Magazine Advert Production

Jessica Hedley

This is my first draft of my magazine adverts for the IRN BRU 32 campaign. I have stuck with my original ideas of using a “crazy”, “hypnotic” theme with an overall stretched smile and visual illusions. I decided to adapt this idea of using photographic portraits by using popular idols in the music and film industry, I chose to use

Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain – this was initially not meant to be in any relation to the fact that both idols are dead but I felt it fitted in well with the theme. I used the marquee tool to cut on the top half of the portrait and used posterize filter, plus increasing the threshold to give a cartoon effect. I feel filtering the image black and white, gives a more intense visual on the orange and blue font comparing to if the images had been kept in colour. I could of maybe improve my technique of

adapting the imagery by rotascoping to give a cleaner more professional finish, but this method of altering the sliders for the whole layer was faster and more efficient for my timescale.

I have chosen to use Bates Shower as originally planned and I am happy with the overall look of how it sits on the page, I’ve used this font for the title and taglines and for longer pieces of information such as the description and contact links – I have used Arial, as it is easier to read and understand if one was to read the poster up

close.

I’ve included the 3D model of my can in the bottom right to demonstrate the purpose of the advertisement, I feel I could of used a different angle of the can so that it would show the name of the product but I preferred this image as it featured the tagline and relation to the advertisement. Overall, I am happy with this draft and feel there is little that can be done to improve it other than tweaking odd sections such as keeping the sizing of the text the same and the composition of the main image.

This is my second poster for the magazine campaign of IRN-BRU 32, this was really just a dummy run of different effects

that could be incorporated using Photoshop. I wanted to look at more realistic facial effects and showing the

transformation by using a split image. For this I followed step by step tutorials to create the look of a “zombielike”

face, I also included a small relation to the product by change the eye colour to a vivid orange. Originally I was going to black out the whole of the eye but found this

showed little relation to the product and more of a horror aspect.

I chose to use an orange eye colour to represent the flavoring of the product, I originally went for a fully blacked out eye after following horror tutorials online, but realized this didn’t really show much relation to the campaign or the product and decided using an orange

featured more of a twist of the hypothetical effects. This isn’t really my favourite advertisement out of all my drafts as I feel it is a bit too dramatic and realistic for an energy drink campaign, and mimics those of anti-drug campaigns published by the NHS. I have added quite

severe bruising and scaring to the model’s face and this can depict violence and drug use to younger consumers, perhaps under the age of 16 – I think this would be suitable for a demographic of around 18-24 year olds.

Draft 2 I then went on to further develop my idea with using a new

concept that may be suitable for a wider demographic. Using the same stock images taken from Martin Scholler’s celebrity portrait collection, I used popular child star Daniel Radcliffe. I found front-facing, central composition portraits much easier to work with as

finding the centre of the face was easier than if they were on a slight angle. Drawing a line to work as a guide down the centre of the nose, I worked with similar Photoshop tutorials to create an alien effect. I think using a split image is more appropriate and

showing the progression of an image manipulation, you can see clearly how the eye socket has been warped to fit in the blacked

out eye.

I’ve also included minimal text because the image takes up most of the poster and if I had included too much text the advert would of become jumbled and hard to read. I could of maybe improve this design by making the text larger and warping it to fit round the

edges of Daniel’s head rather than keeping it quite small and compact. To reduce the harsh line dividing the centre of the image I used the blur and smudge tool to merge both layers, this has left the edges looking fairly uneven but not too enough. Overall, I like

this particular type of poster and if I have time left towards the end of the project I will create a series of similar posters with

different celebrities so that they work as a group that would be typically seen in a campaign.

First I started by making sure I had a transparent layer underneath the original photo of Rupert Grint, then using the eraser tool and a soft, 20px brush – I erased out the eyes but keeping the

overall shape and texture around the outer eye.

Then using the liquefy filter and a 30px brush, I stretched out the

shape of the eye to be wider and spooky looking, similar to an alien.

Then I searched for “Alien Eye Balls” and warped them to fit within the

socks of the eye.

After this I used the healing tool to merge out Rupert’s nose to leave a clear space, then afterwards I used the spot healing brush to refine and airbrush smaller areas to make it look

more smooth and realistic. I then used the burn and dodge tools to create shallow coves in the eye sockets to give a more sunken effect.

After this I then went to colour balance and alterted the slides to:

Shadows: 0, 20, 0Midtones: 0, 20, 0Highlights: 0, 40, 0

This gave a slightly off yellow/green tinge to the skin and hair colour which mimics slightly the hypothetical look of an alien

creature. I ticked the “Preserve Luminosity” box to ensure the colours were pure and

provided a slightly realistic skin colour.

I then create new layers above the original photograph and chose several shades of green, using a soft brush I covered the face and then selected “Soft Light” in the layer drop down menu

followed by lowering the opacity to give shadow and texture. Followed by some deep blacks and greys under the crevices of the face to give structure and shape to areas of the face.

This is my third idea generation, I have gone for a completely different approach compared to my previous drafts – similar to what I did with my can designs. This is a more humor based rather than horror but I have also added in some minimal offensive language that I have blocked out using the “*” character. I’ve tried to mask this by making the whole design quite childish and giving the overall visual that it has been made for a younger demographic, featuring school-themed font and imagery.

Humorous factors other than the language is some aspects of the imagery, for instance the crop out of Gordon Brown’s head – something that would not traditionally be associated with Scottish culture.

Overall, this is quite a simple design, not much work has gone into putting it together but it is more the way the consumer interprets it that makes the poster individual to the campaign. It really takes a witty approach on persuading someone to purchase the product. I used the relation to “32 ingredients” to things associated with Scottish culture, to make this advert more interesting I could of added in a footer telling people to email in with 32 Scottish items for the chance to win a prize etc.

I created a web banner using my alien photo edits and made several versions that could be seen on different pages or social websites. I included a small crop of the eye area of the images as I feel this gives the most effect and an overall dramatic visual. I then used the animation tools on Photoshop to create a GIF that would allow a gradual fading of

each image rather than having several versions of the banner. This proves more effective and interesting and fits in with the creepy film of an alien encounter.