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Postcoddities
multimoog
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Registered User regular
I'm doing a promotional postcard for a client's bellydancing academy. This is the very first of the roughest rough drafts, combining her original suggestions with some of my own ideas. I wouldn't mind some feedback on it.
She specifically wanted it to have very little color, and the focus on the dancer should be the upper body. I'm not sure about those fonts - if anyone has any suggestions for specific ones, that'd be cool. There's no business information on the front of the card, as that's all going on the back.
To reiterate: This is not a finished product, but a rough draft.
She specifically wanted it to have very little color, and the focus on the dancer should be the upper body. I'm not sure about those fonts - if anyone has any suggestions for specific ones, that'd be cool. There's no business information on the front of the card, as that's all going on the back.
To reiterate: This is not a finished product, but a rough draft.
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Argh beat'd but yeah. I do like the idea and the two different ladies though
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Well, yeah.
How would you resolve the separating of the two characters, if not with boxes? What I'd really like are comments on some better fonts and what I could do to make it look basic (like the client wants) but a bit LESS bland.
I didn't create this or anything i'm just giving you an example of a sign.
That's the big problem when you're working for a client versus making something for yourself - sometimes they have these ideas that they just won't let go of, no matter how bad you know they are.
INSTAGRAM
Unless you're printing this at Office Max or Kinko's, if you subtract one color you can get this printed at 3 colors and save a lot of money.
I have several critiques as to the composition. It's very boring. To me, the word 'BellyDancing' should be the most dominant because if you see if from far away this is what's going to attract ppl. As it stands now the title's text hierarchy is too uniform, you have to tell ppl where to look first. Look at this interesting article on package design, it might help.
I hate that sad girl, it shouldn't be there because it's contradicting the message on top. I'd much rather have just the happy girl, I wouldn't want my services associated in any way to something other than what I'm advertising. You could argue that the sad girl doesn't matter much cuz the happy girl is next to her, the problem is that you don't know which way the reader is gonna focus on. Happy or sad?
Also, the warning label doesn't work. It's the classic example of someone wanting to fit all the benefits of their product on a single ad. If you give ppl to many benefits and choices, it's unlikely they'll remember you. The way you focus on the benefit is figuring out what belly dancing does that nothing else offers and focus only on that.
Where does the contact information go?
I'm gonna stop here, because I'll go on for ever. But the way I'd do this ad is, using the happy girl, i'd blow her up to take most of the paper and have the word BELLYDANCING curved with her body. Use the girl's curves to guide the viewer's eye.
I have one last critique, and it's the title. "Belly Dancing Makes you Happy", from a psychological point of view this is not efficient way to apeal to ppl because you're telling the person how they feel. It works better if you make the person want to be happy by implying that they'd be happy if they danced. I didn't want to mention this part because it requires a lot of thinking to get that line just right and all I can offer is "Bellydancing makes me happy", like if the drawing was talking.
EDIT:
I wonder how much better it would look if you substituted the black for a similar style orange you have on the girl.
Also consider changing your font to something more catchy:
Instead of:
Bellydancing makes
you happy!
try:
Bellydancing makes you
HAPPY
edit: (pretend "HAPPY" in the second example is centered)
Addtional tips:
Try experimenting with different fonts and sizes that are funky or exciting looking.
Try also making the word "happy" a different font and size then the rest of the statement.
Consider contrasting the fonts accompanying the "before" and "after" images.
The other problem is that even though they're your original sketches, the style of them is similar to the basic clipart found in MS office.
With the two combined you get the effect that you spent maybe ten minutes finding the two pictures and throwing the text on the page, which isn't good.
I spent ten minutes sketching the characters and throwing the text up, yeah, as a first draft to get the concept across. I'm changing the font (Hello, Gill Sans! Which is really much better than Arial Black, or even Helvetica for something like this) and playing around more with the sizes. Like, as we speak.
The client agrees on the characters - specifically the 'Before' woman. Her specific comment was that the jogger 'should look a little more miserable, and like she wasn't moving so fast', so I'm glad that got caught early in the process. I do like the contrast in lines, though - making the jogger all angles and straight lines, to show how stiff and uncomfortable jogging is against the fluid movement of dancing. Though I'm not sure if that's what you meant, Rolo - it seems like you're against the idea of using cartoon characters versus life-study drawings or photos.
Unfortunately she seems really dead-set on having the little warning be on the bottom, there, so I'm going to try and make the copy a little more appropriate, like "Studies Show: Bellydancing Makes You HAPPY!* and have the asterisk connect to a "Studies performed by the Hannan Studio (the name of the client). Side effects may include..." Just so the jokey disclaimer pulls together a little better with the rest of the ad. As I said, the downside to working for a client versus doing it for yourself.
Oh no, I'm not at all against the cartoon characters, it's just the style is oh-so-close to the MS office clipart that people might assume it is MS office clipart, and that coupled with the rather minimalist design and background makes the entire thing look like it was made entirely in MS Word.
If you add some unifying elements, like a background or text that's drawn in to work with your characters it'd probably help to emphasize that these are hand-drawn cards, and custom illustrated by you instead of just two graphics pulled from a clipart library.
Cool, cool, I wasn't sure if I was getting my wires crossed or what. Yeah, the characters could both stand to have a little more 'character' to them. Fortunately there's no looming deadline so I can do a lot more working with them.
EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. Thank you for your time and input. The world wasn't ready for Manet in his time, either, but I'm sure that in 20 years this postcard will have acheived the recognition it deserves.
Tthey say that "Sex Sells", does that extend to LOLPENIS humour?
I just need to see an optometrist I guess, seeing as how I can't read/see very well.