THE END.

Monday was our final class meeting/film festival celebration!  We all showed our final projects and celebrated the journey we took and all we had learned in the ART 445- Advertising Art Direction class at Cal state LA.  As a class, I am very proud of all the work we produced and showed.  We all progressed and grew as graphic deigners so much throughout this course and it is very evident in our work.

This completes this blog as well as the course itself.  Thank you for joining me through my adventures in this class!

Here are the final video & promotional postcard Anna & I created. Enjoy!



CSULA Graphic Design/Visual Communication from Alyssa Moore on Vimeo.

Promotional Advertising: Postcard & Video Comps

Front of Our Promotional Postcard (Comp)

On Wednesday Anna printed the comp of our promotional deliverable postcard to class so we could get feedback on it from our professor as well as our peers in the class.  The feedback we got was mainly about the wording of the copy on the back and the fact that we needed to add some texture to the circles on the front of the card since our promo piece directly connects to our promo video and the video had painted circles, not ones that looked vectored and uniform.  For the final presentation Monday we have to definitely fix our wording and tinker with the visuals on our postcard so that our card effectively communicates about the graphic design/visual communications option at Cal State LA and the connection between our card and the video.

The rest of the class was spent screening each team's video in front of the entire class using the projector.  This definitely felt like a test run for Monday's final presentation and final day of class.  Each group got very brief feedback after their video was complete. Once again, we ran out of time before every group could show their videos but by now this should be no surprise.  I've learned to not be shy to show your work as soon as possible, because it may not be shown at all and you will be left without valuable feedback.

Next class is our last meeting, our final, our film festival!  Every group will dress up in business casual attire, present their videos & promotional advertising pieces, and chow down on some snacks! 

Promotional Advertising: Rough Cut

Screen Shot From Our Promotional Video

Monday in class, each team brought in the videos they have been working on so far to present to the class and get feedback from our professor.  Anna was sick, so I was on my own in class.  I was nervous to show our video to our professor since we had taken a more metaphorical route with our video and the other videos I saw in class mainly showcased our students and facilities. We chose to leave those things out and focus on the sole idea of creativity and the action of making, which was a risk.  Turns out the risk we took turned out to be a successful one and our professor liked that we chose to show the tools of design.

Most of the other groups were told to re-think and re-shoot the videos or part of their videos & we only need to fine tune ours so it is more clean, has better flow and not just a rough cut.  Can't wait to see what ideas people come up with to present to class on Wednesday!  We will be bringing in our video with some slight changes and a comp of our deliverable promotional postcard.

Sometimes I need to stop and remind myself...

Print by Fab.

P.S. I just noticed this poster has a grammar mistake! Oh no! It's "too." not "to."  Proof that a good design can be ruined if every detail isn't paid attention to.

Promotional Advertising: Storyboards

On Wednesday's class Anna and I brought in the storyboards we had made that explained our concept for the 2-3 minute video portion of this project. Once again, we had to go through the routine of waiting for our professor to come around and give us feedback. Unfortunately, we weren't so lucky and got stuck being one of the last groups he talked to about their concepts, which meant we got very little feedback and on top of that our concept was shut down and we were told to think of something else.  Our professor told us to go the metaphorical route instead of being so literal with our video.  This confused the heck out of us since the video Kali Nikitas showed us during her presentation is the basis and inspiration for our own videos and it was extremely literal.  Most of it was just photos taken during her classes as well as photos of her students' work that was poorly edited to be honest.  One of the major downfalls of this class is mixed messages, which is odd since this is a visual communication class. Clear communication (even non-visual) needs to be key first and foremost.  I hope this is improved next time this class is taught.

It bummed me out that we spent time on a concept that I would've loved to do and would've had fun bringing to life and now have a short time to come up with something better visually.  Any who, it's on to shooting our metaphorical promotional advertisement video over the weekend. We don't have any time to waste!  We'll show a rough cut of our video during Monday's class.

Promotional Advertising: Research/Creative Briefs

Stop Talking. Start Making.

