I have decided to move forward with the campaign concept as this is the one that I am most confident in at this moment in time. It is the one which I feel I will be able to do best.
The first thing I did was look into the Syfy branding. For the branding, Syfy employed Proud Creative, a London based design studio.
Proud Creative for Syfy
Brand Guidelines have been developed, and while I can't see them, I can see the colours, and I think that it'd be good to incorporate these into the campaign. They have quite a variety and are bold, so I think they would work well. The typeface developed is bespoke to Syfy, and is not available to have in this project, so I will have to try find something similar.
Brand colours:
In terms of visuals, I wanted to make it quite fun and interesting, and perhaps create a campaign identity through the use of these secondary colours and how they work.
Initial Idea
My initial idea is to create a footer design to go at the bottom of all the promotional material. This would be the identity, and would be made up of colours strips, using two or three of the brand colours, shown above.
The image above is my initial thoughts into this footer. It's bold and eye catching, and would contrast against imagery. The colours could potentially switch, depending on the content.
The main point that Syfy wants to get across is their passion of sic-fi and greatness. With this, I had the idea of putting a quote or saying about greatness, as it's something everyone will recognise and relate to.
In terms of imagery, I was a bit unsure what to do, but for the moment I settled on imagery of a program featured on Syfy. I decided on a purple monotone image to get the brand colour across a bit more obviously.
While I like the banner at the bottom, I'm not too sure about the use of large imagery or the quote. I think it's quite a small concept and will get old very quickly, so something with a bit more room and diversity is needed.
I had a second idea which follows the same format with the colour banner, but experiments on it more. Instead of having quotes about greatness, I thought about the use of just a few words to put across the message that Syfy want the audience to know, and having more of a focus on them than having to involve imagery of a program featured on the channel.
The concept to this idea is simple. The black indicates where imagery would go. I'm not too sure what this would be, but it would be something abstract and representative of sci-fi. I think that this is a stronger concept in terms of what the brief is asking for, and is going in the right direction, however I think that the design needs developing to something more sophisticated and professional.
I added the small tagline 'passionate programming for passionate fans'. At the minute it's a bit of a filler text as it isn't necessarily what I want to be on the final posters, however it is along the same lines of what I would want. I am a bit concerned about the overuse of 'passion' in this poster. It is there three times and perhaps is a bit too strong. In the concept the brands passion for sci-fi shouldn't be written so obviously, but shown clearly and meaningfully.
In terms of the design, I do like the footer still. I think it works better without the logo there. Before it had to be quite large to fit the logo in, but if I make the logo the main centre of the design instead of in the footer, it allows for the footer to be more subtle and look much better.
While I like this concept, as said the execution needs to be refined. I think trying the large text was important, but I definitely think it isn't needed and I can put the message across without it, or at least without it at that scale.
I took this idea and simplified it down to what was really needed in the design - the logo and tagline. I also decided to include the channel numbers as this explains to the viewer where to go to view it. I also decided on simplifying the layout design again, moving back to the initial idea of just having a footer.
I created two variations of this simplification.
The black indicates where there would be imagery - some abstract kind to represent the brand, not imagery of a program cast or something that directly relates to a program.
I think the second design works better with the information more spaced out and with less in the footer. I also like the addition of the Syfy logo in a triangle in the corner. I think this is something that I could use across all material, keeping this the consistent identity across the campaign.
I changed the tagline to 'the beating heart of sci-fi' - this is something a lot simpler and effective.
Happy with this design, I moved forward with choosing imagery. I thought what might look good is if I look at the NASA website etc and find imagery to do with space and true science fiction - this is something that everyone knows immediately and can relate to.
I looked on the NASA website and found imagery of a solar flare with UV rays, creating some really bold colours. I thought that it was a good start to choosing some imagery and would be good in seeing how it worked with the text and footer. I also think this kind of imagery works really well with Syfy's line of 'Imagine Greater'.
Again, I did two variations, one with a more zoomed in version of the imagery.
Once I had the imagery in place I moved the logo and type around to fit it better. I also added a drop shadow to the text to make it stand out against the imagery a bit more and give it a bit more of a raised look as vectors can sometime look a bit too flat.
I think that these work quite well, the zoomed in imagery worked a bit better. Working with the different areas shown on the channel - such as space, vampires etc. I could use imagery representative of each of these genres to create more material for the campaign.
Happy with the portrait version, I created a landscape version as there will be a variety of shapes and spaces where these posters could be placed.
Landscape version:
Overall I am quite happy with the way these posters look. I think the addition of the branding in the bottom right corner is something I can definitely move forward with and continue to use. I want to move forward by experimenting more with imagery and potentially using more drop shadows etc on the logo and text. I am also considering using different colours in the footer for each of the genres, creating a bit more of a colour palette to work with and fully utilise the brand colours. Doing this will keep the campaign a bit more interesting for the viewers.
No comments:
Post a Comment