Testing an interactive print advertisement

Testing an interactive print advertisement 

Having found a QR code on a poster which looked as if it would be interactive, I suggested that we scan it to see how the code functions.

After scanning the code and following the instructions, nothing appears to change anyway. 

Holding the phone infront of the poster is something which is very temperamental and not something which busy people in a rush would be interested in waiting for. 

Here is the website for the QR's app, the website looks very developed and like something you could trust, either the software is not very good or the student who attempted to use it and create the poster didn't manage to correctly master QR codes.

From this finding, QR codes aren't something I think would work to promote my website, as the printed product would have to engage the audience into wanting to visit my site and after waiting or the QR code failing the audience would no longer be interested in my site and it would have disappointed them.

Experimenting on software creating my printed materials:

Experimenting on software creating my printed materials

Considerations for print based materials

In order to produce an effective advertisement you must consider carefully factors such as:

• audience
• communication
• distribution
• content
• materials
• quantity
• time-frame
• printing method and cost

Audience

Initially the distribution of my printed materials was not considered with the audience which made me think it would be wise to distribute my material all over the city/nation, but this has now lead me onto realising that this method is not cost effective and is not reaching the audience who I feel would visit my website and view my content.

I have carefully considered my audience now and feel rather than a specific age range, that the audience of people who would visit my website are people of whom would enter history museums and also book stores, for this reason I am deciding to create my materials in accordance with this realisation. 

Communication 

The message that I wish to communicate through my material is a massive thing. Involving the aim of the design, the audience and the reason why they should interact with my product

What your creation is intending to communicate plays a massive roll on the content of the design.

Ideas about Augmenting my printing campaign:

I have had the idea to overlay paper with my black and white design printed onto it with the coloured version of the design placed behind in a hope that when placed infront of natural light the coloured version will illuminate the unsaturated and when left flat on a surface the unsaturated version would remain dull and black and white.

This is going to require a lot of practise and experimentation to achieve the effect I am aiming for so in theory I should begin this immediately.

When was augmented reality invented?

http://www.vrs.org.uk/augmented-reality/invention.html

When was augmented reality invented?

The history of augmented reality can be traced back to 1990 and work undertaken by Professor Tom Caudell as part of a neural systems project at Boeing. This project was focused upon finding new ways to help the company’s engineering process and involved the use of virtual reality.

 Caudell developed software which displayed the position of important cabling during construction which removed the need for complex user manuals.

This was the first example of augmented reality.

Caudell opened up the gates for further augmented reality work which occurred in 1992. This included work undertaken by L.B. Rosenberg on a user directed system for the US air force. And an augmented reality manual for using a printer which enabled people to load paper into the printer and perform other tasks without having to use a manual. This was produced by Blair MacIntyre, Stephen Feiner and Doree Seligmann.

Augmented reality remained firmly in the research and scientific worlds until the end of the 1990’s when Hirokazu Kato released an AR toolkit which contains a tracking system, camera calibration code and source code. This is designed to be used with a headset and different operating systems, e.g. Linux, Mac, and Windows etc. It enables 3D images to be displayed onto the real world.

Augmented reality is used in gaming but this is too big an article to discuss here. More information can be found in our augmented reality games article.

What is augmented reality marketing?

http://www.vrs.org.uk/augmented-reality/invention.html

What is augmented reality marketing?

Marketing is the means by which companies employ a range of strategies to help them sell their products to the right customer. They start by identifying who their target customer base is and then follow this by a concerted campaign in which they aim to fulfil their customers’ needs and build long term loyalty. 

Augmented reality is one of the newer forms of strategies adopted by companies who use it to combine elements of print and online advertising. They view it as an ideal way of delivering persuasive messages to a technological minded audience. 

The use of augmented reality in advertising is discussed in greater detail in our augmented reality advertising article.

 Advantages of augmented reality marketing

 It is still early days regarding the benefits of using this technology as a marketing tool but here are a few potential contenders: 

• Personalisation: the customer can upload their own content to create a personalised form of media which is marketed at them only. 
• Novelty: augmented reality is considered to be the ‘latest thing’ on the technology front so there is still that drive to be an early adopter. 
• Socialisation: there is the opportunity for customers to share their personalised content with others, i.e. viral augmented reality marketing. 
• Accessible: it enables customers who do not have the technical skills or know-how to create their own multimedia product. 

There is also ‘customer experience’ to consider: augmented reality can inject a playful, fun element into in an everyday product. It adds a sense of excitement to the process which appeals to a greater number of customers. This is the aim of marketing.