Today in class we all came in with our project briefs and research we had done about promotional videos and collateral regarding college level graphic design programs.  It was clear from the get go that all of us in the class were hesitant to tackle this project and make it as professional looking as possible in just under two weeks.  It's not because we're scared of the project itself, but more-so it's us knowing that we could create much better work given more time to fine tune it, but we're in the quarter system, so there's no time to fart around. As the following video our professor showed us after sensing the tension in the room states, we have to stop talking and start making!
http://startmaking.com/yves-behar/

After watching this video it became clear to us that we could make something as simple as that and still make it effective.  I think everyone in class was just stressing themselves out about making a video that was grandiose instead of doing something simple yet effective. 

The rest of the class was spent discussing what differentiates Cal State LA's Graphic Design program from other design programs.  After hearing every one's insight, I think we all took away a better idea as to what we want to communicate about our program through our videos and promotional pieces and feel more prepared and excited about creating our promotional materials for this project in particular.

Product Advertising: Presentations

 

 

On Wednesday's class, all of the teams presented their magazine product advertisement spreads to the class. The spreads above our Oliver & I's final versions of our ads for Rockstar Energy Drink. I think we can all agree that although the basic concept of the ads didn't change from our first comps, we made a great improvement. We decided to show multiple cans to show variety of flavor, since that was the main thing we wanted to communicate about our product and we also fixed the placement and size of the headline as well as the copy. The two problems that were brought up in the final critique of our work was that the typeface we chose for our copy was difficult to read and the white can being opened made it seem like it was empty.  Otherwise, our intended goal to communicate that Rockstar Energy Drink offers greater variety of flavors was achieved. I also felt that we achieved our goal of making the ads have an overall feeling of power.

After each group was finished presenting their work, it was time to find out what our next and final project in this class would be. Our next project consists of a video that is 2-3 minutes long along with an accompanying printed piece that both promote the California State University, Los Angeles Graphic Design program.  This will prove to be difficult since our facilities aren't visually interesting and will probably make our program look bad, so we'll have to get creative and show our program in a different sense. My partner for this project is Anna. We will be working on our research and creative brief for this project over the weekend and discuss it with the rest of the class during Monday's session.

Product Advertising: Final Comps

On Monday morning our professor was ill and could not make it to class to help critique our final comps of our product advertising spreads. This didn't mean we just packed up and went home. Class still ran as usual and we all displayed our work and gave each other feedback.  The fact that our professor wasn't there made us feel more comfortable giving our honest opinions on each other's work rather than worrying about what our professor would have to say about our comments.  All in all I think this class was very beneficial and gave us more confidence since we successfully ran the class on our own by working as a team. The best part was that we made sure everyone got equal critique and feedback time, which had been a problem in previous class critiques.

With out project in particular, it was brought up that we needed to change our copy writing a slight bit so that it would be easier to read and that we needed to re-shoot some of the products so that the whole logo was visible in each photograph.  It was also pointed out that the headline had some line spacing issues, so we need to fix that before next class meeting.  All of the issues with our advertisement spreads that were brought up will be fixed for next class, which is our final presentation of our product advertisement spreads.

Product Advertising: Initial Comps

 

 During Wednesday's class, each design team brought their 3 product ad spreads to show to the class.  These were our initial designs and first attempt at tackling the concepts we chose.  Our concept in particular was based around communicating a sense of intense flavor options with intense power. We chose this particular concept for our 3 spreads because it was the most effective at portraying our intended powerful mood whilst pointing out our product differentiator, which is more flavor options.

After some consideration of our intended audience, we decided to change the magazine these ads are to be shown in from Details to Maxim magazine. Side by side it was clear that Maxim targeted those who would most likely pay attention to our ads and purchase an energy drink product. Maxim seemed to be a better overall fit because it is an overall more loud publication image wise which matched up to Rockstar energy drink's powerful attitude. Details magazine just seemed too metro sexual for the product we are advertising and wouldn't be an effective publication to target our audience of 15-39 year old American males who are into extreme sports and pop culture.  Let's just say most Rockstar drinkers aren't very heavy into fashion.

