"My design concept changed quite a bit from start to finish during the course of this class. I started with a concept that wasn’t working for me, and that I wasn’t happy with, and turned it around at the last minute. My final design concept is simple, “scream for ice cream”. The idea here was to create an atypical ad. I wanted to stay away from the cliché and obvious, and in all honesty, create some “art” (or at least something like that). My final version ended up being fun to create and I think that it is something different. While I don’t think that it necessarily fits the assignment of appealing to all age groups (I will admit this), I actually see this as a series of ads, each version appealing to a different age group, but all being connected with color, feel or just the logo. I think that to say that you can create one ad for all ages is a difficult task, and while it can work, if you look at advertising today, ads are targeted to different interests, age groups, etc, depending on the context in which they are placed. My design is probably most geared towards teens and young adults, who expect to see “different” if they are going to really notice an ad. I think that it could also target young children, to some degree, because the face is eye catching. I do think that it might be slightly off putting to the older audience, but at the same time, a lot of advertising seems to be going more towards illustrative, rather than photographic. Look at how TLC handles their logos and advertising, or any of the snowboard companies. They are all very illustrative, with an overall feeling of “fun”.

After I stopped trying to beat a dead horse with my first concept, I decided to start from scratch. I took a few photos, and worked from them to create the face. I created it using only a few colors, so it didn’t become too realistic. The texture used for the background was created with various elements. There is a gradient, as well as “lines” of varying color, and a halftone screen. These all are at varying states of opacity to create enough texture to add visual interest without becoming a distraction. The type used here was a combination of a serif and san serif font, with different sections “cut out” of each one to create something entirely new. This was done to push the message of “scream”; and a simple font just wouldn’t do here.

I created the main part of the logo in the earlier weeks of the class, and it was the only thing to survive from my original concept. I used a baby face, and posturized and leveled until I was left with a “suggestion” of a face. The dunce hat/ice cream cone is a pun here. It both represents the lowest denominator of a clown/jester/joke/etc. and also is the only real suggestion of ice cream on the whole design. This way, the logo can stand alone, or work within an ad. I also added “ice cream” under the logo to reinforce what the product is.

As far as using all of the required elements in the design, I easily filled the one for more than 10 layers, as well as blending modes (for the text), opacity (for the texture), gradients (for the texture), painting (for the face), tools (for the type and logo –cutting, transforming and destroying), and filters (unsharp masking). I also incorporated an adjustment layer to make my colors more saturated. I used quite a bit of layer masking in my original idea, and in a different version of this one (that had more negative/white space). For this concept, it was built with textures and simple elements, so it wasn’t really necessary. Also, as far as scanning goes, I have a digital camera to take photos and pull the files directly into Photoshop, so scanning wasn’t really necessary. I know how to scan, so I didn’t want to include something that wasn’t essential for my own design just to fulfill the requirement of the assignment. While I recognize how important scanning is, I really didn’t have a need to scan any of my elements in, as everything was created by hand or from already existing digital files.

I am happy at how well my final design turned out, and after the suggestions of last week, I really like the darker colors and the cropping. I tried a few variations on this one, but I kept coming back to the original. I think that I reached my personal goal of getting a good final piece out of the class, and while it wasn’t completely successful as far as reaching a broad age range of consumers, I think that it will still make anybody sit up and look twice at it. I also think that it does a good job of reinforcing a message that the older consumer might remember (I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream), and that the younger consumers will just think is cool to look at. This is my final version, but if there are any other suggestions, I can alter my ad and repost the another final version."