Design for Advertising Evaluation

Daniel Edwards

Can design

Because I don’t have a large design on either of my cans, there are aren’t any large examples of technical quality shown throughout my work, only small things I have done to further my design.On the silver can, I have altered the barr logo by making it blue and orange rather than the original red and blue. This was done because I wanted my design to have a feature few others did. The colour combination is of course famously associated with IRN-BRU and helps adds a smaller element of realism. I did this by opening up the image in Photoshop and using the magic wand tool to select all the space outside of the letters, and changed the colours to the one’s I needed.I also set out calories, fat, sugar etcetera information out in a similar fashion to the way IRN-BRU do on their own products. This was done using the elliptical tool to create a narrow circle, and then cutting out the bottom using the polygonal lasso tool. I feel this adds depth to the design and gives it a classy and composed look.The font I used for the IRN-BRU title was Bebas Neue. I added a small stroke to it which helps it look more like IRN-BRU’s actual font design. Because it is sans serif, it also works alongside my idea of making my work a more professional, mature piece.All the information on the back of the can is true to what is in an actual can of IRN-BRU 32. I found all the ingredients on various websites, including IRN-BRU’s own website.The use of a real barcode helps the design look as though it could be seen on a real product in a store. I used the rulers on Photoshop to line it up perfectly height and width wise with the word ‘Ingredients’ further up the can.

A clear issue I can see with my blue design is that I haven’t stretched the image out to the top of the can on the left of the two, and this leads to the design having an unfinished and messy look. The design is supposed to be reminiscent of the back of a football shirt belonging to the Scottish national team, hence the ‘IRN BRU’ being in place of the footballers name and 32 being the number on his/her back. The font I used is as similar as I could find to the one Scotland are currently using.

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Magazine advertisement page 1

My first poster involved a picture of Kenny Dalglish holding a Liverpool shirt with his name on the back. I edited this by deleting the text on the shirt and adding in my own, ‘IRN-BRU’ with the number 32 underneath. To make this look more realistic I found the exact Premier League font online and downloaded it onto Photoshop. I then proceeded to change the colour of the shirt and seats in the background from red to orange, to work with IRN-BRU’s colour scheme. I did this using the Hue/Saturation tool.Another small feature I added was the lion from the centre of the crest for the Scottish national team. I did this using the magic wand tool.Out of the 5 designs I created this is my least favourite. I feel the blue is slightly too bright and some of the text is difficult to read. Because I attempted to recreate the Scottish flag at the bottom of the design, it feels like two separate posters and looks very unprofessional.

For my second poster I decided I needed something a little more subtle, and wanted to include some kind of slogan. From a technical standpoint the poster is very limited but despite this I do believe it is my best design. If I were to change one thing it would be the blue stroke around the 32, at first I thought I needed this to maintain the design I had on my previous posters but I no longer think it is needed and believe the design would look better without it.

For my third poster I stuck to what brought me success with my second poster. I used the polygonal lasso tool to cut out Murray’s hands and then took the picture of the IRN-BRU 32 can I designed from my second poster. I had to use the healing brush tool to get rid of the trophy he was holding. I like the simplicity of this design and feel I did a good job of making it look as though he was holding the can. It look multiple efforts to make it look even slightly realistic and I ended up having to add in a drop shadow so there wasn’t such a sudden differential in colour from hand to can.

All of these posters come across as very pro-Scotland. Though this was my intention as I wanted to cater towards the Scottish market, I didn’t intend for it to be quite so strong.

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Magazine advertisement page 2

When moving on to my fourth design I decided I needed to deviate from the pro-Scotland theme, though I still wanted it to be sports-based. I had the idea of finding a picture of LeBron James holding a basketball and switching the places of the ball and his head to add some light humour. After multiple failed attempts at correctly placing his head under his hands I decided to try a new idea. I used the magnetic lasso tool to create a new layer consisting of only his head and enlarged it greatly using the free transform tool. I then added in a black background and attempted to make the 32 reminiscent of a basketball scoreboard. If I were to change something and develop the idea further I would use a different font for the 32 to make it look digital so it is clearer that it’s a scoreboard.Although limited I do believe the colour scheme works well because it looks more professional than it would have done if it were IRN-BRU’s orange and blue.Another thing I would change is the placement of the slogan, as I am not convinced it is easy to read when only looking at the design for a few seconds.

