Advertising Week 11

15.11.2016 (Week 11)

David Ho Ming Aun (0328394)

Advertising Principles and Practice

Project 3 Progress

Project 3:

As this is the week before the final project submission, it is only rightful that a lot of progress has to be made. 

I began finalising down the patterns that would work to serve my purpose. I've also done it all in colour in order to see how the contrast would work. There are the following:

Figure 1: Finalised Pattern 1 "Stroke Width"

Figure 2: Finalised Pattern 2 "Dots"

Figure 3: Finalised Pattern 3 "Zig-zag"

Figure 4: Finalised Pattern 4 "Circles"

Figure 5: Finalised Pattern 5 "Noodles"

I then explored further into how to place the typography within the boundaries of the ad space. 

Figure 6: Typographic Arrangements Experimentation

Figure 7: Typographic Arrangements Experimentation

Figure 8: Typographic Arrangements Experimentation

Figure 9: Typographic Arrangements Experimentation

I've decided to go with the white box style in Figure 7 as it allows for an unobstructed view of the key art while maintaining a sense of unity between graphic and text box.

That being said, I attempted to place these into the confines of the advertising medium dimensions. 

Upon consultation of the lecturer, they are the following:
1. Newspaper Quarter-page Advertisement: 130 x 180mm
2. Billboard Advertisement: 48 x 14ft
3. Web Banner Advertisement (Wide Skyscraper): 160 x 600px
4. Magazine Full Page Advertisement (Men's Health): 210 x 175mm
5. Ambient Advertisement: A1 594 x 841mm

These were the media that was suggested by my lecturer. However, upon closer reevaluation, I realise that it is very important to put in something onto social media networks, as I have outlines in my Project 2 slides. Therefore, I must decide to remove one of the media stated above and replace it with the social media advertisement.

I have chosen to remove the magazine advertisement because of the small readership base. Therefore, I removed the magazine ad and included the Social Media Advertisement, which dimensions are as follows:

Social Media Advertisement (Facebook): 700 x 700px

I will now attempt to explain in detail my processes for each medium's advertisement:

Newspaper Quarter-Page Advertisement
For this ad, I wanted to use the dots because it was similar to dot matrices in halftone printing. I decided for a quarter page ad despite wanting to blow it up to a full-page ad because I did not want to be too loud about an advertisement about condoms in a Malaysian newspaper. I took the dimensions from The Star newspaper and simulated my advertisement in its size.

Figure 10: Newspaper Ad Draft

Billboard Advertisement
I was very concerned about the legibility and also whether or not people can see the advertisement from that distance. After some thought as looking at my printouts from afar, I decided on the following pattern to be used.

Figure 11: Billboard Ad Draft

Web Banner Advertisement
This was an interesting suggestion by my lecturer. He suggested to actually make the web banner into a .gif (an idea I thought of doing before, but never thought to execute it because I had never done one before). But through the saving grace of Google, I can now make glorious .gifs.

Figure 12: Web Banner Ad "Look it moves!"

Ambient Advertisement
I thought of either putting these ambient ads in toilets or entrances to nightclubs or bars. Later on I decided to keep it out of the toilet as toilets have the impression of being a dirty place.. generally not a very nice place to be thinking of something so intimate.

The ambient advertisement took a few experiments before getting it right. 

Figure 13: Toilet Ambient Test

Figure 14: Toilet Ambient Test

Figure 15: Brick Ambient Test

Figure 16: Brick Ambient Test

My final advertisements will be posted up in Week 12's post, along with their simulations.

Feedback:

Specific Feedback

The lecturer gave lots of feedback about how appropriate it would be to use particular patterns in particular situations and gave his opinion on which one would be better to use or not. His responses were quite encouraging regarding my ads. 

Reflection:

Experience

This week was really tiring for me as I had to work on other projects as well. With little sleep it was hard to maintain focus, but I pushed on because this is the final lap. Not too healthy a lifestyle, but an art student's got to do what an art student's got to do.

Observation

I observe myself extremely productive this week despite the tiredness. I also find that using earphones helps me maintain stronger focus. Is it because it acts like a tether to the machine? Or does it block out the outside world better? Whatever it is, it's working.

Findings

I find that the advertisements are beginning to look good and I have reached that point in my creative process where I can slowly see the final forms emerging. It is an exciting part, but I should also be careful and not get ahead of myself because this step is very important to prevent any mistakes. I can't wait to finish this up.

Image sources:
Figure 1 – 16 Personal Documentation