Powerful campaign printed posters found in London Center scrutinising Police

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/police-spoof-posters-charlotte-england-acab-1312?utm_source=vicefbuk

Projected Website scamps

Visiting Professional GF Smith

Visiting Professional G.F Smith

'1885 onwards'

Matthew Sharf

'Amazing beautiful paper stocks'

Been with G.F Smith 6 years

60% paper from UK, Lake District, US, Germany, Japan etc

Collection

Colour plan

Coated

uncoated

textures

Burberry have their own colour swatch type of paper

Duplexing, Quadplex, Triplex (paper ontop of paper)

Packaging industry

Box making machine


Domonic lipper, pentagram London

VSA partners

Bruno Maag, Active Grotesque - opposite font to helvetica

Made thought designs their promo material

Colour plan, 50 colours, variety of stocks

Yohannas Itten

Touch and feel vs print ability 

Augmented Design direction:

Having already considering making a psychical paper version of my 'History in RGB' website and naming it 'History in CMYK' I am now considering this more than ever due to the arrival of this new project. 

I have chosen to research into other powerful book advertising campaigns and how stores like Waterstones and WHsmiths promote new book releases, I also think this will benefit my project as lots of historical books and ones with similar topics can be found in the for mentioned stores and I think that the cliental who would shop in these book stores would find my website and project appealing. 

Research into print based advertising

Print ads can still be the most powerful medium for getting your message across, as these highly innovative print advertising campaigns show.

This ingenious pad campaign by Ogilvy & Mather for travel brand Expedia uses airport IATA codes to great effect. The idea came about after the team noticed a woman walking through Heathrow with the word FUK hanging off her suitcase. 

With over 9,000 airports around the world, each with its own three-letter code to choose from, the team created a series of prints, using a tagline in the form of passport stamp, which says 'Find whatever floats your boat'.

To advertise the fact that you can get more than 620 miles out of single tank of fuel with Volkswagen's Amarok, ad agency Below developed a series of print ads, inviting people to 'turn on adventure'. The clever concept features three images with the groves of the car keys transformed into a city, safari and mountain landscape.

This beautiful print ad was developed by JWT, Buenos Aires for Argentinian magazine Alzas Bajas. The team created four paper art images, including this gorgeous wildlife scene. Each are accompanied a small amount of explanatory text followed by the tagline 'more information, less risk'.

A species in rapid decline, the African penguin needs help. South African advertising agency Bittersuite and SANCOOB, a non-profit organisation that aims to protect threatened seabirds, recently developed this innovative series of print ads to raise awareness of the penguin's critical situation. 

Inspired by the artwork of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, two of the designs feature clever optical illusions to draw the viewer in for a closer look and get their message across. The third draws inspiration from optometrists' eye charts, featuring a timeline of different sized penguins to show the decline in the species.

To promote design tablet king Wacom's popular Bamboo products, art director and illustrator Maria Molina developed this set of prints under the tagline 'Creativity has no boundaries'. The series includes three illustrations, each featuring various designer tools with a twist. Bright colours, minimal text and simple graphics work perfectly together in this campaign.

This hard-hitting print ad campaiging against gun violence comes from advertising and marketing agency Grey New York. The campaign, which features three human targets, including a small baby, calls for an update to the USA's antiquated gun laws. The ad, commissioned by non-profit organisation States United to Prevent Gun Violence, features the tagline 'Bullets leave bigger holes than you think'.

After our recent Lego art feature, we couldn't help but include a print advertising gem for our favourite toy. Our infatuation with Lego starts at a very young age and it's our imaginations that really bring it to life. This campaign brings out the child in us all; showcasing what we actually see when we play with those coloured blocks.

 There is no text included within this ad, a decision which we at Creative Bloq would completely agree with. There are no words needed to portray the love of the product. This is a case where simple imagery speaks to itself and we think it speaks volumes.

"My whole life I've been a procrastinator, always putting off what I want to do and who I want to be until tomorrow. The Mañana Kid was even my nickname growing up. Last couple of days though, I've felt a small spark to make myself happier, to make the right decisions today. No more "Last Meals," no more "I can't," no more "Maybe." I'm not saying that all of a sudden I'm going to be perfect, just that today, in some way, I'm going to be better. Yesterday you said tomorrow - tomorrow is today."

This is a piece of print based advertisement which really jumps out to me, the simplistic aesthetic of the enhances the emotive connection with the audience and manages to shock the viewer so the information actually sinks in.

Yesterday you said tomorrow is such a simple collection of lexical items, and the definitive 'Nike - Just do it.' in the bottom of the design add masses of impact.

Final website creation uploaded as a GIF

http://www.grandpas-photos.com/

Here is the site which gave my website creation most of my motivation, I feel these GIFS side by side show it's influence upon my own website and explain my design choices when choosing a one page scrolling website.

FINAL GIF

http://gifmaker.cc/PlayGIFAnimation.php?folder=2014120502JIQuTs9rU9XBEzvgaAiVcl&file=output_rF2FLy.gif

Here is the final version of my website, obviously the site could be larger which would require me finding more images and more descriptions which would take a while but at this stage this site consists of 5 different high resolution photos which each have a very specific description.