After getting feedback from our professor as well as our fellow students, it was clear to Oliver and I that we chose the right publication for our ads. They fit seamlessly within the context of Maxim magazine when the professor folded placed them to look like they were in the magazine.  The vivid colors and bold, loud typography worked well for both the publication and our product.  The ads obviously portrayed the powerful mood we were going for, but there was one problem.  There was nothing besides the copy that indicated that there were a variety of flavors.  We definitely need to fix this key part of our advertising campaign because it is vital that our product's differentiator is clearly communicated. 

Product Advertising: Revised Concept Sketches

On Monday's class I brought in 40 revised concept sketches for our Rockstar energy drink ad campaign spreads that Oliver and I had worked on over the weekend.  Each group laid out their concept sketches on the classroom tables in order to display them to the rest of the class and get ample feedback from a variety of people in the room, not just our professor. This seemed to be very helpful to every group. Our team in particular found it useful to see which concepts got the most reaction (negative and positive) and why they were getting such reactions. Mostly, this helped us weed out the concepts that received no attention and begin to narrow down to what direction exactly our concept and 3 spreads were heading towards. 

Towards the end of the class our professor made his rounds and gave his feedback to each team as to which concepts were the most effective so far and which ones should be left behind.  Our professor's feedback helped Oliver and I realize that whichever direction we decide to go in concept wise, we must not lose track of our specified audience as well as the differentiator/message, and mood that we intend to comminicate.

Audience: 15-39 Year old American males
Mood: Powerful
Differentiator/Message: 16 flavors (more flavors than competing energy drink brands)

Next class we are showing our initial comps of our spreads, so it's time to get shooting and designing ASAP!

GAUGE Speaker Event: Kali Nikitas

 

This past Thursday evening a graphic designer by the name of Kali Nikitas came to California State University, Los Angeles to do a speaking for students. In short, Kali Nikitas is the current Department Chair of Communication Arts and Graduate Graphic Design at Otis College of Art and Design and also has a MFA (Graphic Design) from Cal Arts.  To my surprise, the lecture hall it was held in had more people in attendance than previous speakers in the GAUGE speaker series, so the night was off to a great start.

Kali Nikitas started off the speaking by giving each attendee 4 small note cards and 3 envelopes. She had us write 1 thing on each envelope, which were: Global, Professional, and Personal. She then asked us to all write down our goals on a global scale, professional scale, and personal (life goals & relationships) on each note card with a drawing that we felt embodied our goals on the other side of each card.  She emphasized that no goal was too out of the box or silly, so we need not be hesitant to write it down or feel any sense of self judgment whilst jotting down our goals.  She then had us seal each card in their accompanying envelope and seal them.  She then told us that they were ours to keep and open after a few years time.  She said that we would be surprised that no matter how big or small our goals were, that most if not all of them would be achieved by the time we eventually opened them and looked back.  This was an interesting exercise and very effective because it made everyone in the room think about their goals in life without having to feel obligated to share them and be embarrassed by them.  It was pleasant to feel involved in a guest speaker event and not have it all be about the guest speaker. I didn’t necessarily learn more about graphic design from this activity, but I did learn more about myself and what I actually want to achieve, which will be helpful from this day forward in all aspects of my life.

The rest of the time Kali Nikitas mostly talked about her current creative endeavors by showing us her website and information on Otis’ Graduate Graphic Design program. This was the downfall of the speaking for me at least.  It came off as her just talking about herself and being a commercial for Otis’ Graphic Design program. The program impressed me more so than herself.  I wanted to know more about her creative process and not just what she has done. I already researched that prior to this event!  From my point of view she was highly unrelateable since she had gone to highly expensive art schools and works at Otis which is a place that has much better facilities and resources than Cal State LA’s graphic design department.  To be honest, seeing all the videos and info about Otis’ program made me not to proud of our own program here at Cal State LA.  It only made me realize that there are better schools out there, which I can’t necessarily afford and I could be getting a better educational experience.  Maybe I will consider graduate school at Otis eventually since it seems like even though it may cost more, I’ll get what seems like a great, quality experience out of it.  All in all I guess she did really sell me on the school, but not herself as a graphic designer in the field.

