2nd Project - Branding

Continuing with the "stationary and pens" category, I started thinking about it and what I actually use stationary and pens for. I am a HUGE card person, especially with handwritten "Thank You" cards (my grandmother taught me well). I just want people to understand that when they do something for me, it is truly appreciated and I am grateful enough to take the time to express it on paper. So while shopping in Target, I found it!

Now I must admit, I actually needed some thank you notes and I tend to buy boxes of them at a time. But why? Well for one, yes they are pretty. However, there is also 24 of them in a box for $5.99 - if I buy a single, it's usually $1.5 - $2.00 a piece so obviously this saves me and I have them handy for multiple occasions. Thus began the thought process of the second project...

In the assignment, we were to think of a way to brand the product of choice - to highlight "its unique qualities, its assets and its potential uses." We were to consider our audience and create an ad that would attract them to purchase. In thinking about my audience, typically women write handwritten cards (for themselves, their husbands, and their children), usually 20+ but I decided on ages 20 - 40; I thought about all the various reasons why a woman in that age group would send a thank you card - a gift received for a birthday, graduation, wedding, or having a baby; to thank a friend for being there or hug; to thank someone for caring for them while sick; or even to thank hubby for babysitting or washing the dishes...the list could go on and on. So in my mind, I began to see these "snapshots" of memories that would be displayed and in the end, I could highlight the product and this is what my first design looked like:

I actually used Google Picasa to create the entire ad. They have several coloring options and I used the focal black & white feature to create the ad. Initially, I thought of using Sepia - to match the brown in the cards, but it was too "matchy" and really didn't provide a clean look. Following my desk critique, I removed one of the extraneous photos (mom helping the son...that really didn't fit the action of my target audience) and used Corel to give me a little more control over the photos than Picasa. The major suggestions of the desk crit were to show someone actually writing a card and to highlight the box a bit more. I did find a photo of someone writing that I thought would really highlight the action of writing a thank you, but I chose not to highlight the box. The strategy of thought was to highlight the many reasons why one would need many cards. The box itself is not the focal point, but what is contained in it. My final design is below:


I toiled and toiled with the coloring of the font. I actually created four different drafts, but finally decided on this one. The white lined in aqua actually matched the card and seemed to stand out the best. My final critique comments were that the cards actually seemed to get lost; again, the box should have been highlighted. The action of writing the card seemed to be lost...perhaps less photos would have given me the ability to convey the message without the text getting lost in the photo. I persevere...