Process Book:Birkenstock Ad

Blake Emerson

Process Book InformationContained within this book are the organized steps taken during the process of designing and finalizing a Graphic Design single page advertisement for a magazine. The ad was part of a classroom assignment exploring the design process of catering to a specific target audience. The project involved using pre-existing adverisements and redesigning them for different audiences.

Table of Contents01

02030405080910

Assignment Information + Initial Ideas

The Original Advertisement

Demographic Information + Notes

Thumbnails + Notes

Early Drafts + Critiques

Later Drafts + Variations

Final Advertisment

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Assignment Information+ Initial Ideas

art 3443 - advertising design - spring 2013project 2 - target the audience

Graphic designers and art directors must understand how advertising sits firmly in the world of strategic communication. A message must have focus so that it delivers information and builds loyalty. In other words, YES, it is about money.

A few rules to remember:• If you try to say everything, you’ll say nothing.• If you try to talk to everyone, you’ll talk to no one.

Remember that the visual vocabulary is not just a picture. It’s colors, typography, controlling the read, and much more. And in order to talk visually and verbally with focus, a creative team must understand the TARGET AUDIENCE (aka target market, target demographic). “The focus of marketing effort is people. The goal is to reach a subset of the population who may be interested in your particular product. That group of people is your target market...The term target market is used because that market is the target at which you aim all your marketing efforts. The market you are trying to reach are people with common characteristics that set them apart as a group. The more you know about a target market, the more precisely you can develop your marketing strategy.”

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Publication - Family Circle- Gender: 91% Female- Age: Average 52 years- Income: Average $55,989- Lifestyle preference: Contemporary women with many roles of wife, mother, homemaker, and career person- Geographi Segment: Rural United States

Advertisement - Birkenstock- Gender: Younger to middle aged women- Lifestyle preference: Contemporary women with preferences towards

comfort and leisure as well as fashion.- Benefit Segment: Fashionable and comfortable wear. “Naturally Good”.- Frequency of Usage: As often as you’re willing to wear them. Could be daily.- Closest product/service/brand competitors: Toms and other easily

accessible comfort shoe or sandal product make good competitors against Birkenstock footwear.

Demographic Information+ Notes

04Target audience changed to Men and is to be designed for a gun magazine publication.

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Early Draft+ Critique

I would definitely change the font, maybe to something even as simple as a clean serif. I’ve got some cool pictures of Pinnacle Mtn. that you could use for the background. I love the simplicity of this though and the concept. Looking forward to seeing the final product.

The font choice is slightly bothersome to me. There seems to be a disconnect between it and the shoes-I realize this is simply the beginning stages though. I’d try something more rustic looking perhaps. Also, the stark contrast of the black background and white text is fighting the shoes for visual heiarchy, I’d work with colors a little bit more.

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Eventually I moved out of early draft phase and began to add color and thought to typographic decisions. I was going for a leathery earthy look that I felt was good balance between the already established feel of the Birkenstock brand as well as a manly gun owner outdoorsy vibe. The added texture helped a lot. With the help of critiques and thoughts from friends and family, I pushed back to the hand-written feel of the original ad. This new version of the ad pushed to grab the attention of gun owners affinity for holding on to their freedom and rights to do what they feel they are entitled to do. The information style illustration is meant to appear like a spec sheet for the details of a firearm.

The final ad pushed the colors even further to feel more warm and welcoming to the viewer. The color variation compared to the product itself helps it pop off the page more. The moving back to white text for the tagline adds heirarchy to the logo without taking too much away from the tagline as well. The finished ad is now much more bold.