A few days back, I mentioned the marathon that was school and the raft of final projects that were due. Here’s the first in the series of projects. I was really pleased with how everything turned out.
This first project was for a studio class. (It’s basically a student-run creative agency that does real-world work for clients here in Sacramento.) Each graphic design student was paired with a photography student and given the task of choosing an existing ad campaign and designing an ad that would have fit logically into said campaign. If it was a print ad, the newly created ad had to look on-brand and advance the theme presented in the previously existing ads. (For instance, one pair of students did their version of the Diesel “Be Stupid” ads.)
I took a slightly different tack and chose the Bud Light “Too Light, Too Heavy” ad campaign, which is entirely a TV ad campaign. There were no print ads for reference, so the challenge was to come up with a situation that could be interpreted quickly in one or two shots. This was the result (call it “The Haircut”):
Now that was a fun shoot. How often do you get to tote around garden shears and act like you’re going to cut a chunk of hair out?
Everyone asked me if we actually cut the guy’s hair. We didn’t. That’s all hairstyling, baby. (Many thanks to my friend Lisa Williams for serving as not only the hairstylist, but the model holding both the scissors and the shears. And another friend of mine, Corey Hill, graciously let us ‘fro his very fluffy real-life hair.)
Several ideas were batted around for the ad, including a version at a doctor’s office where the Too Heavy would have been a doctor swinging a mallet to check a guy’s reflexes. But in the end, the haircut idea was the easiest to execute. My photographer, Janelle Robinson, and I thought about shooting this at an actual salon, but as it turned out, we didn’t really need to because both photos were so close up.
This project definitely helped me flex some art direction muscle, not to mention the post-production Photoshop skills I haven’t used in a while. It was also just neat to see this start from the concept in my mind to the actual print product.
As a side note, this piece won a silver award at the Sacramento City College Graphic Communications Student Showcase. Woot!
