A Poster Sample for work. It is a mock-up poster ad - for a Urban Youth Outdoor Recreation organization - to demonstrate texture, color and tonal values that our machine is capable of. Ad work is still something new to me, but I have fun doing it. Wish I got to do more but these are just samples, which I only get to do on occasoin, and they're also not the real thing. There are other sample items in the works, like bookmarks, trade cards, banners, table tents, etc.

Origional Print Size: 12x17, 300dpi CMYK
I put this together using Adobe InDesign, Ilustrator and Photoshop CS2, on my PowerPC iMac G5.

To create the ad montage used several stockart photos which I photo-manipulated and color corrected to fit the theme. The rock cliffs and water are from one image, and there was a boy leaping across that I replaced with the skater to better represent a more "urban" youth figure. I had to replace the sky, as the previous one was dull and uninteresting; to note, i've had to adjust the contrast, sharpening and colors to make this sky fit with the rest or the image. Also, masking out the cliffs and water to look realistic with the replaced sky was daunting. Same with masking the person out and replacing him with another. The skater has several layers of bluring (radial, gaussian, and motion) to give the effect of movement, as well as color correction and contrast adjustment. The "Mind The Gap" image is from a stock photo of a train platform, there are several layers of color correction, curves and unsharpening to give more depth. I created the text graffiti in photoshop, which I warped, rasterized and broke into several layers with varying effects, opacity and blending to create a spray paint style. The "Big Time Adventures" logo was inspired from a similar organization's logo (the name and tagline have been changed) and the colors and styling of text were altered. I placed the photo montage, mock logo, and my company info into InDesign, so the layout would be easily alterable (we need to change things often for sizing purposes, additional info, and for international distribution).

I like it, for one of my first real "ad" designs. Though there are some color issues noticable, especially when printed; the sky and water is slightly too purple, the rocks are a litte too contrasted as well as displaying some yellowing in the highlights. Also I was told (after being instructed to replace the original youth with a more "urban" one) that the skater leaping across looked too risky and could be a point of concern, plus he is possibly too blurry (uh, duh, motion!!!), so I might have to replace him yet again. Finding good, clean and crisp "urban" youths leaping wasn't easy. I hope I can convince them to keep it, but I'll try to make an alternate version incase. And do you know how long it takes to make one of these, especially if you're still relatively new at it, let alone just coming up with the concept? A freaking long time!

But I enjoyed working on this and look forward to my other projects ahead. I like my job, but when I get to do these, I love it. As long as they leave me alone and allow me to work. I have other responsibilities that require my attention, that are not exactly creative, but just as important.

Please feel free to comment!