This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the speaking, I just thought it could’ve been approached more effectively by being more geared towards design, experiences in the design world, and the creative process. 

Product Advertising: Initial Sketches

Oliver and I sketched our initial ideas/concepts and brought them with us to Wednesday's class. Each group presented their sketches to our professor to get feedback. After over hearing what our professor said to the other groups, I think we all pretty much got the same feedback.

Every group pretty much needed to get a better idea of what differentiates their product from other like products and how to best display that. Our professor also mentioned that effective and clever advertising isn't so literal (i.e. just showing the product with a tagline.) Since most of our sketches in particular simply showcased the product itself, this seemed to be our main issue. It was clear we had to fully address these particular issues before we went any further with our concepts:
What are we trying to communicate about our product to our audience?
What differentiates our product from it's competition?
Who are we targeting and what catches their attention?

Oliver and I plan to meet at school on Saturday to do further research of Rockstar energy drink in order to answer these questions and then use the information we obtain to refine our concepts in 40 new composition sketches to show in class on Monday. Time to get to work!

Physically researching & experiencing Rockstar energy drink

Product Advertising

Now that the first advertising project is finished, it's on to the next one! For Monday's class each new team of 2 had to come up with a creative brief based around how they planned to advertise a now poorly advertised, yet recognizable every day consumer product utilizing 3 separate spreads targeted to a specific audience in a particular magazine. I am working with Oliver Oh on this particular project. 

After a late night trip to 7-Eleven I noticed that there were many energy drinks to choose from in the beverage section. As I tried to make the difficult choice as to which energy liquid I should consume whilst in my groggy haze, I noticed something: Besides Redbull and Monster, there weren't any other brands of the energy drink variety that had advertising campaigns or tactics that stuck in my brain. I then looked over and noticed Rockstar energy drink, which is a widely known and successful product but not to par selling wise as Redbull and Monster. Maybe this is because Rockstar needs to better market and advertise their product. I explained my experience to Oliver and we decided this was the product and direction we wanted to go with for our product advertisements.

On Monday we came prepared with our creative brief in hand and as much research information and knowledge of our product and it's competitors as we could fit in our minds. Each group then presented their ideas and rational for choosing their product along with how they planned to effectively execute the task of creating a new advertising campaign for their selected product. Oliver and I were very pleased that our product seemed to be a good choice, given the positive feedback and how it initiated a conversation about how it is vital to be knowledgeable about the competing products in the area in which you are advertising. In our case Rockstar energy drink is a competitor with energy drink heavyweights, Redbull and Monster. We still plan to tweak and improve our creative brief for next class to be more specific and get a clearer idea of what exactly differentiates our product and who our audience is.

At the end of class we were informed that for next class we were to show up with 40 separate initial sketches of our concepts for advertising our product. I'm excited about this project and can't wait to get my ideas down on paper!

Issue Advertisements: Presentations

Wednesday all the groups showed up in spiffy attire to present their completed ads to the class for critique. Some of it was admittedly harsh, yet understandable. It was all of our first projects and presentations in this course so we all didn't know what to fully expect but the class as a whole all presented their work in a very professional manner concerning their tone and knowledge of their topics.

Below are our final designs for our pro and anti abortion ads. We mainly changed the anti-abortion ad to a more sketch like feel. We took our previous comp of the ad and decided to physically sketch it out, even down to the tag line and call to action, in order to give it a more authentic, emotional feel. It also lends towards the idea of a baby being a creation, much like a sketch is a form of creation. The only changes to the ad on the left (pro-abortion/pro-choice) is that we added more black and contrast into the image and typography in order to fix the problem of the ad appearing washed out. Adding more black to the typography also made a huge improvement by making the tag line pop and make it a bolder statement.

Overall, Candy & I's presentation went well as did everyone else's. I think every team was obviously knowledgeable about both their topic and their design rational even when they were thrown tough questions.

Issue Advertisements: Final Comps

Monday in class, each group displayed their final comps of their pro and con issue ads on the boards in the front of the design studio we have class in. The whole class as well as the professor got to critique each groups ads so that each group knew what to improve in order to have polished, complete ads for the final presentations on Wednesday.

