Fall 2014- Creative Art Direction- Project 2

Topics: |  Project 2  |  Concept  |  Process  |  Result  |

Project 2- Word/Image Relationship
Our second project in my Creative Art Direction course was called the word/image relationship project. The goal was to take a single word and a single graphical element, and make them create a message.


Concept
My word was "revive," which turned out to be pretty fortunate for me. As I'd just finished reading Brave New World, and gotten through a chunk of 1984 again, I was in a very dystopian, cynical mindset. I came up with a few concepts immediately, which weren't bad, but would need a lot of work to make viable.

Process
Of the three concepts above, I decided to focus on the third one, the broken US Justice System. I tried to execute this, to give myself a better idea of what it would look like:

While not terrible, it didn't really work. My teacher and I agreed that it was a bit clunky, and the message behind something like this was open for interpretation. The goal of the project was to make a message that's immediately understandable by even the stupidest of the lowest common denominator. I decided the best way to go was to apply the K.I.S.S. principle (keep it simple, stupid) and greatly reduce the complexity. It was pointed out to me that the gavel is more universally recognizable than the Scales of Justice, as well.

For the execution, once I had my idea, I started looking for good images of a gavel. It would likely have been better if I'd gotten a gavel and taken the photo myself, but by the time I had a truly solid concept for my execution, I didn't have the time to order a gavel, and I wouldn't know where to even start looking at brick and mortar for one. I started looking around the internet, and found a photo very close to how I would have done the photography myself on iStock.

Once I had the photo, there was a bit more back and forth between my teacher and I on the best way to handle the execution. I wanted it to be gory and dark, which would fit my overall idea. Unfortunately, I couldn't manipulate realistic blood onto the gavel, since the idea just wouldn't form in my head. Finally, he made mention of Hitchcock, and my brain took off with it. I changed the image to black and white, printed out the photo, and went to town. After a good half hour of using a spoon and fork to work with chocolate syrup on the paper, I took an in-perspective photo, manipulated out some of the layers of chocolate, and worked a bit with the spray and stains.


Result
I think that the end result is pretty good. If I'd had a gavel myself, I could have probably made it more realistic and better matched the overall lighting and scale. As it is, though, I executed my idea and came out with a fairly clear ad.

Made using Compucow's "Judging" on iStock