Production - Single Page Advert

Here is a LINK to a short video I made showing the step by step production of the advert in Photoshop.

Right, here we go with the first of my two secondary tasks, a single page newspaper advert for my new Documentary show 'Chasing the Dream'. As you can see if you refer to the planning stages of my production, I had images in mind when designing layouts. In particular there are four images that are my absolute favourites, and this one is the most dynamic and fits the frame best leaving scope for text addition in many places.

My first step was to place the image into photoshop as there was little text needed, but much more manipulation of the advert's features and this is Photoshop's strong point. To make the image more contrasting and to make it far more eye catching when flicking through the dull black and white world of a newspaper, I decided to leave the foreground and myself riding in black and white so as to tie in with the basic codes and conventions of most adverts.

I then used the History brush tool to recolour in the sky. The history brush tool works by undoing what ever effect or manipulation you have placed on the image last and in this case, a total desaturation meant that the history brush was colouring back in my sky giving a fantasic, rich blue colour.

Once carefully gone round the foreground image with the history brush I had the image above. A few small tweaks of quality and saturation in the form of altering the number of pixels per mm and boosting the blues had me very happy with this background image.

So now it was time for text. The whole way through my project I had used the theme of accenting the word dream so as to make it the promenant feature in both my documentary excerpt and attached literature that making it to the Olympics really would be dream come true for me. To associate this page with main show, I used the same typeface and colourings and I feel it gives a nice sense of belonging to the overall page once able to relate it to my main project.

Now a brief, punchy synopsis of the programme was required. "Following young British athletes on their road to London 2012. Featuring Joel Wroe-Johnson, a British trials Champion on his quest for Olympic Gold" I was very please with thisbody of text as it gets accross the main theme of the show without giving too much away. This is the perfect combination as the aim is to give the reader enough information to base their opinion of whether or not it is the sort of show they may be interested in, without giving away the whole storyline producing a "Want to see" effect within the reader. The main point of the above image is showing that when written simply in a text box and left 'flat' the text looks very out of place as the image behind has perspective.

The answer to this problem was to rasterize the image giving me the ability to manipulate it as if it were an image. Through this i used the 'Warp' tool followed by the 'perspective' tool, all located in the drop down menu titled 'image'. Once constrained to the parallels of the building behind it, the text looked much more realistic and fitted well with the whole page.

I liked the effects of the above so much, that I decided to use the same theme with the scheduling information. The image above shows the text written in the same typeface as the other parts of the advert but in a much larger size so as to utilise the whole of the wall available. Again, without and manipulation, the text looks very static and out of place in it's current position.

Once rasterized I could again begin the process of warping and placing new perspectives upon the text. The main dificulty I found was gettin the bottom of the "9PM on E4" to line up with the bottom of the wall whilst maintaining a straight top line with "Wednesday 11th" to the top of the wall. This took a lot of switching between effects and making small, incrimental changes.
























So after the steps listed above, I had produced this. It complied with all the codes and conventions I stated previously and visually, was very striking. I just wasn't quite happy with it thought. Something about the text in the lower half of the page just didn't look quite professional enough. So I went in search of inspiration and found a new layout for the scheduling information that I tweaked slightly and then applied to my advert.


















So I started again with this blank, white wall. I kept the synopsis body of text but deleted the scheduling information and began to rebuild this in a more professional looking way, utilising the options that came with the typeface.


















Repeating the title in the scheduling information was something that I had not previously thought of doing until I studied a range of adverts in the same category as this one and realised that every single one of them used the title again and used some sort of definition such as italics or bolding. The wording of the actual time and date of the programme is a layout comprised from a combination of three different magazines, but that all fit together very easily as they follow largely the same constraints.


















Adding the already rasterized synopsis in below this new block of information seemed to fit very well and with them both in a slight perspective, tied into the image perfectly. It was at this point that I realised what had made the previous layout lack a certain element of professionalism. It was the extreme amound of perspective changing and warping carried out on the text that made it look slightly surreal and therefore did not serve it's purpose of blending into the image.


















The addition of some slightly angled lines top and bottom of the scheduling info set it apart from the synopsis below a little more and in my opinion, added the professional touch that I was looking for earlier in the production.
























So here it is, My finished advert. It was by no means the first draft, but I am actually very happy with the end result as when I first look at it, I can imagine it fitting into a magazine or newspaper very well, which was my main ambition and the set task.