Guerrilla advertising

99 designs

Today we joined a site called 99 designs to join a competition to design a logo for someone. Below is the brief.

This is my sketch based on the two reference image he linked.

In the end I could not finish the logo in time because I cannot work well in illustrator and I didn't have it at home.

Catchphrase exercise

Today we had a short exercise a bit like the old tv show 'catchphrase' where we had to make an image for a certain catchphrase and the rest of the class had to guess what it is.

For our group we were give 'spice of life' so we made an image of a load of spice holder's on a dance-floor with glow-sticks. We did this exercise to help us make connections between words and images which is really important when designing stuff especially adverts.

Represent your name

Today we were asked to represent our name via something to do with us our our name meaning ect.

For my name I chose to turn my name into five different smiley faces because I'm a bit over the top and I love to use smiley faces while typing on the internet.

Lateral thinking exercises

Today we did some lateral thinking exercises like making shapes by removing matches from a pattern and connecting dots on a grid using a specific amount of lines. We did this to help us with thinking leteraly, which means to think outside the box in general. Thinking outside the rules is a great way to make original and creative idea's.

The great egg drop

Today we were given the task to protect an egg from breaking from four different heights using only a roll of masking tape and 5 straws.

For our team we decided to wrap the egg in layers of straws and tape and also to use the cardboard on the inside of the roll, unfortunately this didn't work well and our egg broke. 

The point of this exercise was to help us try and think outside the box, idea's like a para-shoot and a rope to lower it down to the ground would have worked much much better and would have shown lateral thinking.

New project

WORD ASSOCIATION

When you are really stuck for an idea, one method of inspiring creativity is to use word association.

The following word lists were created through class discussion, with lists of adjectives and nouns being created.

TASK: Choose two matching pairs from the word list to create two game characters. Produce a front and side visual for each character, along with a “character bio”

This is my design for a "Demonic Deer" I chose this because I though it would be fun and interesting to make. 

Game Design

Our next project was to design a Xbox game for a specific age group. First we made big group mind maps for each age group then when they were full we got into groups and chose an age group. In my team were Aj,  Connor and Adam and we chose the 11 to 18 year old age group.

In my team we decided to make a game  similar to the massive final fantasy games but to turn it on its head, usually in their games you end up saving a princess/country/world so we decided to have the purpose of the game to destroy a country, not because it was evil but because it was good, so good that it destroyed the natural balance. We then set to working on our individual parts to present our idea

For the main character we decided on something different to the usual 'Party' of 6, we decided on one main character who can posses 5 other people instead so you can get a more personalised team. For the main character we decided on a demon for something different with a teal and black colour scheme instead of the original red and black which we felt was to cliché, he also has an arm that holds special powers that gives him six different boost's of power depending on what element you choose.

The six elements we chose were: fire, water, ice, lightening, air and darkness. I was in charge of designing the six different states while Adam chose the powers you got  with the form. I decided the ark would have a texture like cracked earth with flesh underneath with a colour corresponding to the power he's using.

As for the interface I designed a health and demon power gauge that would sit in the top left corner of the screen, the flame in the centre gets smaller the less health you have and the black flames on the outside get smaller as your demon power decreases. 

Our presentation went well, Connor talked about the plot and gamer details while me and Aj talked about the character design and Adam talked about the battle system.

All in all our game was received well and I think we made use of all our individual skills and specialist knowledge very well and we produced a well thought out imaginative design.  

Research summery

Today we presented all our research to each other and after looking at every bodies work I realised a lot of things. 

First of all a big part of having a good advert is the shock factor and 'whacky' idea's, these make the advert memorable and interesting, another strong theme is humour and surreal imagery to catch peoples attention. 

Classic high quality photography

Contrasting use of colour and highlights

Clean lines in graphic design

Contemporary and topical themes

Use of known music tracks

Catchy jingles

Repetitive phrases e.g. “Simples”

Use of a continuing theme – e.g. the Peter Kay beer ads

Use of known strong corporate branding and identity

Clever, skillful craftsmanship

Lifestyle adverts

Use of celebrities

Use of humour

Strong basis of factual information – e.g. the ipod ads.

Different types of advertising

Web banners: These are found all over the internet and can be very successful way of attracting customers while not taking up too much space on the webpage. Considering there isn't much room, key words are important as well as bright eye catching colours for example the first banner here. I really like this banner because of the colours which make it really eye catching and the fact it's animated which really draws your attention. I don't really know what the second web banner is selling but I really like the use of the city skyline and the silhouette of the dancing people, making you think of having fun. The colour is also eye catching but doesn't stand out too much. The third one is far less gaudy but it clearly shows what it's advertising and looks cool and modern.

Magazine advertisement: As you can tell by the name these are found in magazines and usually consist of a whole page, giving the company far more room to work with. Magazines rely heavily on advertising as it is far more expensive to print a load of magazines than run a webpage. Because of the increased size Images are used far more often unlike the banners which were heavily focused on text. The most crucial part a magazine advertisement is weather it fits in with the type of magazine its in, for example in professional fashion magazines most of the advertisements are for clothing brands or perfume and are heavily focused around images of models to not look out of place, this also helps because if the magazine and advert are about the same thing the reader has more chance of buying whatever the advert is selling. As for cheaper magazines like a tv guide the readers are more general and most adverts are of food of some kind as everyone goes food shopping. These three adverts are good magazine adverts because they fit with the magazine and the intended audience, the first one would be found in fashion magazines and such and the use of models and professional looking photography, this is what caught my eye, the way it doesn't really look like an advert. I like the second advert because of the contrast of the dark colours of the background and the paleness of the models face, it really draws you in and catches your attention. The last advert is aimed at children and uses a character from an already popular children's TV  show, which makes is stand out more to me and children, I also really like the way it looks like the page has been doodled on by the characters as it really makes it stand out and be unique. 

TV advertising: TV advertising gives the advertisers a greater range of ways to advertise their product with the help of music and video. The choice of music is very important as if it's too annoying people will be driven away by it. Some adverts take a lot of time and effort like the first advert which has CG baby bodies roller skating with footage of real babies superimposed on top so the heads look real. I really like this advert because it stand out and is so original. Another good example is the 2010 Christmas whiskas advert, which stick in my mind because the cat is so cute and I really like the way most of the colours are dimmed except the purple, which is the colour appreciated with whiskas. The third advert is quite old but I really really like it because it was so random but original, it also was really really popular and everyone was talking about it. I also like the way it was filmed as it looked like a someone was doing it with there phone or something as if it was real life and a car just transformed infront of you.

Guerilla advertising:

Guerilla advertising is a new twist on the normal ways of advertising, it's main aim is to catch peoples attention by advertising in an unique and different way. For example the first picture shows a drain cover with a spatula over it, giving the impression of a barbecue grill. This catches people' attention and because it's such a differnt way of advertising it'll stick in their mind. The second picture is of a poster cleverly placed under a pipe to look like the barrel of a gun, this again draws attention and doesn't cost much more than a usual advertisement. I really like this one because the smoke from the pipe just gives it an extra point which make sit really stand out. The last one is for honda and I really like it because it looks like an accident scene which instantly draws attention to the inflatable balloon.