Advertising: Research - more in depth

     For my final project I need to create an advertisement connected to my BA, which is animation. I struggled a little bit to create an idea of what I can advertise that would be in the animation alley, therefore I did research and decided that I want to make an advert for an animation festival. 

I had researched already existing animation festivals and I was surprised with how many there are. Personally, I have attended an animation festival twice in my life, Halo Echo festival in Wroclaw, Poland and Oko Kalejdoskopu festival in Toruń, Poland. 

The one that I got interested in researching is Ottawa International Animation Festival that happens every year in Ottawa, Canada. I found pictures of OIAF advertisements and I think they are really interesting. I believe that researching pictures of already existing adverts will help me get an idea of what kind of layout, fonts and the general atmosphere those have. 

This year's OIAF poster looks like this: 

OIAF (2020)

    This poster is just an illustration, it does not have a photograph involved, it is why it will not be too big of an inspiration for me, however I find it interesting. Firstly, colors used: blue and orange are complementary colors in the RYB color model, therefore they contrast with each other extremely well. I also like the dynamics of this image. It is not simplistic, it has a lot going on and that makes it surprising. In my opinion, most posters now are simple and minimalistic. This one argues with what I thought and it is an element of surprise that is desired in an advert. It makes me think "what is this advertisement for?"  and "why is it so vibrant?". I like the font of the text, because it is very vibrant. It reminds me of screaming and in this case, that is probably what the artist wanted to achieve. It is not written in a straight line, and that is why it is more difficult to read. It can be both a good and a bad thing. "My inspiration for the poster was festival-goers trying to get a front row seat for one of the best animation festivals in the world." (Karacas) 

A different example of an OIAF poster is this one: 

"Trump bunny" (2019)

This image is more minimalistic and I highly enjoy it. It is a photograph of Donald Trump's face with a bunny face mask and a little monster tying the mask in the background. the foreground is centralized. The background is plain and it is colored blue and I think colors blue and pink go really well together. What I think is very important in this poster is the fact that it is funny but it carries a strong message. It says "Take a break from fake news", therefore it is making an allusion that American government is lying. Concluding, there is a serious message portrayed, but in a silly way. In this poster I really like the font, which is a sans-serif font, easy to read and it looks serious. I think it is good that a sans-serif font was chosen because serifs could be taking viewer's attention from the image and that is not the effect the creator wanted. 

Another example is: 

"Plastic Bag" (2019)

This us another outstanding example of connecting a picture with an illustration and using just two well contrasting colors, in this case, raspberry pink and light green. Also it is another poster that is carrying a strong message but the image is silly and funny. Here the foreground objects are again in the center of the poster but the creature is bringing the eyes to itself and it is positioned using the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a basic rule of photography, this rule says that if the image was divided by lines into nine equal rectangles (3 rows, 3 columns) then most important things in the picture should be where the lines intersect. I think remembering about the rule of thirds is really important when creating a design, because it makes the design look more interesting. 

This is a good example of the rule of thirds in photography: 

Image source: URL 

Looking at those three examples, I think the layout is really important and it is critical to take it into consideration. I believe that the rule of thirds could really bring attention to the design, therefore I think I am going to use it while planning my own advert. Also I highly enjoy connecting photography with digital art, I think that would be a great idea for my final piece. I am going to use a Procreate drawing application to add digitally drawn elements to the picture. 

What also really inspired me in while during this research is showing an important message in a silly way. I believe it lets people think about it for a little more and I think it is a good use of the element of surprise. No one is expecting a serious moral from a very silly design, so it is unpredictable, just as mentioned in my previous post, the element of surprise is something we are aiming for while wanting to advertise something. 

In my opinion, the creators of the posters above, did an outstanding job, especially with the 2019 posters (the second and the third poster mentioned). The poster from this year is different and it is not something I am aiming for personally, but it is a greatly made poster anyway. Personally, I enjoy minimalism and simplicity in the adverts I see. 

I think this research will help me a lot when planning and creating my own advert for a Animation Festival. I feel very inspired by what I saw today and it will surely help me later on. 

Works Cited 

Karacas Christy, "About the poster", Ottawa International Animation Festival

Published: n.d.

URL: https://oiaf2020.ca/

Date accessed: 16 Oct 2020