This critique proved to be very helpful for our ads in particular. We had been struggling with our anti-abortion ad design wise. Our concept and sketches were fine but it just wasn't translating through our digital style of design. Our sketches exuded so much emotion, but when we went to design it it just flushed out all the feeling and made it sterile and lifeless looking. After noticing this during the critique, we are somehow going to make the ad look more sketch-like to bring back some of the emotion into the concept that we had lost in the process of designing the ads. Hopefully we can pull this off in time for Wednesday's presentation!

Issue Advertisements: Initial Comps

During Wednesday's class each design team posted their initial comps for their Los Angeles Times issue ads. The class then viewed each ad in their entirety. Our professor then quickly critiqued each advertisement comp individually and brought up design issues to fix in order to improve each ad. Displayed above are the comps for the advertisements Candy & I have been working on for pro-abortion & anti-abortion.

When it was time for our ads to be critiqued, our professor mentioned that the ad on the right (the anti-abortion ad) had poorly done illustration, but good use of typography. At one point it was mentioned that the baby looked more like a cockroach. That's definitely something that we need to fix because that was not our intention. The add on the left got a positive reaction but it was mentioned that the image looked washed out and that the body copy text needs to be arranged so that it is easily readable. It was helpful to get feedback on our ads from our professor as well as the class to get a better feel for how effective are ads are and what should be improved. It is highly important to know how an audience views and reacts to your ad in order for you to create a more effective ad. 

Next class we will present our improved, final comps to the class to see if there are any minor details about the advertisements that we need to fine tune before the final presentation of the completed advertisements. From now until then we will be working on our illustration and image quality as well as readability of the body in our comps.

Issue Advertisements: Revised Concept Sketches

Sketches, sketches, sketches; & yes, more sketches!

Monday in class Candy & I brought in 40 more concept sketches for our pro & anti abortion advertisements. Doing additional sketches after the initial feedback from our first round of sketches gave us a better idea about which concepts worked and should be developed further and which should be dumped all together and replaced with new concepts. This time around our sketches were also more detailed and proportionate. We made it a point to clearly display what size our type and body copy would be in comparison to the image in each ad.

During class Candy & I met up with Professor Jimmy Moss to get feedback on both our concept sketches and our body copy for the ads. This proved to be very beneficial. We learned what was working and what wasn't with the tone of our body copy and that we should change the overall tone of our pro abortion body copy to something less negative and more comfortable and positive. Based on the feedback from the brief meeting with our professor, we narrowed down our sketches to our very best, most effective concepts and finally chose two concepts to work with (1 pro & 1 anti.) From Monday until Wednesday's class we will be working on our initial comps of our ideas! I will post our initial comps for you all to see next time so you can have a look at the progression of our creative process.

What we learned overall from creating more sketches is that it pays to get your bad ideas down on paper and out of the way so you can test out new, possibly more successful ideas. It is highly important to put your ideas physically down on paper so you get a feel for your ideas and if they will exactly work and pan out as you had pictured initially in your mind.

The Importance of Ad Placement

 

A friend of mine had posted this image of two billboard advertisements on his facebook wall. I thought it was a great example of effective use of placement & context, as well as clever tag lines. The billboard on the left displays an Audi automobile with the tag line "Your move, BMW." while the billboard ad on the right, from BMW (Audi's competitor in the automobile industry) states, "Checkmate." Just wanted to share something that pertains to my learning adventure in my advertising art direction class. If anything so far, the class has made me more aware of the thought process involved in advertisements that I encounter on a day to day basis. This is just an example of one of them that caught my eye.

Issue Advertisements: Initial Concept Sketches

 

Today in class we brought in our 40 concept sketches for our issue advertisements for Professor Jimmy Moss to review and give us feedback. As seen in the picture above, these were initial sketches that were very roughly done. This was to help start getting our ideas for our Pro & Con ads physically down on paper to begin to see how they might pan out and what ideas were effective or not. 