For my fifth design I wanted to go back in popular Scottish culture and decided to work my design around the film Trainspotting. My design is based on a poster that was used to promote the film and shares the same colour scheme and layout. From a technical point of view this design took minimal effort as all that was needed was to change the can to black and white and create multiple text layers. I elongated the ‘R’s in the title to create more similarities with the film poster. I added in a few pro-Scotland remarks like ‘choose to listen to Franz Ferdinand, not Nickelback’ and ‘choose your heritage’.One thing I dislike about the design is that some of the orange text is difficult to read when it overlaps the can, especially around the 32. To change this I think I would tone down the brightness of the can and up the contrast on all the text layers.One main positive I can draw from this piece is that I do believe I have created a design that is very similar to the poster I was attempting to replicate and fans of the film will be able to recognise it.

Web banner

For my first web banner design I decided I wanted some continuation from a previous magazine advert I had made, in hope of creating some kind of theme throughout multiple pieces. All that was needed was for me to copy and paste the layers from one piece to the other so out of all my designs this was by far the most simple.The difficulty I had was in deciding on where to put things like the Barr logo, my can design, the slogan, and the IRN-BRU title. I decided to scrap using the IRN-BRU title because I believed if I used the can it would be obvious who the banner was advertising as the can is clearly visible. In retrospect, I don’t think this looks very good, and if I were to remake the banner, I would do the opposite. One positive is that it’s easy to recognise as a direct copy of the magazine advertisement, and the subtlety of the slogan and image still have the same effect.

For my next design I attempted to recreate the famous goal scored by Scottish footballer Archie Gemmill at World Cup ’78. At first I attempted to create my own birds-eye view of a football pitch, but as it was taking up a lot of my time, a picture off of Google had to suffice. Because the image wasn’t of the best quality, it has lead to the design not looking very easy on the eye as it has become slightly blurred after I zoomed in, and because all of the copy on the banner is so small, it is very difficult to read unless you look closely. I did though add some kind of continuation from two other designs with the slogan ‘Irn-Bru, it makes that wee bit of difference.’I added in a famous quote about the goal from BBC Sport’s website to add some kind of historic authenticity.To someone that doesn’t know very much about football or sport in general this banner will likely have no effect, so if I were to remake it I would need to make the diagram of the goal more obvious and maybe provide more information on who was scoring it.Luckily, Scotland and the Netherlands play in orange and blue so it was easy for me to implicate IRN-BRU’s colour scheme into my work.I have noticed two errors in my work. The first being that underneath ‘Netherlands 2-3 Scotland, 1978’ there is a white line that needs to be filled with the green that covers the football pitch. The second being that I have forgotten to add in ‘32’ on the end of ‘IRN-BRU’ in the bottom left of my design, so anyone that views it will not actually know I am advertising IRN-BRU 32, only IRN-BRU.

Like with my Trainspotting magazine advert, I wanted to have a film themed web banner, so with my third design I chose the film The Shining. I edited in my can of IRN-BRU into the woman’s hand in the top right and changed the quote from “Here’s Johnny!” to “Where’s Jonni?” to give off the idea that the woman had stolen his IRN-BRU 32 and he was chasing after her to retrieve it. I changed the background colour to match that of the image and used a horror themed font from dafont.com called Friday 13th. I feel this design had more potential and that I haven’t executed it as best I could.If I could develop a better colour scheme and space the copy in a better fashion I think it could have been my best design. I don’t think what is happening will be clear enough to the average viewer of the banner.

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