Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A Healthy Dose of Truth on Cigarette Chemicals




For my campaign I chose the subjects of cigarettes, honing in on social smoking and targeting college students, particularly those first starting school and prone to experiment and trying new things to fit in. My general theme was to have a positive angle compared to existing, dramatized, negative advertisements and commercials.

Initially, I wanted to explore the cost of cigarettes and what you'd gain by quitting, or just not starting in the first place, especially since these are college students and don't have a lot of money to begin with (why they would spend it on something that harms themselves.)

This proved to be not as successful because my target audience didn't spend as much as I thought in a given time since they only smoked on occasion. The facts didn't allow me to create a message with as much impact as I would have liked.

So now I am playing around with the theme of all the chemicals produced by one cigarette. No matter how much one spends, everyone is absorbing a lot of deadly toxins. I want to keep a more positive spin to be more original, but haven't quite reached it.

To get the message across, I was thinking:
Posters
Stickers
Mock cigarette box with logo/design theme on outside and have ways to quit/advantages of not smoking rolled up to resemble the individual cigarettes

Right now the designs for the posters have an illustrative look with a few colors. I have other "design routes", but this is most recent.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

I'm really liking the way that you are going. I was worried that you were stuck on one idea and now it looks really nice and defined. I like how you put stats in there. The first one I think is your best one keep working it. The line that is coming from her mouth into her stomach it feels alittle off to me. Maybe try starting outside of her mouth like she is inhaling the cigarette. Good work looking good

chelsea d. said...

i agree with michelle, the top poster is definitely working the best. i really like how refined and artistic the poster feels. it seems like you are somehow combating the the notion that "smoking is cool/sexy" with a campaign that visually feels the same yet has a complete different message.

i think the three areas (posters, stickers, mock cigarette boxes) are really good idea. it seems like you will be able to target people in a variety of places and potentially do it in a guerilla marketing sort of way? at least with the stickers i could see them being placed on smoker poles or on lighters & cigarette boxes (though, i guess that might be illegal...)

sorry if i'm saying things you've already talked about in class...it's kind of hard to comment since i haven't been in a critique of this project. it looks really great so far!

Benjamin Wald said...

These are really starting to look pretty solid. I am partial to the top poster myself; the bottom one is feeling segregated as far as composition.

First, the top one: I am intrigued with how you manipulated the cigarette smoke to create these subtle messages and cues in the line illustration. It is sensitive to the fact that smoking is very common to a younger crowd, especially college students. The concerns I have is some of the areas of the woman's body, especially the way her arms are drawn, the proportions get a little contorted in her forearms, watch out for that.

Also, within the interaction of the negative space (her clothing) and her arm, there is some confusion as to what the shapes represent. Maybe it's just me not seeing it, but I'm having a difficult time reading it. I think you chose a nice color to work with; it appears very light and "airy" and at the same time eludes to being 'dirty.'

As far as the bottom one, I don't think it's as strong as it could be. Again, I do like the smoke illustration/with words included. For me, the blur included gives it a faint allusion to being a struggle between existence and trying to "fight" to clear out the smoke. Additionally, the cigarrette is feeling a little "clip-art," it might just be the color transition between posters, maybe it requires revisiting the color. Don't get me wrong, it's a good illustration...I think it is the object color versus the same background color that isn't doing it justice. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it, I think if you can add more sophistication to the second poster as you did the first you'll be good to go.

With your 3 end solutions, I think you've chosen good ideas. Just a thought on the faux-cigarette boxes. It might be cool to make more than one (maybe that was your intention already) but to leave them behind in various areas in and around the campus area as a guerrilla marketing technique to get your message out there.

Goodwork and Goodluck!!