Persuasive Series Initial Critique

Card 1

Card 2

Card 3

Card 4

Chocolate

Chocolate Box

The above images show the first round of concepts created for this Persuasive Series on Chocolate. I decided to create a post-breakup campaign that caters chocolate as a remedy for those rough times for girls (sorry guys, your series might come later!) The three media I chose were (1) a sympathy post-breakup card for friends/family to buy and give to the one in need of a little encouragement, (2) a small square chocolate that caters to people needing a little pick-me-up for their rough days, and (3) a small horizontal box of chocolates for people to either buy for themselves or others who are having a heart-ache or bad break-up. 

Though numerous cards were developed, cards 1-4 were my personal choice for the most effective designs and color combinations based off of the red-orange spot color I chose for this series. The first card reads, "His Loss...Your Gain" with a small space for the buyer to place a piece of chocolate when they send the card. Simple symbolism is used along with this text and a creative pattern covers the back of the card. The second card shows that chocolate is greater than guys, then on the inside reads "I always preferred chocolate anyways" and shows similar symbolism and layout. 

The chocolate bar label shows the same symbolism and sayings on it with a small four-piece chocolate bar that has the symbols imprinted on each square. It is meant to be a small, quick piece of chocolate that is enticing and inviting to the buyer as it is just the right size to not feel too guilty. This chocolate piece is also the perfect size to fit into the space provided in each of the cards and a display stand for these chocolates can be placed next to these cards for more cohesive marketing. 

The last box of chocolates also carries similar text and symbolism. The inside of the box shown above is meant to depict an empty tray of chocolates that has a symbol of the series on the bottom of each chocolate space. The buyer has a progressive interaction with the packaging and this helps to reinforce the branding of this campaign for chocolate. 

The suggestions that my classmates gave me were very useful: (1) to keep the card-back-pattern simple or even making the designs themselves smaller to make the pattern less dominant in relation to the text. Also, the white and warm orange-red cards seemed to be viewed as more effective; (2) the small chocolate bar should also refine the patterned design behind the label's front symbols in order to make the small design less busy. (3) the box pattern should also stay away from patterns that are too bold and dominant, however the concept itself works well. Overall, the feedback received was fairly positive and encouraged me to push the concepts further and work on formulating a plan for crafting the final products of this series. 

Persuasive Series Preliminary Concepts

The above images are the preliminary sketches for the Persuasive Series assignment. This project is a series of three forms of media that focus on the subject matter of the previous persuasive poster project. This series needed to be cohesive yet display variations as well, all the while still persuading our audience that our food of choice was the best/worst thing in the world. As you can probably see above, I chose to stay with promoting chocolate. I wanted simplicity to define my designs, and as a result I came up with the above preliminary sketches. The last five sketches focus on using simple symbols to convey a message, one that compares chocolate to guys. The others are slightly based on this theme as well, however these last 5 seem to be the most promising. 

Persuasive Poster Final

After taking into consideration the comments and suggestions given from the last progressive critique, I printed off 6 or so smaller variations of my poster with some of these changes. The image above is the final 2ft. x 3ft. design that I chose as a result of these comparisons. As you can see, the final design does not deviate very far from the design and layout of the progressive critique posters. However, some small changes can be pointed out. The "DARK" displayed at the top of the poster was enlarged and extended out to the right edge of the space which I think helps to eliminate the vertical column of blank white space that was there before. There is still a lot of open white space in the poster, but extending the "DARK" type out further helps to break this large area up.

Some other changes that were made include: (1) increasing the weight of the word "indulgence" in order to increase the contrast in relation to "guiltless," (2) eliminating the smaller group of words that described the benefits of dark chocolate as this text proved excessive and unnecessary in the overall design, and (3) making the extended chocolate drip hang above the baseline of the poster in order to add a sense of tension to the image. Some of these changes were minor, but I think that they helped the final design to be more simplified and clean, which was definitely an objective I wanted to achieve for this project. One thing that I would like to go back in and change is to make the transition between the letter "R" and the chocolate drip more smooth and gradual. This would help to make the image and the text more fluid and natural looking. In general, I really enjoyed doing this project and appreciated the process of refinement that I used to get to this final product.

Persuasive Poster Initial Critique

The initial critique of the persuasive poster was meant to see how the design, layout, and clarity of the concept was being conveyed at full scale size. The above images are three versions of my 2 ft. x 3 ft. persuasive poster promoting dark chocolate (note that the PDF format made some of the letters look thicker than they are in the original file). The first image reads "guiltless indulgence" with four lines of smaller type reading: 

antioxidant rich. 

endorphin stimulant. 

serotonin booster. 

need we say more? 

The second image has the same copy as just listed only it is placed at the base of the poster, and the third image omits the four lines of descriptives and only reads "guiltless indulgence." After receiving feedback  from my fellow classmates about how to best improve the design of this poster, I feel like there was a general consensus that "less is more" in reference to the copy. I also felt this way going into the critique and was glad to have my initial thoughts confirmed about leaving out the four lines listed above. Saying that, the third image above was viewed as the most successful of the three. I will continue to push the design of this third poster to enhance the design and the layout, for example it was suggested to have the end of the drip be visible above the base of the poster to encourage a sense of tension with the image. Other suggestions about the weight of the type and the spacing of the letters were given as well, and the final poster will definitely use these critiques to enhance the final design.