After my team's meeting with Jimmy, we had a better idea as to what ideas we should further develop and which we should discard totally. Our mission for next class is to complete another 40 sketches, but this time they must be more comprehensive and complete. The imagery has to be more clear as well as what relative size the image and type will be. Another important element to include in these next sketches is the placement of the copy information & call to action. Overall, these sketches need to be more complete and concise than the previous ones. They should look more like ads and not just jotted down ideas.

Topic Idea Research

Today in class, our professor pulled samples of good ads out of a few magazines he brought in. He then proceeded to ask us why they were good advertisements and what could still be improved about them. He even had some of us pitch the ideas behind the advertisements as if we were trying to sell the ideas to a client. This was to help us further understand ourselves what elements are effective to an audience and what the creative thinking process behind good advertisements are.

After that, each of our groups had to propose our topic for the pro & con advertisement project we are currently starting to work on. My partner, Candy, and myself proposed our topic of abortion and gave examples of each opposing view on the topic to show that we had done our research and know enough about the topic in order to effectively create ads that persuade the audience to either do something to stop abortion and take action to fight for it as an option. It is important to fully know as much as possible about the different viewpoints concerning this controversial issue so that we in turn create advertisements that capture the attention of our audience(s).

My team's task from now until next class is to come up with  40 different concept sketches (20 pro-abortion & 20 anti-abortion). Each concept includes a focal visual element and a tag line. I will post some of these concept sketches as they progress.

Example of a current pro-abortion (pro-choice) ad.

Recovered!

After a brief session of panic & self-taught cacheing techniques, I found my post deep within the internet world! Heads up for others in my class that may have the same problem: Google reader will usually back up your posts.  Here's my post from the first week of class:

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Demographics in Advertisement

A highly important aspect of great advertisement is knowing your audience (demographic) and most importantly being aware of what specific media they will most likely view and therefore also view your ad in the same publication or other form of media.  By knowing this, companies can target their audience and potential customers more effectively.

In class this past Wednesday, each student in the class had to bring in 3 separate examples of well done advertisements.  I found it interesting that just by looking at the ads, it was pretty obvious what publication each specific ad came from and what particular audience they were trying to grasp. For example: Old Spice deodorant as well as alcohol ads were found in magazines geared towards men, like GQ and Maxim and were geared to be appealing towards the male mentality.  Beauty products and designer fashion ads were found in fashion & lifestyle magazines geared towards women, like Vogue and Cosmopolitan.  If the male geared ads were to be in Vogue, they wouldn't be effective since they would be trying to sell a male product to a mainly female consumer base and vice-versa.  Old Spice knows that their consumer would most likely be.

Oops!

I have accidentally deleted my post from week one, since I had thought I had only removed my drafts. Will try to see if they are backed up somehow.

Week 2: Controversial Social Topic Ads

It's two weeks into the quarter and we finally got to find out what our first project is. In class, as teams of two, we had to discuss and choose a topic that is controversial and could be argued for and against. Our actual assignment it to create two black and white ads that are theoretically for the Los Angeles Times. One ad will be the pro side of the topic chosen and the other will argue the con side. The goal of this project is to successfully create persuasive ads for both sides of the issue, no matter what your personal beliefs or feelings are about the matter.

Our project was first introduced through a current social topic, which is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).  The Online Piracy Act invades our rights as Americans to free speech and polices the internet and how we experience the web. It is a very important issue in our society today and I was shocked as to how many of my peers didn't know what it was. Anyways, it was brought up because there are two sides to the online piracy act: Ownership of material such as music, movies, art, etc. vs. freedom of expression, free speech, and an un-policed internet. No matter how we felt about it, we had to consider both sides of this current issue equally, which was admittedly difficult to do since I for one have strong opinions about the matter.

During class when we announced what topics we wanted to tackle for our project, my group's idea of the death of publishing books, newspapers, etc. vs. e-readers didn't go over well. My goal was to come up with a topic that effects us as a society. It didn't seem to go over well because as I found out, no one seemed to care an ounce.  Now I'm going with a typical, but I guess controversial enough topic: abortion.