Hard/ Soft Good Advertisements

Utilizing the image editing software of Adobe Photoshop and the strong design capabilities of Adobe Illustrator, this set of two advertisements explores the bread and butter of many graphic designers: the hard good and soft good ad. Hard good ads focus on selling big-ticket items that consumers often see as investments, like cars, houses, and boats. Hard goods are more difficult (harder!) to sell than soft goods. Soft goods are items that consumers purchase more frequently and are often consumable, like food, cosmetics, and clothing.
The advertisement on the left is a hard good ad for Airstream trailers. Playing off the vintage, yet modern charm of Airstream trailers, the magazine-size ad contains basic info about the trailers and subtle design allusions to the Airstream's glorious design in the lines and shapes in the background. The logo in the upper-left is a redesign I created from a vintage Airsteam postcard. Successful hard good ads emphasize multiple aspects of their products like durability, the brand's good track record, nostalgia, and value.

The ad on the right is an ad for Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars. The simple, clean design fits with the ad's message and makes it quick to read, perfect for the usual customers of Nutri-Grain bars: busy moms.Soft good ads are often simpler, advertising one or two immediate aspects of the product like quality, trendiness, or current need (you know you're hungry!).

Both ads feature my signature text and line work.

(note: grey bars around the Nutri-Grain ad are a product of the screen capture process, and are not in the actual design)

Menu

Menus present a special problem for designers. The print must be readable and quickly scanned, but a plain layout won't suffice in many modern restaurants where they rely heavily on themes and decor to sell their image. A menu is one of the first portals into brand recognition. The menu is the control point for the food a customer orders. A tiny descriptive mistake or flourish placed on the menu can greatly affect a particular dish's sales!
This menu design was created between Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. It is for the Firehouse Bar and Grill, which touts it's sexy vintage charm. The design is entirely from scratch, using vintage pin-up art from the 1950s. The image is currently resting at about 50% actual size; in reality, the menu is designed for legal size paper.

Direct Mail

Direct mail (or JUNK mail) is slowly becoming a problem of the past thanks to email spamming efforts. Still, direct mail is often a low-cost way to mass advertise with the slightly more personal edge of actually putting something tangible in a mail box that your audience can hold in their hand (even if just to crumple it up).
This direct mail card was developed in Adobe Illustrator. This in-class partnered assignment dictated that we discover our partner's interests and cater a Direct Mailing to them. I was partnered with a fellow who was highly entertained by Vikings and cosplay, so I created a (fictional) company that might appeal to his interests.

Brochure

Created in Adobe Illustrator, this prochure for The Gallery Gallery showcases the wonders that photo, shape, and text layering can produce. Color, line and text are the most important element of my designs adn this brochure showcases how these simple elements can mesh into something complex and energetic. The formatting for this brochure is double-sided, so the three panels on the left are the outside while the three panels on the right are the inside.

Newsletter

The newsletter is perhaps one of the fastest-changing pieces of literature as well as one of the most common. Newsletters for clubs, companies, organizations, and businesses play a vital role in keeping the community informed and close-knit. Alumni associations, though rather tedious, would loose almost all of their luster if it weren't for the newsletter. Whether a single-sided page or an 8 page booklet, newsletters have transformed from mini-newspapers into a whole separate form. The internet as provided yet another outlet for the publication of newsletters and with a new media comes new challenges. The tradition text-oriented newsletter has been replaced with graphics as human communication begins to rely even more heavily on visual elements. Play with these in your newsletters! The key is to still provide all the necessary information without making it dull.

This newsletter is an exposition of my Adobe Illustrator skill and my love of bold line and color. Textual elements play an important role in all my designs. Never downplay the importance of fonts! I created a logo for my (fictional default) company and wrote the articles as well as designing the newsletter layout.

Quirky Wedding Invitation

Made between Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, this light-hearted wedding invitation was fashioned for an older couple who were celebrating their new life together in Hawaii. Since the wedding is an informal ceremony on the beach, the invitation reflects the breezy style of the tropics. The biggest edit (lovebird owners will note) is that the birds closed eyes are dark instead of their usual white. This was done by request.
Wedding invitations hid under formal wraps of multiple envelopes, ribbons, seals, and stickers for ages, but as society become more casual and fast paced, there is room for light-hearted wedding invites for everyone. Don't send a formula letter! Your wedding day should be an expression of who you are as a couple, good, bad, crazy, kooky, or outrageous!

(Phone number is a fictional default)

Real Estate Poster

This real estate advertisement was produced entirely in Adobe Illustrator. Everything was done from scratch, without a template, and made to perfectly match the style and color scheme of the Century21 website. The information is all default and can easily be swapped out for different homes, agents, or price changes. It works best for web viewing with the white text and the black background, but simply switch the colors and the flyer is readily printable.

Sometimes it surprises me how little effort people put into selling their houses. Homes are the biggest hard good most people will buy and sell in their lifetime. Hard goods are naturally more difficult to sell, so a good advertising campaign would seem like a basic step in the process, yet even with prevalence of easy-to-use digital cameras and the plethora of inexpensive (and FREE) advertising space available on the internet and in print, some people still post uninformative, incomplete, rather boring advertisements, if they make an effort at all! There is no excuse for a real estate ad not to have good, clear photos that show off the features of the home and a well-rounded list of amenities, contact information, and the house size, age, and location. This is all the very basic and can easily be fit into a variety of simple, clean layouts that showcase the house in an eye-catching way. Did I mention to include contact information? Because if I didn't , I need to remind you to include your contact information.

Hint: It's an amateur's mistake to take pictures of a house's removable decor alone. Yes, a giant bed covered in pillows may look nice, but doesn't provide any pertinent information about the structure of the room and may even crowd out architectural details. If a house is difficult to furnish, however, a skilled interior designer can work with the photographer to showcase a room's potential. Pictures of crown moldings, windows, built-ins and any outstanding architectural details are a must!

Event Poster and Postcard

Irony is important in my designs, so I make it a point to add wit and humor wherever I can in my work. This poster/postcard set was a joint effort between the photo wonder of Adobe Photoshop and the text mastery of Adobe Illustrator. The photos (of Surrealist painters Dali and Magritte) were manipulated in Photoshop, removing Dali's signature mustache with the "heal" tool and repainting it on his pet and placing the face of Magritte onto an apple. The artist, show, and gallery are all my default, fictional names when doing non-client work.

Basic Tear-Away Sale Flyer with a Twist

This basic tear-away (or tab) flyer was made by editing the background and images in Adobe Photoshop and adding the text in Adobe Illustrator. I decided that doing a regular tab flyer was too boring, so I jazzed it up with a Monty Python reference. Getting the blood splatter just right was an excellent design challenge.

InDesign Worksheet

A simple refresher piece made to explore the many basic tools available in Adobe InDesign.