The site works perfectly as a PDF and being a single page scrolling site I am unsure if buttons or links are necessary so at this stage the site would not contain any links. I am unsure if this justifies my creation as a website or not, but other sites such as 'Grandpa's photos' don't necessarily require links or buttons but do use them.

Website progression

I am very happy with how my website is coming along. Here are a few screen shots of the stage in which I am at. 

I am very happy with my print after it has been edited and placed over my title image.

I am now considering buttons on my home page and if they are event relevant/where they would take the visitors of the website.

Constantly debating whether the text is over whelming the images which is something I want to avoid, I'm going to have to find a 'happy medium' to solve this.

Type variations 

I had downloaded a typeface called Playfair display unknowing that this typeface was full caps, I had received some criticism that this was illegible and hard to read against the white background.

The fact that the primary reason for my website was to inform people about these historial photographs with my input on how the colouration had changed the images, the typeface is very cruical to convey my information.

I am certain I wish to use a serif typeface as I feel that is the most relevant choice and serif typefaces scream out to me - History, the entire theme behind this site.

For this reason I am now experimenting with web safe serif fonts, Times new roman Bold quite appeals to me. The bold aspect makes the white text legible over the white, monochrome images, something which is vital also. 

Completed final prints and their uses

Here are the selection of prints I created after the visit by Gridula.

I decided to use a variety of stocks in an attempt to achieve different effects. All part of the trail and error process, but I quite like having those 'non perfect' examples to hand', everything can be resurrected in photoshop anyway in my opinion.

I created these prints as a title for my website, 'History re coloured in RGB' but then I intend to create print based material around these photographs so then the title of the project would be 'history recoloured in CMYK' due to the colours being printed, I planned ahead and created both types of print.

This is by far my preferred print and also photograph, the detail in this character's face has really been brought out by the close up macros lense.

I am more than happy with the print and very pleased that I chose to print something which directly benefits my project rather than just a quote for my wall.

I attempted to create a gradient style effect by showing that colour was coming back into my sentence by overlaying the black with red ink, unfortunately the black ink completely over took this colour and the effect wasn't quite achieved. 

This is a thin brown paper stock which I attempted to print on to gain the historial effect, the print man claimed it was risky to print on due to the weight of the stock but despite that it came out quite interestingly and was nice to use a stock which wasn't boring traditional white. 

I scanned in my prints as high quality Tifs so they could be used on editing software and their quality would not be lost. I already had plans of what I wanted to do with these scans so once they were saved I began working on these pieces using photoshop.

Here are the full collection of sprints which I have created and used a high resolution scanner to put these into the digital domain.

The final product resulted in the print being inverted (the black became white) and then using the screen layer mask the layer was placed over my older title. Definitely by using a hand rendered pieces it achieves much more of a personal feel in adverse to just simply using part of the adobe font folio.

Previous computer generated title

This was my previous title using the font Playbook script which I had downloaded online.

The serif on this font has impact, don't get me wrong, but the newer title being hand created has much more of an authentic feel, so for this reason I am very pleased that I had created this print.

Newer title, hand rendered and edited using software

Print work shop gridula

During a visit by Gridula, a traditional print company based in leeds who are running 'The print project', I decided to get a camera out from photography, after I got to grips with using the camera, the focus and the macro settings, i began taking photos of all of the printing equipment and the print processes that one must go through to create type and sentences using letter blocks.

Exploiting the natural light of the studio, I managed to grab some very exciting shots of the printing equipment. The way that the metal letter blocks reflected the light was stunning.

The fact that these letter blocks came as a massive collection meant they were really exciting to photograph. The traditional wood cases had great detail of grain and a lovely archaic feel to them.

I was very proud with the shots I managed to get, in total taking over 300 snaps of this process.

The old and bulky print presses/rollers were lovely to photograph and the camera captured their industrial feel and all of the detail and craftsmanship which had gone into creating these beautiful pieces.

The sentences which people had spelt out using different typefaces came out really well under the glint of the natural light.

The various uses of metals in this process and the different pieces of equipment each had a lovely texture.

The vibrancy of the coloured inks came out well in these photographs and at this stage it was very exciting to see how the final prints were going to look.

The way that the red ink only coated the letters on the letter blocks was something magical, knowing this was going to be a great print, the paper was laid onto the rollers and the poster creating began.

Over all I had a great day learning about the tradition typesetting processes and think it is something crucial a modern day designer should learn so that he can get to grips with the no longer used DNA of design. I don't feel print is 'dead' in this sense, but I can understand why it has been brushed aside for quicker and more diverse methods of design, but traditional methods like this will always have their hands on, charm aspect.