most desirable giving softer light and fewer shadows.  I also learned different tips that can take my average vacation photos to a new level.  Many years ago I stopped purchasing the school photos for my kids and started taking my own.  Some turn out fabulous, some not so much.  I could never really figure out why this happened since I was always using the same camera.  With this knowledge I believe I can achieve more consistency with my photos. Here are three tips that I will use the most.

RULE OF THIRDS

Hugo BOSS shows they are no wimp when it comes to size

Hugo Boss is a German luxury fashion empire. They are known for their suits, luxury watches, women’s dresses, and designer shoes.  The company has a number of other products also including cologne.  This particular advertisement is for the Boss in Motion White cologne.  Designed by Gaz-man it shows a simple but effective use of two different typefaces.  This magazine advertisement can be found on the Deviant Art website at https://gaz-man.deviantart.com/art/Hugo-magazine-advertisement-60716849.

Seahawks & KIRO: Great things working together

Here in Washington state we are passionate about our Seattle Seahawks.  Communities show team pride as places of employment and schools embrace the energy of the 12th man, the fans. On any given Friday team loyalty shows as Seahawk jerseys, shirts, socks, and even leggings are worn by coworkers and students.   Retail stores have Seahawk products located strategically right inside their entrances where it is easy to find.  This advertisement by KIRO 97.3FM clearly shows which radio station to tune in to for the Seahawk craze.  Let’s look over why it works to appeal to the listener and fan.  The original design can be found at http://www.talkradioseattle.com/kiro