by Fiona Humberstone on July 28, 2010 · 2 comments
Monday’s brainstorming session highlighted some interesting ideas on photography for me. As graphic designers we always appreciate a good image, and I consider us to be pretty good at giving our clients a steer on what will make a good photograph: great lighting, clear, simple and in a style that fits with the brand. But over the next month or so I’m going to be art directing a photoshoot for a bridal jewellery company, and I’ve started thinking a lot more creatively about how we can bring the brand and the product to life.
Great product shots don’t just show the product well, it’s not just about having a good photographer. Great product shots that sell will bring the product to life. And just like an exhibition stand that creatively brings out the essence of the product or service, so your photography should do the same.
Let me share a few examples with you.
The White Company is particularly good at this with their scented products. Take a look at their catalogue or website. We don’t, yet, have the capability to be able to smell through the web, but you can still get an evocatively clear idea of what you’re going to smell just by looking at the images. Why? Because they’ve thought about the ingredients of each product and photographed beautifully the ingredients. And take a look at the product shot at the top of this post. Just at a glance you know that those products are going to smell of Lavender. It’s not rocket science, but it is very powerful and it does take thought and care.
I love Diana Phillips’ quirky take on styling her photos. Not content with the standard “pose” of a chocolate (usually isolated on a white background or one in focus with the rest blurred in the background) Diana and her photographer have had a bit of fun. Each shot is a work of art and gives a bit of a feel for what you can expect. These have not just been styled, they’re absolute works of art. And they fit perfectly with Diana’s upmarket branding.
So next time you reach for the light tent for a bit of product photography, take a step back and think about the content. How can you bring your product to life? How can you style it to really get people to engage with what you’re doing? And will your ideas fit with your brand? Happy snapping!
in Branding, Graphic Design
by Fiona Humberstone on July 27, 2010 · 0 comments
Sysco Guest Supply are a multi billion dollar business who supply amenities such as bubble bath and shampoo to hotel chains like the Marriot and Hilton worldwide. To say that they’re upmarket bubble bath suppliers probably doesn’t do them quite justice! They have an impressive portfolio of both clients and suppliers and are responsible for placing brands such as Hermes, Aromatherapy Associates, Bulgari and Kiehls in top end hotels. In addition to this they also design, manufacture and distribute both their own brand products and create branded toiletries for hotel chains as well.
They approached Flourish to help them create a brochure that would encourage new clients to pick up the phone and arrange a meeting. We’ll be doing the design work over the next few weeks and the first stage was a mood board session to establish both the look and feel and the structure of the brochure. I love working on mood boards with clients. It all seems a little random when we suggest them to clients – how on earth is a bit of cutting and sticking going to make a difference to their design they wonder? And is it really worth the money? Well the feedback from each and every client we’ve done this with so far is categorically yes.
Alice, Sysco’s Marketing Manager, and I started by focusing on what made Sysco Guest Supply unique and the impression we wanted to create. We then brainstormed how the brochure might be structured. Immediately we noticed that our quick response plan lacked customer focus, so we spent some time thinking hard about who Sysco Guest Supply’s clients are and what motivates them to buy. This is often a really valuable exercise for our clients as they suddenly realise that all customers are not created equal, and even in these times, not all are motivated by price.
Understanding who Sysco’s clients were and what motivated them to buy enabled us to prioritise them in order of who Alice wanted to focus her energies on with this brochure. Very quickly and simply we were able to come up with a strong angle for the brochure, and voila, with a bit of jiggery pokery we slotted in a couple of extra spreads into the plan which suddenly made a very company focused brochure suddenly very customer focused.
Even if you don’t have a brochure, do this with your website. You’ll be amazed at the number of websites that are company rather than customer focused.
Anyway, back to the mood board. Within an hour and a half Alice and I had a plan. We’d sketched out roughly the content and order of each page and Alice had a plan that she could use for when she writes the copy up this week. We can also use it to give to the studio when it comes to the design work.
Next up was the cutting and sticking. Armed with a pair of scissors and a stash of catalogues and magazines we cut out images that reflected the stylish, luxurious and professional image we’d like the brochure to have. With our shortlist we then weeded out those that didn’t fit, and with the help of Caroline, the Flourish Studio Manager were able to create the fabulous mood board you see below.
I do realise that this just looks like an effortless collection of images, but trust me when I say that each and every one of those images has been carefully considered and placed on that mood board for a reason. Sometimes it’s about being literal, but more often than not we use these mood boards to think laterally, evoke feelings and spark our creativity. It’s also a fantastic way for the Account Director, Art Director and Client to ensure that we’re all on the same page before we start a job, and the output is so much better for it.
Alice’s comments at the end summed up what was a really fun and very productive morning. She admitted that she’d been sceptical about the value in the mood board but now that she had done it, could absolutely see the benefits. She said it was one of the most fun mornings she’d had in her working life. Praise indeed!
Tagged as:
creative brainstorming,
mood board,
sysco guest supply
tagged as creative brainstorming, mood board, sysco guest supply in Case Studies, Graphic Design, In The Studio This Week, Mood Boards
